UK Boundary Changes (never too early to start)

[Peter]

I thought I might get started on working out the partisan effects of the boundary changes for the next election:

Kent

Boundary Commission reports, maps, etc.

The Present Landscape

Of the 17 constituencies in Kent, 10 were taken by the Conservatives at the last election and 7 by Labour.

7 of the Conservative seats can be considered safe (i.e. majority>20%), with the safest being Maidstone and The Weald, held by the well known Ann Widdecombe. The remaining Tory seats are by and large quite solid, with the exception of Gravesham which was the sole Tory gain in the county at the last election.

None of the Labour seats qualify as safe, and the only seat with a halfway decent majority for them is Dover at just short of 5,000. Five of the remaining seats have majorities less than a thousand. Sittingbourne and Sheppey has the smallest majority at a mere 79 votes.

Boundary Changes

No boundary changes are proposed to either Gravesham or Tonbridge & Malling.

Tonbridge & Malling is a safe Tory seat. Gravesham is a margainal Tory seat.

Thanet South

Added to Thanet South:

Cliftonville East (from Thanet North)
Cliftonville West (from Thanet North)

Removed from Thanet South:

Most of Thanet Villages (to Thanet South)
Parts of Middle Deal and Sholden (to Dover)
Parts of North Deal (to Dover)

In 2003, Cliftonville East voted largely Conservative by an average margain of 1433 to 504 votes. Cliftonville West voted narrowly for Labour by an average margain of 549 to 489 votes.

Thanet Villages voted Conservative by an average margain of 611 to 388. Middle Deal and Sholden voted Labour by an average margain of 773 to 668 and 274 (LD) votes. North Deal voted narrowly Conservative by an average margain of 948 to 893 votes.

Given that the Deal deletions have a net effect of ~0 on the partisan nature of the constituency, and the Cliftonville additions have a net positive effect for the Conservatives with only moderate losses in the Thanet Villages ward, it is possible to extrapolate that the net effect of the boundary changes will favour the Conservatives. Since the present majority for the sitting Labour member is a mere 664 votes (1.6%), the seat should now be regarded as notionally Conservative.

Thanet North
The loss of the above Cliftonville wards is the only significant loss for this seat, and in compensation it picks the majority of the new Thanet Villages ward as well as the Marshside ward from Canterbury district.

Marshside returned a Labour councillor by a margain of 348 to 321 votes in 2003. Whilst there is a net gain for Labour in the seat, it is not enough to threaten the Conservative 7,500 majority significantly.

Canterbury
The only significant change in this seat is the loss of the Marshside ward, which will make the seat margainally stronger for the Conservatives, but not on any significant level.

Dover
The only changes here are realignments to account for change in local government wards. The changes have no net partisan effect on the constituency.

Folkestone and Hythe
This constituency will gain the Saxon Shore ward from the Ashford district at the next election. Whilst results for the Saxon Shore ward are not available, the Folkestone and Ashford constituencies are sufficiently safe for the Tories that its movement from one to the other will have neglible impact on the notional results.

Ashford
As Folkestone and Hythe.

Faversham and Mid Kent
The only significant gain here is the Boughton, Monchelsea and Chart Sutton ward in the Maidstone district. Interestingly the councillor is an Independent, so any guess at likely national voting pattern is probably going to be wrong. Regardless, it would not impact the 8,500+ Tory majority.

Sittingbourne and Sheppey
The only significant change of note is the addition of the whole of the Teynham and Lynstead Ward. Whilst I am unable to find past election results for the Ward, it is nonetheless represented by Conservative councillors.

Given that Labour had a bare majority of 79 (0.1%), the addition of even a lean-Tory ward would tip the balance. This seat should be regarded as notionally Conservative.

Rochester and Strood (formerly Medway)
The only changes here are minor boundary changes for re-alignment to the new wards. My reading of the realignment is that Horsted (a small part of Rochester) moves into this seat from Chatham & Aylesford, and possibly bits of the River Ward from Gillingham.

River is margainally Labour, but Rochester South and Horsted is significantly Tory (in spite of a UKIP candidate for the Council seat). The realignment may therefore tip Rochester and Strood as being marginally Tory thanks to another non-existant majority for Labour of 213 (0.5%).

