UK parliamentary boundary review

[Oryxslayer]

North Hampshire



Basingstoke is one of the weirder seats to change. There's an urban ward in the NW that is outside the seat and in the rural one, and there are rural areas to the SW of the town that could be traded for it. North East Hampshire no longer surrounds the town on both sides.

Surrey



Reigate shrinks. New Godalming & Ash seat takes up the areas that were once in south Guildford and SW Surrey. Guildford now faces west, and I'm tempted to say the Lib-Dems would win this given local results. Godalming & Ash has a weird Aldershot arm that takes it from Surrey Heath. Epson & Ewell now goes across the M25 for Leatherhead. Esher and Walton drops Cobeham - maybe making it a Lib Dem gain off 2019?


I'm stopping for now with most of the south done.

[beesley]

Yeah, the new boundaries are cumbersome, but they meet the requirements set out, most  of all that ridiculous 5% deviation  threshold they had. 7.5% or ideally 10% allowance while explicitly aiming for no more 5% deviation where reasonable would've been better.

Southampton remains unchanged, thankfully. Basingstoke looks ridiculous but the wards round there were bad anyway. And Fareham and Waterlooville? There must be a way around that. Though (unpopular opinion) I like the new Hedge End seat, but that means either Fareham and some random bits of Winchester District or Waterlooville as Portsmouth and Gosport can't change.

Hampshire is nowhere near as bad as Gloucestershire though. You could've had normal seats with a 10% threshold, but alas.

[YL]

Cumbria

Carlisle gains the "Border" bit of Penrith & the Border.

Workington and Whitehaven kept separate for some reason.  The latter goes into a horror which for some reason is called "Copeland and the Western Lakes" but stretches as far east as Windermere town.

Barrow & Furness loses some northern areas to the Copeland thing but gains Grange over Sands and Cartmel from the dismembered Westmorland & Lonsdale...

... from which the Kendal and Sedbergh areas join Eden district in "Westmorland & Eden", while the area south of Kendal goes into another absurdly named seat, "Morecambe & South Lakeland", whose closest approach to the actual Lakes is that it grazes the eastern shore of Windermere.  I'm guessing there aren't many fellwalkers working for the BCE at the moment.

A terrible outcome for Tim Farron whose seat is completely dismembered.  Not great for Labour either with all the marginals probably becoming harder to win back.

[beesley]

Cumbria

Carlisle gains the "Border" bit of Penrith & the Border.

Workington and Whitehaven kept separate for some reason.  The latter goes into a horror which for some reason is called "Copeland and the Western Lakes" but stretches as far east as Windermere town.

Barrow & Furness loses some northern areas to the Copeland thing but gains Grange over Sands and Cartmel from the dismembered Westmorland & Lonsdale...

... from which the Kendal and Sedbergh areas join Eden district in "Westmorland & Eden", while the area south of Kendal goes into another absurdly named seat, "Morecambe & South Lakeland", whose closest approach to the actual Lakes is that it grazes the eastern shore of Windermere.  I'm guessing there aren't many fellwalkers working for the BCE at the moment.

A terrible outcome for Tim Farron whose seat is completely dismembered.  Not great for Labour either with all the marginals probably becoming harder to win back.

Maybe the horrible lines in Cumbria are to do with the local authority boundaries? I doubt if Cumbria were one council like Cornwall they keep Workington and Whitehaven separate. Also, Morecambe and South Lakeland weirdly contains the second smallest bit out of South Lakeland district out of the four seats, by the looks of it.

I only just noticed but thank goodness they put Warfield Harvest Ride ward back in Bracknell, that was egregious.

[YL]

Lancashire

As mentioned above, Morecambe & Lunesdale becomes Morecambe & South Lakeland.  For some reason only one of the Skerton (Lancaster north of the Lune) wards is transferred to the Lancaster seat, whose bizarre link to Fleetwood is severed.  Fleetwood rejoins Blackpool North, whose boundary with Blackpool South moves north a bit.

Wyre & Preston North is completely dismembered, with Poulton-le-Fylde going to Fylde, Fulwood to Preston, Garstang to Lancaster and some rural areas to Ribble Valley.  Having gained Fulwood, Preston loses parts of the east of the city to Ribble Valley.

Further east, Burnley loses a smallish area in the NE of the town to Pendle, but gains Royston VaseyBacup from Rossendale & Darwen, which shifts west and is renamed "West Pennine Moors" but if anything becomes even worse connected.  Hyndburn loses its Rossendale component and gains part of Whalley from Ribble Valley, but sadly isn't renamed "Accrington".

Bamber Bridge moves from Ribble Valley to South Ribble, which loses some more rural areas to Chorley and (somewhat surprisingly, given no changes were needed in Sefton at all) Southport.  Chorley loses Adlington to the aforementioned West Pennine Moors, and West Lancashire is unchanged.

