My alternative proposals: Essex

Essex is the only county in the East Anglia region that must lose a seat, and revert to its 1997-2010 entitlement of 17 seats (which worked rather well; many of the current 18 seats in Essex have significant local transport issues in terms of getting from place to place).

The initial Boundary Commission proposals in Essex have been largely hit-and-miss, mostly 'miss' in the central and southern parts of Essex (Canvey Island, Chelmsford, Maldon, Southend-on-Sea etc.). I believe there is no longer any point in keeping 'Brentwood & Ongar' even though it is in quota, since the rail links from Brentwood lead via Shenfield to Chelmsford, not to Ongar, which no longer has a regular railway station in any case. Even before its closure, trains from Ongar went via Epping and Loughton (and on the heritage railway, only travel between Ongar and Epping), not Brentwood, and the same applies for key roads leading out of that area. Whenever possible, it is generally best to keep Essex constituencies within their local authorities as best as is possible, and therefore eliminate orphan wards to the extent allowed by the BCE's parameters.

I agree with the proposal to abolish the constituency of Witham, on the grounds of it not only being under quota but also for poor connections between some of its rural areas; for example, the Teys (Marks Tey and Great Tey) are much better linked with Colchester. I do not believe keeping Basildon (North) & Billericay is a good idea because splitting the town of Basildon is not useful for community cohesion purposes, and Billericay has considerably better links with Wickford. Also, Jaywick (Golf Green ward) should be placed with Harwich & Clacton, to which it is closely linked, not 'North East Essex' (really North Essex, as it was from 1997 to 2010).



In these proposals of mine:

Witham is abolished, with the actual town of Witham going into Maldon & Witham.
Billericay & Wickford succeeds Basildon & Billericay.
Basildon & Stanford-le-Hope succeeds Basildon South & Thurrock East (Stanford-le-Hope is the largest town in the small area of 'Thurrock East')
Grays Thurrock has the same boundaries as the current Thurrock constituency; the name has been changed to reflect the fact it does not contain the entire Thurrock council area and the fact that Thurrock is not a town but rather an alternative name for Grays.
Brentwood succeeds Brentwood & Ongar.
Canvey Island & Benfleet succeeds Castle Point and now contains North Benfleet as well as South Benfleet.
Maldon & Witham succeeds Maldon.
Rayleigh succeeds Rayleigh & Wickford.
Harlow & Epping succeeds Harlow.
Loughton succeeds Epping Forest.
Harwich & Clacton succeeds Clacton.
North Essex succeeds Harwich & North Essex, without the actual town of Harwich; the north-east compass point of Essex is covered by Harwich & Clacton hence why I have not adopted the name North East Essex in these proposals.

Next in this series: Cambridgeshire & Norfolk.

Comments

  1. Steven6 October 2016 at 15:39

    Interesting taking Epping back in with Harlow, pre 1974 they were together, leaving Loughton as the largest town in the Forest area, which it is even now but having Epping Forest without Epping would be strange.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My analysis of the Swedish general election of 2022

The Swedish general election of 2022 generated some surprising results, despite also averting pollsters' predictions significantly. The last three years in particular proved to be a rough ride for the Social Democrat led governments of Stefan Lofven and Magdalena Andersson respectively. Although Sweden's laxer approach to the COVID-19 pandemic (compared to most countries in Europe, which imposed lockdowns during much of 2020 and 2021, an approach that arguably caused more problems than it solved) proved effective, Mr Lofven's desire to lift the austerity tax (which only affected a wealthy minority, similar in nature to the wealth tax initiative of former French President Francois Hollande) and to join NATO proved contentious, with two of the Social Democrats' former coalition partners (the Swedish Greens and Swedish Left Party, who had both pulled out of confidence and supply) unsurprisingly voting against Swedish accession to NATO membership (all other parties in the R
Read more

On the 2020 Serbian election: Why a boycott will only worsen things there

First of all, I apologise for the recent hiatus; however elections are still postponed or on hold in many countries, including the UK. Serbia, however, was able to proceed with its 2020 general election amidst this crisis. Its overall result proved reminiscent of Hungarian elections under Viktor Orban's tenure (2010-present), since the leading national-conservative coalition, the SNS (Progressive Party of Serbia) coalition led by Serbian President Aleksander Vucic (Ana Brnabic is the Serbian Prime Minister, and the first woman and openly homosexual person to hold that position), polled 61.6% of the vote, giving them as many as 191 seats out of 250 and a majority of as high as 132, almost unheard of in any country with proportional representation. Press freedom has endured significant curbs since President Vucic first came into power as Serbian PM in 2012 (he became President of Serbia in 2017), as have civil liberties of Serbs in general. Nepotism and corruption in the Serbian
Read more

On the Spanish regional elections of 2023-a warning for progressives

The Spanish regional elections of 2023, especially those in the "Empty Spain" regions far west of the federal capital of Madrid and prosperous yet famously rebellious Catalonia, resulted in a sharp shift towards conservatism and conservative populism. Both Partido Popular (PP, Spain's equivalent of the Conservatives) and Vox (the Spanish equivalent of Reform UK/UKIP) made sweeping gains in all regions, notably taking overall control in Madrid (normally an impossible feat under Spain's PR system), more than doubling their seat total in Valencia to top the poll there, and wresting control of Asturias, La Rioja, and Cantabria from the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE, Spain's equivalent of Labour) and the Cantabrian Regionalist Party respectively. Under the tenure of Pedro Sanchez, the current PSOE-Podemos coalition is floundering and has not done much to ensure Spain's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic since the last restrictions ended in 2021, and P
Read more