Gillingham and Rainham (formerly Gillingham)
Again, the only changes are minor realignments, but a possible loss of Labour voters in the realignment of the River Ward potentially sees another small Labour majority of just 254 disappear. In sum, I don't think it does manage to create a notional Tory majority, but Labour is probably down to 100-150 votes majority now.

Chatham and Aylesford
Chatham and Aylesford only underwent minor realignments for ward boundary changes. The most significant of these is the loss of most of Rochester South and Horsted ward, which will remove a small tranche of Tories from the seat. Given a lowish Labour of majority of 2,300, this makes the seat slightly more defendable for them.

Dartford
Dartford is losing the Farningham, Horton Kirby & South Darenth Ward, and in return is gaining the remainder of the Hartley & Hodsoll Street Ward. Unfortuanely, as in Sittingbourne and Sheppey, I am unable to locate any local election results that might give us some concrete indications.

Both of the Farningham councillors are Liberal Democrats. The Hartley councillors are both Conservatives.

The Labour majority is around 700, so without actual results from those wards, I'm not going to issue a guess.

Tunbridge Wells
Tunbridge Wells gains the ward of Hawkhurst and Sandhurst, which is strongly conservative. Therefore, this seat retains a strong Tory majority.

Maidstone and The Weald
The loss of Hawkhurst & Sandhurst and Boughton, Monchelsea & Chart Sutton wards may remove some conservative voters from this seat, but its strongly conservative already and thus the notional majority will not be too hardly hit.

Net Result of Boundary changes
The strong Conservative seats are likely to remain so, though must absorb a slight reduction in Tory numbers in some cases, but these have generally benefitted the Tories in the marginals. The only Labour seats with 4 figure notional majorities will remain as Dover and Chatham & Aylesford, and as many as 4 of their marginals may be notionally Conservative at the next election leaving us with a possible division of 14-3 in seats.

[afleitch]

Fantastic idea! I have already made a nationwide map of the boundary changes if you need it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I thought I might get started on working out the partisan effects of the boundary changes for the next election:

Yay!
Been having similer thoughts myself; don't know much about voting patterns down South though.

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That result was odd bearing in mind the narrow Labour holds in the rest of North Kent. Only demographic difference I can find is a large Sikh population in Gravesend. Were there any local issues?

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In the best traditions of that seat for sure
Some majorities there in the '50's were smaller though

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Can you explain the reasons for the bizarre boundaries in the Isle of Thanet please?

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Interesting; although in many ways most of the Kent Labour seats are more or less dead heats anyway.

Oh, another question; why is the Maidstone area split up like that?

[Peter]

Can you explain the reasons for the bizarre boundaries in the Isle of Thanet please?

Oh, another question; why is the Maidstone area split up like that?

The first is answerable, and does make an amount of sense: If you play with the numbers long enough you soon realise that if you were to try to unite the Isle of Thanet, it would go pearshaped in a lot of surrounding constituenies, with a lot of seats losing their status as being connected in the vast majority with just one district.

The second, I cannot answer, because frankly it makes no sense. It happened as a result of the 1997 boundary changes and has caused all sorts of untold problems.

The ultimate solution to this mess may come in the next boundary review when Ashford will be so big that finally the Boundary Commission will have the balls to fix it. Basically, the Commission could then reunite Maidstone and the surrounding wards into one seat, and then bolt Faversham and Mid Kent onto some Ashford wards to create a sane seat.

[Peter]

I'll do a county a week. I should therefore finish sometime next year.

Surrey

Boundary Commission reports, maps, etc.

The Present Landscape

All of the eleven seats in Surrey are presently held by the Conservatives.

7 of these seats can be considered safe, with the safest being Chris Grayling's seat of Epsom & Ewell. The remaining seats are relatively solid, with the exception of Guildford which is now on its fourth MP in 8 years, which is a marginal contest with the Lib Dems.

Boundary Changes

No changes are proposed to East Surrey, Esher & Walton, Runnymede & Weybridge, Spelthorne, Surrey Heath or Woking.

The changes to Mole Valley realign the constituency boundary with local government ward boundaries and do not involve the movement of any voters.

Reigate
Reigate is presently the smallest constituency in Surrey (in terms of electorate), and thus is having the ward of Preston presently in Epsom & Ewell added to it. Oddly for Surrey, Preston is a true council estate area (I've been there) and as such votes Labour quite heavily. This won't heavily affect the safe-as-houses Tory seat that is Reigate.

