UK parliamentary boundary review

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The process for another attempt at reviewing the Westminster constituency boundaries in the UK is starting, and unlike the last two attempts this one is likely to get through.

Legislation since the last two attempts means that the number of seats will remain 650.  With a few exceptions which only apply to a handful of areas, there is a 5% tolerance on electorate, giving a minimum electorate of 69724 and a maximum of 77062.

The exceptions:
- Four island areas are protected from the process: Orkney & Shetland, Ynys Môn and Na h-Eileanan an Iar will remain as they are, and the Isle of Wight will be divided into two constituencies.
- There is an upper area limit, and constituencies which approach it are allowed to have lower electorates.  This is only relevant in the Scottish Highlands, and maybe not even there.
- Northern Ireland has a little more flexibility because of its small size, with constituency electorates allowed to be as low as 5% below the regional quota, so its minimum is 68313.

Numbers of constituencies are allocated to the four parts of the UKby Sainte-Laguë, and the Boundary Commission for England allocates the English quota among the English regions in the same way.  This gives

England 543 (+10)
Eastern 61 (+3)
East Midlands 47 (+1)
London 75 (+2)
North East 27 (-2)
North West 73 (-2)
South East mainland 89 (+6)
Isle of Wight 2 (+1)
South West 58 (+3)
West Midlands 57 (-2)
Yorkshire and the Humber 54 (no change)
Scotland 57 (-2)
55 excluding Orkney & Shetland and na h-Eileanan an Iar
Wales 32 (-8)
31 excluding Ynys Môn
Northern Ireland 18 (no change)

Initial proposals from the various Boundary Commissions are expected in a few months' time.

I recommend Kevin Larkin's Boundary Assistant (a UK counterpart to Dave's Redistricting) for playing with possibilities.  At the moment it has ward electorates for the date used (March 2020) in Wales, Northern Ireland and most of England; a few areas of England, mostly in London, need updating for new ward boundaries.

[YL]

The Boundary Commission for England announced today that their initial proposals will be published on 8 June, and published the "Guide to the Review".  We also now have all the ward electorate data, although we don't yet have electorate data at sub-ward level if splitting a ward is being considered (which it probably will be in a few places).

I'll go through some of the regions (maybe all of them) with some thoughts.  Of course most of my plans are rather unlikely to end up actually being proposed.

Let's start with the South West.  It gets 58 seats, up 3.  The entitlements of the counties and unitary authorities are:

Cornwall 5.95
Scilly 0.02
Cornwall and Scilly 5.97

Devon (county council) 8.52
Plymouth 2.60
Torbay 1.40
Devon total 12.53

Dorset (unitary) 4.08
Bournemouth 3.92
Dorset total 8.00

Somerset (county council) 5.80
North Somerset 2.24
Bath & NE Somerset (BANES) 1.93
Somerset total 9.97

Bristol 4.57

Gloucestershire (county council) 6.59
South Gloucestershire 2.90
Gloucestershire total 9.49

Wiltshire (unitary) 5.15
Swindon 2.12
Wiltshire total 7.27

With the 5% tolerance this allows 6 seats for Cornwall (no change), 13 for Devon (up 1), 10 for Somerset (up 1), 8 for Dorset (no change), 7 for Wiltshire (no change) and 14 for Bristol and Gloucestershire treated together (up 1).  Devon is on the small side for 13, though, so you could consider crossing its boundaries somewhere, and likewise Wiltshire is on the large side.

BANES could be separated out from the rest of Somerset, as it is now, and the two Dorset unitaries could be treated separately, which they're not now (as they didn't exist when the current boundaries were drawn).

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Let's start with Cornwall.  One rule is that "minimal change" tends to be favoured: if no changes at all or only minor ones are needed, that's what will usually happen, unless there's some very good reason.  Cornwall is a case in point: its six existing seats are either within the legal range or not far outside it, and so not much is going to change.



1. St Ives
2. Camborne & Redruth
3. Truro & Falmouth
4. St Austell & Newquay
5. North Cornwall
6. South East Cornwall

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Here's a Devon plan with 13 seats.  With an entitlement of only just over 12.5, they all have to be quite close to the lower limit, which makes this a bit awkward.



1. Honiton.  Replaces parts of East Devon and Tiverton & Honiton
2. Tiverton.  Effectively the successor to Tiverton & Honiton, but without the latter town.
3. Exeter.  (Number not on map)
4. Exmouth & Exeter East.  Effectively the new seat.
5. North Devon
6. Newton Abbot
7. Dartmoor.  The existing Central Devon shifted a bit south and west
8. Torbay
9. Totnes
10. Plymouth North & Yealm (or whatever you want to call it).  Basically the non-Plymouth parts of the current SW Devon plus some of Plymouth Moor View
11. Torridge & West Devon
12. Plymouth Sutton.  Includes Plympton and Plymstock
13. Plymouth Devonport

Seats 10, 12 and 13 could be re-jigged to get something closer to the current arrangement, but it would need a split ward in Plymouth.  Split wards are likely in some places; whether the case is strong enough to do it here I don't know.

