Special Full Council 21 November, 2016
Special Full Council - 21 November, 2016 Review of Parliamentary constituencies in England Introduction – Leader & Head of Paid Service This Special Full Council - • Opportunity for Councillors, Partners & Public to discuss proposals • Full Council to decide whether to submit a response to the consultation from the Local Government Boundary Commission (deadline of 5 December 2016) 2
Special Full Council - 21 November, 2016 Review of Parliamentary constituencies in England What is the 2018 Review? • A Parliamentary boundary review examines the existing constituencies and makes recommendations for any changes that might be needed to make sure constituencies comply with legal requirements. Those legal requirements are intended to keep the number of electors in each constituency broadly equal, whilst also taking into account factors such as local community ties. • For the 2018 Review, the Commission must make its final report and recommendations in September 2018. Those final recommendations will be informed by a series of open consultations with the public, to capture the knowledge and expertise of local people as part of the process of refining our initial proposals. Why a review? • Parliament has specified that the 2018 Review must reduce the number of constituencies in the UK to 600 (from the current 650) . As independent and impartial bodies, the Parliamentary Boundary Commissions are required to review and recommend where the boundaries of those new constituencies should be, with the law requiring that every new constituency (except four specified island constituencies) must have roughly the same number of electors: no fewer than 71,031 and no more than 78,507. 3
Review of Parliamentary constituencies in England What does this mean for England? The law requires the 600 constituencies to be allocated to England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales using a specific distribution formula known as the ‘Sainte-Lague method’, and the number of Parliamentary electors as at 1 December 2015. Applying this means the number of constituencies in England will reduce from 533 to 501 in the 2018 Review. This produces the following distribution within England: * figures exclude one current Isle of Wight constituency and its electorate, and two proposed Isle of Wight constituencies, which are protected under the Act and removed from the calculation to allocate constituencies. 4
Review of Parliamentary constituencies in England What does this mean for the South West? The South West has been allocated 53 constituencies – a reduction of two from the current number. Our proposals leave nine of the 55 existing constituencies unchanged. In North Somerset, both the existing constituencies are unchanged. In Bristol, two of the four existing constituencies are unaltered, while the remaining two are changed only by the transfer of one ward. In Swindon, we have made changes to realign constituency boundaries with the new ward boundaries. More substantial change is required, however, in other parts of the region. 5
Review of Parliamentary constituencies in England What does this mean for Devon & Cornwall? “In order to develop initial proposals in which all the constituency electorates were within 5% of the electoral quota, and to facilitate the reduction in constituencies outlined above, it was necessary to alter the boundaries of three of the existing constituencies (East Devon, St Austell and Newquay, and Torridge and West Devon). The Tiverton and Honiton constituency has been altered to realign constituency boundaries with local government ward boundaries. Our initial proposals leave the existing constituencies of Exeter, North Devon, and Torbay unchanged. It is not possible to propose a whole number of constituencies with electorates within 5% of the electoral quota within the County of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Therefore, a key consideration when developing proposals in this sub-region was identifying the most appropriate point at which to propose the necessary cross-county constituency between Cornwall and Devon. We consider that the most suitable point at which to cross the boundary is in the north of both counties, rather than traversing the River Tamar between Plymouth and Saltash, at which point the river, notwithstanding the bridge, presents a far more significant boundary between the two counties.” 6
Review of Parliamentary constituencies in England What does this mean for Torridge? “We propose a constituency named Bideford, Bude and Launceston, which reflects the names of the three largest towns in the proposed constituency. The constituency stretches along the South West Coastal Path from Port Isaac Bay to Bideford Bar and is composed of nine wards (comprising 30,431 electors) that are currently included in the North Cornwall constituency and 18 wards (comprising 41,034 electors) that are currently in the Torridge and West Devon constituency. The A39 provides a strong communication link along the north coast of the constituency, linking Bideford in Devon with Bude and Camelford in Cornwall.”. The major changes are confined to the Central Devon, South West Devon, and Torridge and West Devon constituencies. The five remaining Torridge district wards not included in the proposed Bideford, Bude and Launceston constituency in a revised Central Devon constituency - This means that the proposed Central Devon constituency will contain parts of four Devon districts (Mid Devon, Teignbridge, Torridge, and West Devon). 7
Review of Parliamentary constituencies in England What does this mean for Torridge? 8
Review of Parliamentary constituencies in England What does this mean for Torridge? 9
Review of Parliamentary constituencies in England What does this mean for Torridge? 10
2 – Proposed Bideford, Bude and Launceston Constituency 11
13 – Proposed Central Devon Constituency 12
Special Full Council - 21 November, 2016 Review of Parliamentary constituencies in England Special Full Council • Opportunity for Councillors, Partners & Public to discuss proposals • Full Council to decide whether to submit a response to the consultation from the Local Government Boundary Commission (deadline of 5 December 2016) 13
Recommend
More recommend