Epsom & Ewell
As Reigate. The loss of the Labour Preston ward will help the Tories in a seat which is not as safe as many of the other Tory seats in the County.

Guildford
The boundary changes move the majority of the new Bramley, Busbridge & Hascombe ward (and most of the moved voters are from Bramley) from Guildford into Surrey SW over the objection of many Bramley locals. Bramley is a strongly Tory area.

Moved into Guildford is about half of the new Alford, Cranleigh Rural & Ellens Green ward. Again, the area is Conservative, but not to the extent of Bramley. The constituency is now quite oddly shaped, and indeed the accusation of gerry-mandering has at least an air of credibility though the relatively large size of the present Guildford seat does need curtailing through boundary changes, and the likely wards to be lost would always be rural, Tory wards.

Given the super-marginal status (a mere 347 votes) of Guildford, the net movement of Tory voters out of the seat may cause it to lean back towards the Liberal Democrats.

Surrey South West
As Guildford, the net gain in Tory voters will help the new incumbent, who nonetheless had been able to put a reasonable majority together at the last election.

Net result of Boundary Changes
Not much given how inextensive they are in Surrey, though the Guildford changes may swing the seat notionally Lib Dem

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'll do a county a week. I should therefore finish sometime next year.

I can get some northern one's done if you like

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Seriously? Wow. That'd be like finding a load of executive housing somewhere in the Rhondda...
 

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Yeeeeeesssssss... that's certainly a... er... "interestingly" shaped seat now... "more illogical than Maidstone"

[Peter]

I'll do a county a week. I should therefore finish sometime next year.

I can get some northern one's done if you like

You can work from the top of the country, and I'll work up, and sometime in the New Year we can meet in the Midlands.

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Seriously? Wow. That'd be like finding a load of executive housing somewhere in the Rhondda...[/quote]

Its not very big, only about 3,200 people live there, and Surrey isn't completely the snobbish, elitist place you think it is Al, after all, where would our cleaners live?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You can work from the top of the country, and I'll work up, and sometime in the New Year we can meet in the Midlands.

O.K

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[minionofmidas]

You can work from the top of the country, and I'll work up, and sometime in the New Year we can meet in the Midlands.

O.K

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South London. Or Crawley.

[Peter]

I apologise for the lateness of this County - I was busy over the weekend with fantasy elections on top of various other stuff. I hope to deliver West Sussex this weekend on time.

East Sussex

Boundary Commission reports, maps, etc.

The Present Landscape

The county has a total of 8 seats - 4 are Labour, 3 Conservative and 1 Liberal Democrat.

The supposed unfairness of the FPTP electoral system was demonstrated incredibly well by this County at the last election with Labour finishing third in terms of total votes, but winning the most seats, as well as the strong showing from the Green party that was rewarded with no seats.

Two of the three Tory seats are considered safe at this point, the strongest being Bexhill & Battle held by Gregory Barker. The other Tory seat, Eastbourne is a margainal contested with the Lib Dems. The Lib Dem seat is Lewes, and is now trending safe for them with Norman Baker polling in excess of 50% of the vote.

The Labour seats are all marginal - Hove being the weakest with a majority of just 420 over the Tories. Brighton Pavilion also possesses a strong Green presence, where they polled a record-breaking 22% of the popular vote and third place in 2005.

Boundary Changes

All constituencies in the County have boundary changes.

Brighton Kemptown
The Boundary changes are minor and re-align the constituency boundary to the new ward boundaries. These changes should benefit Labour, although only ever so slightly. This seat will retain four wards from the Lewes district to the East through to the Peacehaven area.

Brighton Pavilion
The Boundary changes are minor and re-align the constituency boundary to the new ward boundaries. The changes should notionally benefit the Greens, and given that this is their top target, could help them.

Hove
The Boundary changes are minor and re-align the constituency boundary to the new ward boundaries. The changes should notionally benefit Labour, but the effect is likely to be measurable solely in the tens of votes and nothing more substantial than this.

Hastings & Rye
This constituency now has the ward of Brede Valley (of the Rother district) included in it. The ward votes quite heavily Conservative, and thus its inclusion in the seat may remove 1000 votes from the 2000 Labour majority.

Eastbourne
This constituency has been a lib-tory marginal since 1990 when it was taken by the Liberals in a by-election on a 19 point swing. It remains much the same, losing half the new East Dean ward and gaining the remainder of the Willingdon ward. These changes will benefit the Lib Dems as East Dean generally votes Tory and Willingdon LD. How much it will cut into the Tory 1,124 majority remains to be seen.

