Let the great boundary rejig commence

[doktorb]

I am trying to fathom out what to do with Lancashire and Gtr Manchester, although if the average electorate will be below 80,000, I will have to undo some of my more radical suggestions

(I think my proposal of "Fleetwood, Bispham and Thornton Cleveleys" will have to be redone =)  )

[YL]

Nicholas Whyte discusses the review in Northern Ireland at http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1471864.html

[afleitch]

I'm having a look at Scotland

I've been playing around with the south which for one doesn't look too bad. The electorates don't create huge monstrosities.



So essentially;

East Lothian
Midlothian and Peebleshire
Berwick, Selkirk and Roxburgh
Dumfries and South Nithsdale
Galloway and South Ayrshire
Central Ayrshire
Kilmarnock

I'll revisit it all when I've finished.

[doktorb]

I am working on Lancashire and Gtr Manchester. Now that I know 80,000 is the very maximum of a seat, I will have to revisit some of my creations to cut them down a bit.

Does any one have a blank Lancashire, and blank Gtr Manchester, ward map? It would come in very handy!

Cheers...

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

I am working on Lancashire and Gtr Manchester. Now that I know 80,000 is the very maximum of a seat, I will have to revisit some of my creations to cut them down a bit.

Does any one have a blank Lancashire, and blank Gtr Manchester, ward map? It would come in very handy!

Cheers...

I can throw Cheshire in as well: http://www.andrewteale.me.uk/fantasy/ches_lancs_wards.png.  It is a very, very large outline map tho'.

I'm going to have a go at this as well at some point, but not before the end of next week.

BTW doktorb, good to see you posting again.

[doktorb]

Cheers for that.

I am a bit stuck in the Fleetwood area. I want to stop Fylde being linked with Preston, so it's caused a logjam around the awkward bit of Lancashire where Blackpool/Thorton Cleveleys/Poulton-le-Fylde/Carleton all meet.

I'll post my map of progress so far at some point. I've got an idea....but it does mean quite an interesting combination of towns.....=S

[Harry Hayfield]

Welsh Allocation Averages
Clwyd 331,525 / 75,716 = 4.37 = 4 seats
Dyfed 279,972 / 75,716 = 3.69 = 4 seats
Gwent 348,532 / 75,716 = 4.60 = 5 seats
Gwynedd 180,376 / 75,716 = 2.38 = 2 seats
Mid Glamorgan 393,121 / 75,716 = 5.19 = 5 seats
Powys 102,601 / 75,716 = 1.36 = 1 seat
South Glamorgan 332,608 / 75,716 = 4.40 = 4 seats
West Glamorgan 293,034 / 75,716 = 3.87 = 4 seats
Total 29 seats

[doktorb]

Right, close to giving up with this =<

All was working well until I got - AGAIN - to Blackpool and Fleetwood. REALLY p1ssed off here, just can't move on from this same old log jam....

I've got a new Lancaster and Morecambe at 78,808; then a Wyre and Lunesdale at 77,898. But this leaves Fleetwood and the whole of Blackpool, into which both will not go - I've got a core urban Blackpool seat at 74,283....and a Fleetwood plus Bits at, erm, 59,926.

STUCK

[minionofmidas]

I'll try my hands at London.

[minionofmidas]

This'll force an hilarious amount of cross-borough seats.

Just looking at 2010 electorates by borough, not having looked at ward maps so far...
Redbridge and Havering can be combined for 5 seats.
Waltham Forest can theoretically stand alone for two seats, far at the upper edge though. Barking and Newham are slightly too small for four seats together and will probably use some ward from Waltham (ie the three are combined for 6 seats).
Tower Hamlets and Haringey can both continue to stand alone for 2 seats each (Tottenham will have to take in parts of Hornsey, though.)
Hackney is barely too small to stand alone, so we might see Hackney South & City of London. (The City's population is mostly on the eastern end anyhow.)
Islington, Camden and Westminster can be combined for 5 somewhat oversized seats. (Add Kensington and it's too large for six.)
Enfield, Barnet and Brent can be combined for 8 undersized seats (technically three undersized seats fit into Barnet, but you'd definitely have to split wards and anyways Enfield needs to go somewhere) but Harrow is too large for two and adding it produces 10 seats much nearer the quota.
Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham, Ealing, Hounslow and Hillingdon have to all be combined for another 10 seats. (This means recreating enlarged versions of the 97-05 Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham and Acton & Shepherd's Bush seats, with the latter now including part of North Kensington.)
Richmond and Kingston are still the size for three oversized seats, Croydon is slightly too large for three, Wandsworth and Lambeth are together just barely not too large for five seats, although that would probably require ward splitting, and Sutton and Merton are both too small for two seats (and far too large to be combined with each other),  - so I'll try to combine Merton with Wandsworth/Lambeth for 7 and Sutton with Croydon for 5, leaving Richmond/Kingston as is. (I think that means I can save the Twickenham seat... and any change to that would be quite uncomfortable.)
Bromley is perfect for three seats and Greenwich for two... but that leaves the areas to the east and west in an impossible position, so one of them will have to be sacrificed:
Either Bromley 3, Bexley/Greenwich/Lewisham/Southwark 9
Or Greenwich 2, Bexley/Bromley/Lewisham/Southwark 10
Either way the big combination is somewhat undersized.