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One take on Dorset makes fairly major changes to the existing seats in order to respect the boundary between the two new unitaries:



1. Christchurch & Southbourne
2. Bournemouth Central
3. Kinson & Broadstone (number not on map)
4. Poole

5. East Dorset
6. North Dorset
7. South Dorset
8. West Dorset

Or alternatively you could ignore the new unitaries and try to stay close to the current seats:



1. West Dorset
2. South Dorset
3. North Dorset
4. Mid Dorset & North Poole
5. Poole
6. Bournemouth West
7. Bournemouth East
8. Christchurch

The Bournemouth seats have shown some signs of a Labour trend, so there might be some interest in the details there.  I'm not sure what arrangement would best suit them, though.

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One take on Somerset treats BANES separately.  This can actually be done without a split ward, but it requires carving parts out of Bath, so I've split Bathavon North.



1. North Somerset.
2. Weston Super Mare.
3. Cheddar.  New seat: southernmost North Somerset, the western side of the current Wells constituency and parts of the Bridgwater area.
4. Wells & Frome.  It's possible to stay a bit closer to the existing arrangements here, but this seems tidier.
5. Yeovil.
6. Somerton & Glastonbury.
7. Taunton.
8. Bridgwater & West Somerset.
9. Bath
10. North East Somerset.

Alternatively, and with no need of a split ward, a small area of either Somerset "proper" or North Somerset could be added to the North East Somerset seat.  In this plan I've also avoided the tight boundary around Bridgwater town in the previous one, but at the cost of a rather weird West Somerset seat stretching to Chard.



1. North Somerset
2. Weston Super Mare
3. Wells
4. Frome
5. Yeovil
6. Bridgwater.  Separated from West Somerset and taking on Highbridge and Burnham on Sea.
7. Taunton
8. West Somerset
9. Bath
10. North East Somerset

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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

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Finally in the South West, Wiltshire.  7 seats here is a challenge, with the average electorate near the top of the range.  This is a solution I found which doesn't split a ward, but has a lot of change from the existing seats and one incoherent sprawling rural seat:



Swindon East (yellow)
Swindon West (blue)
Devizes (red; the sprawling rural seat)
Salisbury (green)
Trowbridge & Warminster (purple)
Chippenham (turquoise)
North Wiltshire (pink)

There might be a possibility to split a ward to stay closer to the current arrangements, or perhaps to put a ward or two in a neighbouring county's constituency.

[YL]

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.

Yes, I think the Tories wouldn't be too unhappy with this, as although the new seat would presumably be notionally Labour the currently Tory marginals would get a bit safer.  Labour might prefer a map which gives a chance of 6 Labour seats in greater Bristol in an even year.

I did have the alternative below which keeps Filton & BS closer to how it is now and adds more of the Kingswood area to the Bristol/S Glos seat.  But I haven't done any notional calculations, so I don't know how differently it would work out.

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The mainland South East gets 89 seats, up 6.  (The Isle of Wight gets 2, so the region gets 91 in total.)

The entitlements of the counties and unitary authorities are

Kent (county council) 15.36
Medway 2.69
Kent total 18.05

East Sussex (county council) 5.65
Brighton & Hove 2.75
East Sussex total 8.40

West Sussex 8.81

Surrey 11.72

Hampshire (county council) 14.26
Southampton 2.19
Portsmouth 1.99
Hampshire total 18.44

West Berkshire 1.64
Reading 1.47
Wokingham 1.71
Bracknell Forest 1.18
Windsor & Maidenhead 1.47
Slough 1.20
Berkshire total 8.65

Buckinghamshire (unitary) 5.43
Milton Keynes 2.57
Buckinghamshire total 8.00

Oxfordshire 6.81

It's natural to give Kent 18 seats, Oxfordshire 7 and Buckinghamshire 8, an increase of one in every case.  In theory East Sussex could have 8 seats of its own with electorates all within about 20 of the upper limit, but I doubt anyone will try, so it gets combined with West Sussex for 17 seats, also up 1.

That leaves Hampshire, Surrey and Berkshire.  All can in principle be done on their own, but the average sizes needed are far enough from the quota that it's not that easy.  In my opinion (but there has been considerable discussion of this in another place) Surrey turns out to work OK on its own, but Hampshire and Berkshire are harder, so I'd be minded to give Surrey 12 seats, up 1, and Hampshire and Berkshire 27 between them, again up 1.  In the latter group, Portsmouth can continue to be treated separately, and it's also possible to split the Berkshire unitaries so that just West Berkshire is treated with Hampshire, with the other five giving a separate subregion.

