Comments on: Elmet and Rothwell

By: Dalek

Dalek — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:13:00 +0000

I think the arrangement of Hull and Haltenprice is odd.

Hull and Haltenprice (West Hull surburbia – Cottingham to Hessle) would have met the quota for three constituencies.

The Hull seats don’t include the two Cottingham wards but do include two wards beyond Hull & Haltenprice (Dale and Holderness SW).

I would put the form three Hull and Haltenprice constituencies as follows -

Hull East (all of East Hull except Drypool, Marfleet and Southcoates West). That includes the East Hull wards of Kings Park and Bransholme (currently in Hull North).

Hull North & Haltenprice (Avenue, Beverley, Bicknell, Newland, Orchard Park and University and the 5 Haltenprice wards from East Yorkshire).

Hull Riverside (the 9 remaining wards of Hull stretching along the Humber from Derringham and Pickering in the West to Marfleet in the East).

This would mean that the Beverley & Holderness constituency would need to be retained but that would be a reasonable price to pay for a more logical Hull as opposed to the dogs breakfast presented.

I would call a constituency based on the current Yorkshire East….Bridlington & Pocklington.

By: Pete Whitehead

Pete Whitehead — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:19:04 +0000

I’ve just got round to looking at the map for Yorkshire and there’s some real horrors. I assumed North Yorkshire would stay unmolested but they’ve obviously had to take wards from there to avoid splitting wards in West Yorkshire. I must say (not for the first or last time I fear) that splitting wards would definately have been the lesser of two evils

By: richard

richard — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:08:57 +0000

It looks like you could retain the old Elmet & Rothwell and simply add Burmantofts ward to the old Leeds East.

Thereby keeping an urban and rural split, which would make more sense than the new Leeds NE.

I wonder if the Conservatives will argue for it at the recommendation.

Though they would then have to say that Rothwell goes nicely with Wetherby when at the last review they were probably saying the opposite

By: Shaun Bennett

Shaun Bennett — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:37:33 +0000

Am I right in thinking that the new Leeeds North East is effectively the old Leeds East seat minus Temple Newsam and plus Harewood and Wetherby?

Given that the old Leeds North East now seems to form the basis of what looks to me like as close to a safe Tory seat in Leeds that you are ever going to get (the new Leeds North West and Nidderdale), it looks to me like the Tories are far and away the winners here with one seat that will be theirs most of the time and another that would be theirs when they are winning.

Of course, the downside is the loss of marginal Elmet and Rothwell (Leeds South East) to Labour.

By: Paul D

Paul D — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:35:04 +0000

Yes, and I’d be rather surprised if the Leeds NE name survived for the proposed new seat, given how much the residents of Wetherby hate being “part of Leeds” rather than a town in their own right – locals may remember around 20 years ago there was huge opposition to road signs saying “Leeds City Council welcome you to Wetherby” as they didn’t want the association.

By: richard

richard — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:08:15 +0000

The new Leeds NE would be Labour in an even year and spreads from Wetherby through the outer council estates into the inner city.

There might be some more Conservative votes in Seacroft and Gipton though if the Conservatives actually campaign there.

Which is one good thing of such radical changes – parties will have to make a wider effort rather than in the same old wards.

Incidentally the new Leeds NE contains nothing of the old Leeds NE.

Instead 3/4 of the old Leeds NE goes into the new Leeds NW although only 1/4 of the old Leeds NW does.

By: Joe James B

Joe James B — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:25:57 +0000

So Harewood and Wetherby are stuck in a seat which Labour would probably hold in a bad year?

By: Paul D

Paul D — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:07:17 +0000

Joe, adding the 2010 Local results the new Leeds NE would have voted something like this…

Lab 19252
Con 18072
Lib 9317

With these being local results I suspect it marginally disproportionately inflates the Labour vote (immigrants who can’t vote in a General Election) so it would have been tight

By: Joe James B

Joe James B — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 16:45:55 +0000

I am disappointed to see this change.
A number of historic names are disappearing in these redrawn seats.
If we could at least retain some of the names even if the boundaries change that could be something to deal with on the appeal/discussion process.

Paul – do you have an estimate of how Leeds NE voted in 2010?

By: Paul D

Paul D — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:12:13 +0000

Sadly we lose an historic name in elmet, with the northern wards moving into the new Leeds NE and the southern wards (Garforth, Kippax, Rothwell) moving into Leeds SE