[minionofmidas]

Obviously hitting a 7500 corridor with building bricks of an average population of 10,000 is utterly, non-negotiably impossible. At least if there are any other considerations (sense, shape, higher-up political boundaries). And if your average isn't in the middle of the range, but say 2000 from the bottom boundary, as in the case of my Redbridge/Havering pairing...


The only area where I've managed to hit close to the target is Ilford South which is an oversized (but very sensibly drawn) constituency that could drop one ward and be close to target. Indeed, drop Newbury, the largest ward in Redbridge, and you're at 73,924 which is one below the Redbridge/Havering average. It's not the geographically most sensible ward to remove though, that'd be Cranbrook which works out at 75,661 residents. (Actually, it probably makes most sense to lop off the Little Heath neighborhood, which is however parts of the two wards of Chadwell and Seven Kings. Or alternatively, all of Cranbrook and part of Valentines - the part with the nw/se street grid.)
Beyond that, though... ugh. Sure, I can get a Wanstead, Woodford & Ilford West seat and a Hornchurch seat at the upper ends of the legal corridor... but the remainder is much too small for two seats then.

Yeah. Without access to polling station populations this is just not fun to do. Broadly speaking though there would be a tightish drawn Romford seat and a fairly sizable seat spanning from northeastern Ilford across the less populated northern parts of Havering. What's the point of working out which wards to use exactly when you have to guess every third step of the way?

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Right, close to giving up with this =<

All was working well until I got - AGAIN - to Blackpool and Fleetwood. REALLY p1ssed off here, just can't move on from this same old log jam....

I've got a new Lancaster and Morecambe at 78,808; then a Wyre and Lunesdale at 77,898. But this leaves Fleetwood and the whole of Blackpool, into which both will not go - I've got a core urban Blackpool seat at 74,283....and a Fleetwood plus Bits at, erm, 59,926.

STUCK

Had a go at Lancashire this morning and I think it's actually the easiest bit of the North West to do.  Throw in Sefton as well (as you have to to avoid splitting Formby) and you have 17.32 quotas.

As far as I can see Fleetwood and Blackpool do go into two if you're prepared to keep the current boundary between the Blackpool North and Wyre seats.  Move Fleetwood back into Blackpool North and move a couple of wards from Blackpool North into Blackpool South to even up the electorates.

So far I've ended up with:
Accrington and Blackburn North 77,911 (this is the 'bits and pieces' seat as Padiham is in there too)
Blackburn and Darwen 76,800
Blackpool North and Fleetwood 78,166
Blackpool South 74,144
Bootle 71,995 (unchanged, but I'll probably throw half a Liverpool ward in there at some point)
Burnley and Nelson 76,611
Chorley and Bamber Bridge 78,501 (also has a rural ward from Blackburn)
Colne and Clitheroe 78,171
Fylde 78,706 (expands north of Preston)
Lancaster and Morecambe 78,808
Preston 77,401 (all the urban wards except Ingol)
Rossendale and Oswaldtwistle 76,104
Sefton Central 77,202 (now includes the countryside west of Ormskirk)
South Ribble 79,239 (Penwortham, Leyland and Euxton)
Southport 78,531 (goes east to the River Douglas)
West Lancashire 77,504 (expands northeast as far as Coppull).
Wyre and Lunesdale 75,930

The rest of the NW will be more difficult.  Cumbria comes to 5.16 seats so it can have five seats of its own. The Wirral comes to 3.18 seats so it'll have to be moved in with Cheshire, but that leaves 25.57 seats for Greater Manchester, 13.52 seats for Cheshire + Wirral and 7.48 seats for Liverpool, Knowsley and St Helens (which is impossible with a 5% tolerance).  You'll have to combine those areas somehow, and the larger ward sizes in Cheshire and the mets will make it difficult to do. 