Lancaster becoming more rural presumably helps the Tories there, compensating them to some extent for the abolition of Wyre & Preston North.  I'm guessing South Ribble becomes a more realistic Labour target, but Burnley & Bacup perhaps a bit less so.  I suspect other partisan effects are fairly minor, but might have missed something.

[beesley]

Lancashire


Further east, Burnley loses a smallish area in the NE of the town to Pendle, but gains Royston VaseyBacup from Rossendale & Darwen, which shifts west and is renamed "West Pennine Moors" but if anything becomes even worse connected.  Hyndburn loses its Rossendale component and gains part of Whalley from Ribble Valley, but sadly isn't renamed "Accrington".

Sorry to quote you again in such a short space of time, but I thought to add that there isn't any road access between the two halves. The name is also horrible.

Dorset:



Nothing major I can see. Maybe Mid Dorset & Poole North getting an arm to reach around the harbor  is notable?
 

That ward is Wareham, a town that could be in either of the two seats but faces Poole primarily. I guess they didn't want to combine Christchurch with Boscombe or Southbourne and that's why the configuration is the way it is.

More bizarre is that Upwey, a sort of exurb of Weymouth is in West Dorset. It makes no sense to separate the two. If anything I'd reconfigure that area entirely if it were doable.

[YL]

Lancastrian Merseyside

As mentioned above, the Sefton seats could have been left unchanged, but Southport takes on some rural territory on the south bank of the Ribble from South Ribble.  It loses Ainsdale to Sefton Central, which in turn loses Aintree and the south end of Maghull to a new seat called Liverpool Norris Green (this name has been mocked a bit) which replaces Liverpool Walton.  Within Liverpool some wards are shuffled between the seats, and Garston & Halewood sheds Halewood from its name and territory and returns to being called Liverpool Garston.  However Liverpool West Derby takes a couple of Knowsley wards in the Huyton area.

Halewood joins Widnes (the part of Halton unitary north of the Mersey) as Widnes & Halewood.  St Helens South & Whiston loses Whiston, with Prescot South becoming its only Knowsley ward, and swaps some territory with St Helens North.  Finally the Knowsley seat lost those two wards west of Huyton to Liverpool West Derby.

This feels a bit of a mess TBH: unnecessary changes in Sefton and messy crossings of the Liverpool city boundary.  (But initial proposals in this area have often been worse...)  There's very little partisan effect of course, but Southport presumably becomes safer Tory.

[Conservatopia]

I'm happy with my area.   I only just manage to stay in my current seat and as noted this seat might be a Labour target now.  I wonder who benefits most from Bath's changes?  Presumably the Tories?

[YL]

I'm happy with my area.   I only just manage to stay in my current seat and as noted this seat might be a Labour target now.  I wonder who benefits most from Bath's changes?  Presumably the Tories?

I like the Bristol map and Filton & BS (is that your seat then?) but I'm not so convinced by the leftover bits of Kingswood being put in a seat called "Keynsham & North East Somerset".  It's slightly bizarre to see Bristol West lose three of its easternmost wards and get renamed Bristol Central, but TBH I think that's an acknowledgement that it should have been renamed in the last review.  (I guess it becomes a slightly more plausible Green target?)

Overall I think the South West is not bad, but I'd have tried to do it (indeed I did do it) with fewer county boundary crossings.

[Oryxslayer]

New Statesman did a bit of math off the 2019 ward results. These are obviously grains of salt though since partisanship is not set in stone like in the US, and new lines would change things. Some seats were uncompetitive, others were marginals. Also 2019 will likely be remembered as a Tory high mark. Some changes:

- The desire to preserve 3 Hull seats with them all reaching outside the city flipped two for the Tories.
- Lots of political churn in the Black country.
- Esher & Walton would be won by the Lib Dems under the new lines.

[Conservatopia]

I'm happy with my area.   I only just manage to stay in my current seat and as noted this seat might be a Labour target now.  I wonder who benefits most from Bath's changes?  Presumably the Tories?

I like the Bristol map and Filton & BS (is that your seat then?) but I'm not so convinced by the leftover bits of Kingswood being put in a seat called "Keynsham & North East Somerset".  It's slightly bizarre to see Bristol West lose three of its easternmost wards and get renamed Bristol Central, but TBH I think that's an acknowledgement that it should have been renamed in the last review.  (I guess it becomes a slightly more plausible Green target?)

Overall I think the South West is not bad, but I'd have tried to do it (indeed I did do it) with fewer county boundary crossings.

Yes I'm in FBS.  I agree that boundary crossing should be avoided but ultimately they have mostly kept similar communities together.

