Monday 13 June 2011

Back to the Future

Those clever people at Democratic Audit have now published the full detail of their investigations into what the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act will mean for Cornwall. It looks like a return to some old constituency boundaries, and a first-time leap across the Tamar.

Democratic Audit thinks the new-look constituencies will be Falmouth & Camborne, Truro & St Austell, Bodmin & Newquay, St Ives and South East Cornwall. There would also be a cross-border constituency called Torridge & Tintagel. Democratic Audit says:
"From the point of view of Cornwall, the immediate interest (until the Act can be amended) is in finding a least-worst option. The worst option would be for the border to be crossed more than once, for instance a seat in the south adding some tightly defined areas (Saltash and possibly Torpoint) to Plymouth plus another border crossing in the north. The BCE is unlikely to follow such an option.
The basic question then becomes south or north. One commonly discussed option is to cross the Tamar in the Plymouth urban area. One needs to remember that we are talking about nearly half a constituency (32-37,000 electors). The four wards of Saltash amount to 13,315. Taking in Torpoint and the hinterland wards of St Germans and Rame brings us up to 27,000, and then one would need probably Gunnislake and Kelly Bray (and possibly Callington). On the Plymouth side, the wards would probably be St Budeaux, Devonport, Ham and Stoke. It would be a pretty incongruous seat, combining some very urban and very rural areas whose communities have rather little to do with each other (both may share links with central Plymouth).
In some ways, crossing in the north is the lesser of two evils. It would bring communities with something in common together (tourism, agriculture, moorlands) and one could at least cross from one bit of the constituency to another without paying a toll!
A northern crossing would also involve less of a radical redistribution of the constituencies in the rest of Cornwall (see below). It enables a reconstruction, more or less, of the pattern that existed before the 2010 boundary changes and the sixth seat. Abolishing South East Cornwall would lead to large shifts in the rest of the county and the combination of unfamiliar towns in the same constituency.
Note: Cornwall UA wards are occasionally split between current constituencies. Such split wards are listed below with the current constituency to which the majority of its electorate belongs, although the number of electors accurately reflects the allocation of partial wards. The new model does not split any wards."


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