[doktorb]

Yeah I am going to use your maps and description as a guide   I'm actually going to stick to my plan of only combining Lancashire with Gtr Manchester, which may end up being part of the cause of my problems! I'm going to undo the four seats I have tried to create in the Blackpool area and try again - start with a decent sized "Blackpool South" and work from there.

[Harry Hayfield]

and don't forget, if you would like your notionals worked out, simply PM me with the similarity to each old seat (for instance: Blackpool South (95% Blackpool South, 4% Wyre, 1% Blackpool North) and I will post the new notional makeup of your area.

[doktorb]

Cheers Harry, I'll have to actually finish them first, but yeah that'd be fantastic.

[minionofmidas]

Yeah. Without access to polling station populations this is just not fun to do. Broadly speaking though there would be a tightish drawn Romford seat and a fairly sizable seat spanning from northeastern Ilford across the less populated northern parts of Havering. What's the point of working out which wards to use exactly when you have to guess every third step of the way?

I can still try though!

Having played around a bit, a semireasonable map with only two split wards is possible.

Hornchurch & Upminster 69,616+x
South Hornchuch, Elm Park, Rainham & Wenningham, Upminster, Cranham, Hacton, Saint Andrews and part of Hylands (10,049) wards
Romford & Harold Hill 69,825+x
Gooshays, Heaton, Harold Wood, Squirrel's Heath, Emerson Park, Romford Town, Brocklands and remainder of Hylands ward, all in Havering
Ilford South 75,661
Current constituency except Cranbrook ward
Wanstead, Woodford & Ilford West 68,916+x
Cransbrook, Wanstead, Snaresbrook, Church End, Monkhams, Bridge, Roding, Clayhall and a part of either Barkingside (9162) or Fullwell (9202) wards finely calculated to have between 3000 and 3500 inhabitants, all in Redbridge
Ilford East & Havering Park (absolutely no idea what this area should be called, actually, and just making something up here) 75,556-x
Havering Park, Mawneys and Pettits wards, in Havering; Hainault, Fairlop, Aldborough, Barkingside and Fullwell wards except portion in Wanstead etc., in Redbridge


If Barking&Dag, Newham and Waltham Forest are to be paired, the general mapshape is sort of self-evident...

Dagenham 73,513
Areas currently in Dagenham & Rainham; Alibon, Parsloes, Valence (which were in Dagenham til 2010) and Becontree wards

Barking & Canning Town 70,181+x
Remaining Barking & Dagenham wards, Beckton, Royal Docks, Custom House, Canning Town South and part of Canning Town North (8088) wards, Newham, so a riverhugging constituency as it were.

East Ham 73,359
As currently minus Beckton and Royal Docks wards

West Ham 67,687+x
Current constituency, minus Custom House, Canning Town South and part of Canning Town North; plus Cann Hall ward in Waltham Forest

Leyton & Walthamstow South 70,751+x
Southern half of Waltham Forest (except Cann Hall) as far as Wood Street, Hoe Street and part of High Street (7967) wards

Chingford & Walthamstow North 71,566+x
Remainder of Waltham Forest

[minionofmidas]

Poplar & Limehouse 70,880+x
the current constituency is just outside the corridor, so will have to include some streets off Saint Dunstan's & Stepney Green (10,136) ward
Bethnal Green & Bow 66,136+x
I did actually check whether Bethnal Green & Stepney vs Bow & Poplar works out, but Bow & Poplar is still barely outside the corridor and it's far less obvious where to go next.

Tottenham 68,338+x
Current constituency plus part of Noel Park (7498)
Hornsey & Wood Green 71,007+x
Current constituency minus part of Noel Park
That's the minimum change configuration o/c. I did actually check whether I could avoid the ward split if I exchanged a ward or two, but doesn't seem like it.

Hackney North & Stoke Newington 72,335
no change

Hackney South & City of London 77,192
Just has the city lopped on. What lucky coincidence - S is barely too small as it stands right now. Still looking a bit ridic, of course.