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Like Tack, I chose to attempt a region for fun and I chose to do London, I don't expect it to be any good



It does seem like London needs a new seat due to population growth though

You’ve managed to make only safe seats out of Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, and Hammersmith & Fulham by the way.

At least in K & C and H & F that's not that unlikely, though, is it?  A return to the 1997-2010 arrangement where the Labour areas in northern Kensington are put with the areas in the current Westminster North seat, leaving a fairly safe Tory Kensington & Chelsea, seems quite likely to make a comeback.

London is tricky because it's been a bit unlucky with the allocation algorithm.  Its entitlement is quite a bit closer to 76 than to 75 but it only gets 75 seats, so the average seat size needs to be over 74,000, while the upper electorate limit is still the same as everywhere else.  There are also some large wards in some boroughs, and while splitting them is an option we don't have the data to do this yet.

One thing I'd avoid doing is crossing the Thames, except maybe within the borough of Richmond, and certainly not east of the City.

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This is my attempt at Kent:



There isn't a lot of change here except for the creation of a new seat, 18 on the map (and fairly obviously Tory).  This takes the Romney Marsh area from Folkestone & Hythe, the south and west of Ashford district and the east of Tunbridge Wells district.  (Ashford and Folkestone & Hythe are particularly oversized, so it makes sense to create the new seat in this area.)  There are a few knock-on effects absorbing excess electorate elsewhere, and I also decided that the minimal change re-arrangement of Maidstone and Faversham & Mid Kent didn't work very well, so decided to add the more urban wards to Maidstone and the rural wards currently in Maidstone to F & MK.

1. North Thanet
2. South Thanet
3. Canterbury
4. Dover
5. Folkestone & Hythe
6. Ashford
7. Sittingbourne & Sheppey
8. Faversham & Mid Kent
9. Gillingham
10. Chatham & Aylesford
11. Rochester & Strood
12. Gravesham
13. Dartford
14. Sevenoaks
15. Tonbridge
16. Maidstone
17. Tunbridge Wells
18. Tenterden & Dungeness

[YL]

Couldn't you combine the current Two Cities seat with some of Camden, and then add some of the Tory areas in Two Cities to the current Westminster North, thereby making the two a little less safe?

Perhaps, but the Commissions aren't supposed to take account of the likely results, so not unless there's some independent motivation for doing that.

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Yes, this was my first attempt at Wales:







... but that Meirionnydd Nant Conwy a Gogledd Maldwyn thing (no. 13) is not good, and it's not without issues in the south.

(There are a few tweaks I'd make now, but I haven't updated the picture.)

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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.

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How can I remove wards from constituencies as I go along?

Set them to "Unassigned" (at the top of the constituency list in Boundary Assistant).

Also, are there any estimates by polling district?

Not in general yet, but it's possible to find figures for some councils.

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Plans with new seats for Sussex and Surrey:



The new seat would be regarded as being whichever of 9 and 10 isn't the successor to the existing Mid Sussex.  Elsewhere, Littlehampton is separated from Bognor Regis and joins Arundel, Hastings & Rye and Eastbourne contract a little, and there is little change to the Brighton and Worthing area seats.



Seat 12, Dorking & Godalming, takes on parts of Mole Valley and South West Surrey and the southern end of the existing Guildford seat.  The Leatherhead seat, seat 7, is also effectively new.  Woking (3) becomes coterminous with its borough and Guildford (5) entirely contained within its.

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There are a number of options for a seven seat Oxfordshire, but eventually I settled on this one:



The new seat is Bicester & Woodstock (yellow).  Banbury loses Bicester and takes on the Chipping Norton area to compensate; this has the effect of forcing the Witney seat (purple) to cross the Thames and take on the Faringdon and Kingston Bagpuize areas, which is a bit unfortunate, but I think the rest of the seats work well enough to justify it.  Oxford West & Abingdon (turquoise) regains Oxford city centre from Oxford East (blue) and no doubt becomes safer for the Lib Dems, but the new seat would be Tory.

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Twitter rumors (AKA grain of salt)

Devonwall is not happening

But apparently there is a Devon-Somerset seat.  This isn't necessary -- both counties can be done on their own, though Devon is not easy -- so it will be interesting to see the justification.

A Devonwall not forced by the numbers would have been inviting pitchforks on a scale not seen since they suggested splitting Sutton Coldfield.

Cumbria-Lancashire seat because of losses in the NW. Wyre and Preston region particularly affected.

Cumbria/Lancashire is inevitable: Cumbria can't be done on its own and the regional approach means Lancs is the only option.

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And their website has crashed.  There must be more of us boundary geeks than I thought.

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From a first glance I think some areas have been done well -- I'm quite happy with what they've done in my own area for a start -- but there are some car crashes.  The NW looks particularly bad.

Opinions may change when I have a fuller look.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.