[cp]

North Hampshire



Basingstoke is one of the weirder seats to change. There's an urban ward in the NW that is outside the seat and in the rural one, and there are rural areas to the SW of the town that could be traded for it. North East Hampshire no longer surrounds the town on both sides.

Surrey



Reigate shrinks. New Godalming & Ash seat takes up the areas that were once in south Guildford and SW Surrey. Guildford now faces west, and I'm tempted to say the Lib-Dems would win this given local results. Godalming & Ash has a weird Aldershot arm that takes it from Surrey Heath. Epson & Ewell now goes across the M25 for Leatherhead. Esher and Walton drops Cobeham - maybe making it a Lib Dem gain off 2019?


I'm stopping for now with most of the south done.

It's certainly a helpful step in that direction. Oxshott and Cobham are the two most abysmally Tory parts of the constituency. Word has it Raab pulled strings to not lose Oxshott; if so, he's ended up just as badly off, assuming the boundaries proposed stay the same.

Of course, the fact that Raab eked out a win last time was due to a near total obliteration of the Labour vote, partially due to a very weak local candidate and partially due to Corbyn derangement. Neither of those things are likely to be in play next time.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Seems like good news in general for the greens - Sheffield Central and Bristol West shrinking to cores (the latter is now renamed to Central), as well as a smaller Stroud and the new Isle of Wight seat, both of which could be winnable for them in a good year.

[Geoffrey Howe]

It's certainly a helpful step in that direction. Oxshott and Cobham are the two most abysmally Tory parts of the constituency. Word has it Raab pulled strings to not lose Oxshott; if so, he's ended up just as badly off, assuming the boundaries proposed stay the same.

Of course, the fact that Raab eked out a win last time was due to a near total obliteration of the Labour vote, partially due to a very weak local candidate and partially due to Corbyn derangement. Neither of those things are likely to be in play next time.

What does this mean as opposed to simply Tory?

[cp]

It's certainly a helpful step in that direction. Oxshott and Cobham are the two most abysmally Tory parts of the constituency. Word has it Raab pulled strings to not lose Oxshott; if so, he's ended up just as badly off, assuming the boundaries proposed stay the same.

Of course, the fact that Raab eked out a win last time was due to a near total obliteration of the Labour vote, partially due to a very weak local candidate and partially due to Corbyn derangement. Neither of those things are likely to be in play next time.

What does this mean as opposed to simply Tory?

Guess.

[Geoffrey Howe]

It's certainly a helpful step in that direction. Oxshott and Cobham are the two most abysmally Tory parts of the constituency. Word has it Raab pulled strings to not lose Oxshott; if so, he's ended up just as badly off, assuming the boundaries proposed stay the same.

Of course, the fact that Raab eked out a win last time was due to a near total obliteration of the Labour vote, partially due to a very weak local candidate and partially due to Corbyn derangement. Neither of those things are likely to be in play next time.

What does this mean as opposed to simply Tory?

Guess.

Wealthy?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What is the most Conservative seat in the country under these new boundaries?

[Lord Halifax]

It's certainly a helpful step in that direction. Oxshott and Cobham are the two most abysmally Tory parts of the constituency. Word has it Raab pulled strings to not lose Oxshott; if so, he's ended up just as badly off, assuming the boundaries proposed stay the same.

Of course, the fact that Raab eked out a win last time was due to a near total obliteration of the Labour vote, partially due to a very weak local candidate and partially due to Corbyn derangement. Neither of those things are likely to be in play next time.

What does this mean as opposed to simply Tory?

Guess.

Wealthy?

Apparently.

"A survey in 2010 by the Daily Telegraph asserted it (Oxshott) was "the village with most footballers" in England and mentioned other celebrities who chose to live in the village"

"A great many of Oxshott's residential areas are on private roads, gated off and inaccessible to the general public. This, combined with the large and desirable properties that form much of the village's housing stock, contributes to Oxshott's status as the "most expensive village in England"

[Oryxslayer]

What is the most Conservative seat in the country under these new boundaries?

I mean the place with the best Tory fundamentals - cause voting patterns are a bit more fluid - is still the rural parts of the east. Particularly Lincolnshire, Essex, and almost everything (not Cambridge) in between. The boundaries weren't ever going to change so drastically that seats were not comparable to their previous iterations.

[Geoffrey Howe]

It's certainly a helpful step in that direction. Oxshott and Cobham are the two most abysmally Tory parts of the constituency. Word has it Raab pulled strings to not lose Oxshott; if so, he's ended up just as badly off, assuming the boundaries proposed stay the same.

Of course, the fact that Raab eked out a win last time was due to a near total obliteration of the Labour vote, partially due to a very weak local candidate and partially due to Corbyn derangement. Neither of those things are likely to be in play next time.