There are several ways of drawing five seats in Westminster, Camden and Islington. I eventually came up with this arrangement, putting Frank Dobson's seat on the chopping block (eh, that was always the most likely as it's the central one of the six):
Islington North 75,677+x
Current constituency plus Holloway ward and, if that's not too much already, the part of Saint Mary's ward (8051) north of the railway line
Islington South & Saint Pancras 73,410+x
Remainder of Islington; Saint Pancras & Somers Town, Cantelowes, Kentish Town wards of Camden
Hampstead & Highgate 73,938+x
Northwesterly parts of Camden borough, including the Primrose Hill part of Camden Town with Primrose Hill (8062) ward
Holborn & Regent's Park 72,348+x
Holborn & Covent Garden, King's Cross, Bloomsbury, Regent's Park and Camden Town part of that ward, Camden; and Abbey Road, Regent's Park, Church Street, Maida Vale, Little Venice, Marylebone High Street, Bryanston & Dorset Square wards of Westminster (so all of the historical Marylebone borough, plus the northeastern part of Paddington)
Westminster & Paddington 79,277
Remainder. And yes, of course it's possible to move the Queen's Park etc areas to Holborn etc instead of Marylebone proper. Which of course would have major effects on the political colors of both seats I suppose... This one probably saves us a split ward.

[minionofmidas]

Blech.
Enfield North 76,620
Current constituency plus Cockfosters ward
Edmonton 73,008
Current constituency plus Grange ward
Southgate & East Barnet 76,327
Remainder of Enfield borough; Brunswick Park, East Barnet, Coppetts wards of Barnet borough
Barnet & Edgware 75,304
Remainder of Chipping Barnet constituency; Edgware, Mill Hill, Hale wards
Finchley & Hendon 79,232
Woodhouse, Finchley East, West, Church End, Hendon, West Hendon, Colindale and Burnt Oak wards
Brent East & Golders Green 71,216+x
Golders Green, Childs Hill, Garden Suburb wards, Barnet; Dollis Hill, Mapesbury, Brondesbury Park, Kilburn, Queens Park and part of Dudden Hill (7895) wards, Brent. Sadly the part of Dudden Hill can't be large enough to make geographic sense.
Brent South 67,755+x
Willesden Green, Kensal Green, Harlesden, Stone Bridge, Tokyngton, Alperton, Wembley Central, Sudbury wards and remainder of Dudden Hill
Brent North & Kenton 70,680+x
remainder of Brent (of which the Welsh Harp ward is currently in Brent Central); Kenton East and part of Kenton West (8323) wards, Harrow
Harrow East 70,822+x
Current constituency except Kenton E and part of Kenton W; plus Marlborough and Greenhill wards
Harrow West 76,423
Remainder, which is identical to 1997-2010 Harrow West constituency.

This drove me a little mad, and I seriously contemplated adding Haringey to the mix, which would have allowed a Southgate & Wood Green and a Hornsey & Finchley seat with the current Chipping Barnet and Hendon unchanged - their populations are fine as is. Then again those are hardly reasonably drawn constituencies as is (not really saying my Hendon-Finchley thing is better, mind... although I suppose Labour would have hung on to it in 2010. Might be completely wrong, of course... would have to look at Al's ward maps of London...) The lopping off of Golders Green from Finchley allowed me to not have to split the Hendon part of Hendon, and to not create a tri-borough seat.

[minionofmidas]

While in the next major area, one triborough seat was planned from the outset and another proved less inelegant than the alternatives.

Kensington & Chelsea 76,496
Excludes Saint Charles, Golborne wards
Hammersmith & Fulham 74,544
Excludes College Park & Old Oak, Wormholt & White City, Shepherd's Bush Green, Askew, Ravenscourt Park wards (and thus actually smaller than the 97-10 constituency of the same name)
Ealing Acton & Shepherd's Bush 70,972+x
Remainder of the two boroughs; Acton Central, South Acton, Southfield and (major) part of East Acton (9069) wards, Ealing
Ealing Central 70,111+x
Ealing Common, Ealing Broadway, Hanger Hill, Walpole, Northfield, Elthorne, Cleveland, Hobbayne and at least about 2000 strong part of East Acton ward. (Basically as little as possible, for obvious geographic reasons)
Ealing North 73,539
Perivale, Greenford etc, Northolt etc, Lady Margaret, Dormers Wells wards
Brentford & Isleworth 73,808
current constituency except Hounslow Heath
Feltham & Heston (South) 73,077+x
Hounslow Heath, current Feltham & Heston constituency except Heston West and part of Heston East (8217) wards
Southall & Hayes (and Heston North) 71,039+x
Norwood Green, Southall Green, Southall Broadway wards, Ealing; Heston West, part of Heston East wards, Hounslow; Yeading, Barnhill, Charville, Townfield and part of Botwell (9288) wards, Hillingdon
Uxbridge & Harlington 71,564+x
Current Uxbridge & South Ruislip minus Cavendish, Manor, South Ruislip; plus West Drayton, Heathrow Villages, Pinkwell, part of Botwell (ie remainder of borough south of Western Avenue)
Ruislip-Northwood 72,924
Remainder (similar to the 97-10 constituency of same name, but larger by Ickenham)

It's not possible to intelligently remove an area of the needed size from Hounslow. There aren't any (that don't split it in two).

