My alternative constituencies: Cumbria

Welcome to the North West England section of my series on alternative constituency boundaries for the 2018 Review. Like the North East of England, this region has two large rural counties at both ends (Cheshire and Cumbria) with the heavily urbanised Greater Manchester and Liverpool areas right in the middle.

In the northernmost part, the county of Cumbria, where I holidayed in the Lake District six years ago, the Boundary Commission's initial proposals have generally been rather sound and have considerable prior history behind them. However, I personally believe that the Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire parts should be separated as much as possible for restoring community identity (there is nothing I can do about the ex-Yorkshire Sedbergh part, unfortunately; it really should never have been moved there). This can be done relatively easily.

My alternative constituency proposals for Cumbria are:


Workington is abolished.
Penrith & Cockermouth succeeds Penrith & The Border and effectively recreates the 1918-50 constituency of the same name; I feel this is more recognisable than Penrith & Solway.
Westmorland succeeds Westmorland & Lonsdale by reuniting the eponymous county and removing ex-Lancashire parts from it and placing them back with an expanded Barrow-in-Furness where they actually belong.
Workington & Whitehaven succeeds Copeland, which was called Whitehaven until 1983. Unlike the BCE proposal it contains all of the Copeland area.

Next in this series: Lancashire.







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