What does this mean as opposed to simply Tory?

Guess.

Wealthy?

Apparently.

"A survey in 2010 by the Daily Telegraph asserted it (Oxshott) was "the village with most footballers" in England and mentioned other celebrities who chose to live in the village"

"A great many of Oxshott's residential areas are on private roads, gated off and inaccessible to the general public. This, combined with the large and desirable properties that form much of the village's housing stock, contributes to Oxshott's status as the "most expensive village in England"

I drove past once on the A3 and can confirm it is very wealthy, and not particularly tasteful.

[YL]

Cheshire and Wirral

Wirral South disappears; its western wards go to Wirral West and Bebington to Birkenhead.  A split ward between Wirral West and Wallasey allows the latter to reach quota with little change.  Two wards in the Bromborough area transfer to Ellesmere Port, which no longer includes Neston...

... which features in one of the more controversial aspects of the plan, the split of Chester.  The north side of the city is in Chester North & Neston, while the southern part is added to Eddisbury, which is renamed South Cheshire but remains a sprawling leftovers seat.

Another rather obscure name, Weaver Vale, also disappears; the part of Halton south of the Mersey joins with Helsby and Frodsham to form Runcorn & Helsby, while Northwich forms the core of a seat named after the town and also including parts of the current Tatton.

Tatton gains Lymm from Warrington South; the two Warrington seats are otherwise essentially unchanged.  Finally there are fairly Congleton and Crewe & Nantwich and none at all to Macclesfield.

Labour are down one from the abolition of Wirral South, and Wirral West gains its most Tory parts, so may become quite close.  OTOH the transfer of Lymm from Warrington South ought to help Labour there.  I'm not sure about the partisan effects in the Weaver Vale area, but would imagine that Runcorn is Labour enough that Runcorn & Helsby is notionally Labour, while Northwich, without the Runcorn parts of the current seat and with bits of Tatton, is notionally Tory.

[YL]

What is the most Conservative seat in the country under these new boundaries?

I mean the place with the best Tory fundamentals - cause voting patterns are a bit more fluid - is still the rural parts of the east. Particularly Lincolnshire, Essex, and almost everything (not Cambridge) in between. The boundaries weren't ever going to change so drastically that seats were not comparable to their previous iterations.

My guess is South Lincolnshire, the successor to South Holland & the Deepings.

[joevsimp]

What is the most Conservative seat in the country under these new boundaries?

I mean the place with the best Tory fundamentals - cause voting patterns are a bit more fluid - is still the rural parts of the east. Particularly Lincolnshire, Essex, and almost everything (not Cambridge) in between. The boundaries weren't ever going to change so drastically that seats were not comparable to their previous iterations.

My guess is South Lincolnshire, the successor to South Holland & the Deepings.

Second highest was Saffron Walden (and was highest in the past) I think which has lost suburbs of Chelmsford (and some lib Dems voters) and gained a fairly rural and conservative chunk of Epping Forest instead. Might tip it slightly higher than South Linc's but then again might not

[joevsimp]

Seems like good news in general for the greens - Sheffield Central and Bristol West shrinking to cores (the latter is now renamed to Central), as well as a smaller Stroud and the new Isle of Wight seat, both of which could be winnable for them in a good year.

Possibly too much to hope for with the latter two but Sheffield and Bristol definitely look like two horse races between Labour and Greens. Will be interesting if any pacts emerge (as much as I hate to be speculating on that this early)

Brighton Pavillion also essentially unchanged whereas the cancelled 2013 and 2018 reviews produced seats that werenotionally projected for Labour but very much still green leaning once you considered the particular wards being moved

[beesley]

I'm happy with my area.   I only just manage to stay in my current seat and as noted this seat might be a Labour target now.  I wonder who benefits most from Bath's changes?  Presumably the Tories?

I like the Bristol map and Filton & BS (is that your seat then?) but I'm not so convinced by the leftover bits of Kingswood being put in a seat called "Keynsham & North East Somerset".  It's slightly bizarre to see Bristol West lose three of its easternmost wards and get renamed Bristol Central, but TBH I think that's an acknowledgement that it should have been renamed in the last review.  (I guess it becomes a slightly more plausible Green target?)

Overall I think the South West is not bad, but I'd have tried to do it (indeed I did do it) with fewer county boundary crossings.

Yes I'm in FBS.  I agree that boundary crossing should be avoided but ultimately they have mostly kept similar communities together.

The problem in my view is that the communities with the best links to Bristol (Hanham, Filton, Staple Hill) are all far enough away from each other that you can't  really  keep them together as the Bristol portion of the seat becomes illogical, and then you separate  them from areas like Oldland Common and Patchway. But as a local you might disagree.