Lewes
The changes to Lewes are a simple mirror of Eastbourne: It loses parts of Willingdon, but gains the whole of East Dean. Given the safe nature of the seat, this will not affect the LD status of this seat.

{{to be continued after dinner}}

Net result of Boundary Changes

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I apologise for the lateness of this County - I was busy over the weekend with fantasy elections on top of various other stuff. I hope to deliver West Sussex this weekend on time.

Might as well use this oppertunity to say that I've not been able to start doing up North yet; my computer is on it's last legs and starts acting oddly when I open up the boundary commision files. Getting a new one in a few days, hopefully.

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Amusingly that result also backs up one of the better reasons for supporting FPTP (localism basically). That's the great thing about debates based around polar opposites

[minionofmidas]

Pete's dinner is taking sort of long.

[WMS]

Pete's dinner is taking sort of long.

Maybe it was a "liquid dinner"?

[Peter]

Pete's dinner is taking sort of long.

Maybe it was a "liquid dinner"?

I hope you die in a gas explosion, both of you.

[WMS]

Pete's dinner is taking sort of long.

Maybe it was a "liquid dinner"?

I hope you die in a gas explosion, both of you.

Yay! I've finally gotten the most famous Peter Bell insult!

[minionofmidas]

A "liquid gas explosion" maybe?

[afleitch]

Just to let you know, I've updated that blank constituency map to clean up a few errors. If anyone wants it, i'll send it through.

[Peter]

Just to let you know, I've updated that blank constituency map to clean up a few errors. If anyone wants it, i'll send it through.

Its pretty much unneeded for this because I have to use the ward level maps.

[Serenity Now]

Just to let you know, I've updated that blank constituency map to clean up a few errors. If anyone wants it, i'll send it through.

Its pretty much unneeded for this because I have to use the ward level maps.

Pete, do you have any links to the ward level maps?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pbc/default.asp (official boundary commision site. Has the maps (which are very large), the offical reports, the provision reports, minutes of some of the hearings and summaries of the responses of political figures to the new constituencies)
www.statistics.gov.uk (if you have an SVG viewer some of the maps on Neighbourhood Statistics are excellent)
www.nomisweb.co.uk (old wards in Met counties though)

Some local authorities also have ward maps; some are very nice, some are hell

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Might as well get some with sod all changes done:

Northumberland

Boundary Commission reports, maps, etc.

The Present Landscape

Of the 4 constituencies in Northumberland, 2 were won by Labour, 1 by the Tories and 1 by the LibDems

The two Labour seats (Wansbeck, Blyth Valley) are classic Northeast mining seats and both have majorities over 20%.
Wansbeck (called Morpeth until 1983) has been Labour since 1945 and Blyth Valley has been Labour since October 1974 (when it was regained from an Independent Labour MP) and nearly fell to the SDP in 1987. Normal service as since resumed.
Both Murphy and Campbell put in good showings in the General Election and neither seat appears to be at risk.

Hexham is a huge rural seat that stretches from the northern suburbs of Newcastle to the Scottish border and has been held by the Conservatives for over 80 years.
For pretty much all that period it was a rock-solid stronghold but, to just about everyone's suprise, it suddenly turned marginal in 1997 with Labour missing out by a handful of votes. Since then Peter Atkinson has been able to rebuild his majority to a respectable 12% (albeit with sod all Labour activity in 2005) but the seat remains a longterm Labour target and could be tough to hold onto when he retires.

Berwick upon Tweed is more a Borders constituency than a Northeast one and has been held by socially conservative LibDem Alan Beith since a by-election in the early '70's. Over the years he's built up a huge personal vote in what was once a safe Tory seat and his majority now stands at 24%. The idea that he might lose is unthinkable.
But when he retires, all hell will break loose; Berwick has all the makings of a tight three-way marginal and could be a very unpredictable seat.

Boundary Changes

No boundary changes are proposed to either Wansbeck or Blyth Valley. Only minor changes are proposed to the Berwick upon Tweed and Hexham constituencies with the other half of the Hartburn ward being added to Berwick.

Net Result of Boundary changes

The political landscape will remain the same; the transfer of a couple of hundred voters is unlikely to have any serious effects.