Twickenham 78,667
no change
Richmond Park 75,495+x
Kingston & Surbiton 80,229-x
Kingston is too large and has to shed part of a ward, probably Beverley (6466) into Richmond Park.

[minionofmidas]

No comments so far?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well, to answer one point, Hendon is currently Edgware, Hale, Mill Hill, Hendon, West Hendon, Burn Oak and Colindale. Going off the borough elections, that's four Tory wards to three Labour ones. Your Finchley & Hendon has just two Tory wards. It's pretty ugly, but not worse than the current split (Barnet seems to be tricky to split in a pretty way) and has a certain logic to it.

[minionofmidas]

After trying around for other configurations in Lambeth and Merton, I was struck by the Wandsworth map, which really makes it quite clear what the least hassle approach is:

Battersea 71,941
unchanged
Tooting 71,993
unchanged. Not only are they the right population already, but Wandsworth wards are huge and expanding undersized Putney eastward makes little geographical sense.
Putney & Wimbledon 75,280
current Putney constituency; Village, Wimbledon Park wards (that's really just part of the Wimbledon part of Wimbledon, I think.)
Merton & Morden 78,392
always nice to have a constituency name retread. Remainder of current Wimbledon constituency (which really "ought" to be called Merton & Wimbledon, anyways) plus Lower Morden, Saint Helier, Ravensbury, Cricket Green
Streatham & Mitcham 73,835
Colliers Wood, Lavender Fields, Figge's Marsh, Graveney, Longmorton, Pollards Hill wards, Merton; St Leonard's, Streatham South, Streatham Wells, Knight's Hill wards, Lambeth (Lambeth wards are larger than Merton wards, and 47% of the constituency is in Lambeth
Vauxhall 71,781+x
Current constituency plus northern half of Coldharbour (10,207) ward
Brixton & West Norwood  72,780+x
Remainder

[minionofmidas]

This one rewards lazyness:
Sutton & Cheam 73,677
Current constituency plus St Helier ward
Carshalton & Wallington (and perhaps some naming element to imply the new more easterly configuration) 69,560+x
Current constituency minus St Helier plus Broad Green and part of Waddon (10,688) in Croydon
Croydon North 72,768
Current constituency minus Broad Green ward
Croydon Central 75,646
Current constituency
Croydon South 70,092+x
Current constituency minus part of Waddon

[minionofmidas]

From a cursory glance I think using Bromley in the larger unit may make a fairly sensible map, and I've managed to create a reasonable (I think) split of Greenwich, so I'm tentatively going with it:
Greenwich & Eltham 79,036
Current Eltham constituency except Shooters Hill; Blackheath Westcombe, Greenwich West, Peninsula
Woolwich 74,194
remainder of borough

[minionofmidas]

Borough & Bermondsey (there, making Al happy) 77,087
Current constituency excluding Surrey Dock and Rotherhithe, plus Faraday and Camberwell Green
Peckham & Dulwich 69,670+x
Remainder of the borough, excepting also Livesey and some northerly parts of Nunhead (8414, both to solve a pop. balance in the next constituency and to make a less weirdly weaving boundary in the northeast corner)
Deptford & Rotherhithe 70,808+x
aforementioned remainders of Southwark borough; current Lewisham Deptford constituency except Crofton Park and Lewisham Central wards
Lewisham East 74,732
Current constituency plus Lewisham Central
Lewisham West & Penge 77,829
Current constituency plus Crofton Park. Yeah, noting that this would probably be possible was why I went with leaving Greenwich alone (and the 97-10 threedistrict Bromley wasn't exactly a fine example of the redistricter's art anyhow)
Bromley & Chislehurst 76,027
Current constituency plus Petts Wood & Knoll
Beckenham & Biggin Hill 73,918+x
Current constituency plus Biggin Hill and northwesterly part of Darwin (4007), just for territorial contiguency. (Strange ward, that. Huge but unpopulated. What's the deal with that area?)
Orpington & Sidcup 69,721+x
Remainder of borough; Longlands, Sidcup, Cray Meadows wards of Bexley
Bexley & Crayford 72,729
Remainder of Old Bexley & Sidcup constituency, southern tier of Bexleyheath & Crayford constituency
Erith 72,758
northern tier of Bexleyheath & Crayford, Bexley part of Erith & Thamesmead