UK parliamentary boundary review

[Conservatopia]

Gloucestershire and Bristol share a new seat.



1. Cheltenham
2. Gloucester
3. Tewkesbury.  Contains a bit more of Cheltenham than it does now.
4. Stroud.  Shifts a bit north, gaining Quedgeley (the south end of Gloucester), but keeps the whole greater Stroud area.
5. The Cotswolds
6. Forest of Dean
7. Tetbury & Thornbury.  Successor to Thornbury & Yate, but takes in territory in the Gloucestershire CC area.
8. Yate & Bradley Stoke.  Now without Filton.
9. Kingswood
10. Bristol Frenchay.  New seat: four wards of north-east Bristol, plus some largely urban wards of South Gloucestershire fringing the city from Filton round to Mangotsfield.  Other options are available.
11. Bristol North West
12. Bristol West.  The current seat is grossly oversized, and in this plan loses Easton, Lawrence Hill and Bishopston & Ashley Down.
13. Bristol East.  Or perhaps South East.
14. Bristol South

This is really good.  Looks like Jack would still be my MP if he stays at 8, without Filton he should be safer.  Luke Hall would be safe from an LD challenge this time too.

[Conservatopia]

Just having a quick decco at the areas I'm familiar with.

That N. Swansea/Loughor seat is a bit unusual.  It stretches between some fairly disparate areas.  The Gorseinon, Loughor, Gowerton area is more similar to the rest of Gower.  Would it be easier to try and recreate the old Gower seat but have The Mumbles in Seat 30?  Correct me if the numbers wouldn't work out.

Seat 25 is also slightly strange.  Could a seat anchored on Porthcawl be viable?  I get you're trying to follow county lines though but personally splitting Porth and Bridgend seems better.

I like what you've done in Cardiff, Caerphilly and Pontypridd.  The valleys look good too.  Would the Shadow Home Secretary be a little safer now in Torfaen?

Splitting Powys still makes sense.

The Aberystwyth-Fishguard seat is cool too.

[Conservatopia]

Just having a quick decco at the areas I'm familiar with.

That N. Swansea/Loughor seat is a bit unusual.  It stretches between some fairly disparate areas.  The Gorseinon, Loughor, Gowerton area is more similar to the rest of Gower.  Would it be easier to try and recreate the old Gower seat but have The Mumbles in Seat 30?  Correct me if the numbers wouldn't work out.

That's one of the areas I wasn't happy with.  An alternative I have there keeps the Gower seat except for removing Clydach and Mawr and adding a few wards currently in Swansea West (the Killays, Dunvant and Cockett), turns seat 30 into more of a Swansea Central seat, and adds Clydach, Mawr, Morriston, Llansamlet and Bonymaen to seat 29.

I like that apart from that it would presumably put Gower out of reach for my party.

[Conservatopia]

Had Devonwall gone ahead I think we would need UN Peacekeepers on the Tamar.

[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?

[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.

[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.

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.

I get what you mean but to be fair those areas are connected to very good road links so aren't all that distant.  If I had to change anything with FBS I might have moved my village into T&Y (it is better linked with Yate imo) and tried to retain the coastal area.  This would create a sort of long outer North Bristol seat.

[Conservatopia]

I can understand people being frustrated with local government reorganization (some councils are far worse than their neighbours), but getting that worked up about parliamentary constituencies?  Come on.

My goodness you should have seen the battles over the One Somerset plan though.  I imagine it's equally acrimonious for One Cumbria and the BCP UA.

[Conservatopia]

What an utterly hideous map. The valleys were obviously going to be tricky but is there really any excuse for what's going on in the Greater Swansea area?

[Conservatopia]

Has there been any analysis yet of what the results of the 2019 election would have been transposed to these boundaries?

Obviously if Labour continues to have these massive leads over the Tories they will win no matter what but is there any sense of whether the new maps favour or disfavour any party?

A couple of of extra seats for the Tories but nothing dramatic. Obviously with polling the way it is this makes little difference anyway.

As I understand it (and the other Britposters can correct me here) the reason that any boundary review would boost the Tories are twofold:
1) England receives a fairer share of the seats and the Tories are stronger in England.
2) People moving out of cities over time has led to cities being overrepresented in seats.

One thing that needs stressing for American posters is that the boundary review is nonpartisan and decided by independent bodies in each of the four nations. Biases do slip in occasionally but nothing like Illinois or North Carolina.

[Conservatopia]

Which, if true, is rather less beneficial for the Tories than some previous boundary reviews.

Yes, this was widely predicted to be the case as the 2019 election lead to more Tory seats in non-traditionally Tory areas.