The Boundary Commission are proposing new constituency boundaries across the country.
You can download their proposals for the Eastern region here.
Here’s the key section for our area:
53. We propose to include three wards of
the Borough of Southend-on-Sea (Milton,
St Luke?s, and Victoria) in our Southend West
constituency. This requires the inclusion of the
towns of Hawkwell and Hockley in an enlarged
Rochford and Southend East constituency.
We propose to include three additional wards
of the Borough of Basildon (Pitsea North
West, Pitsea South East, and Vange), and the
Rettendon and Runwell ward of the Borough
of Chelmsford, in the Rayleigh and Wickford
constituency.
So the constituency of Rayleigh and Wickford (which currently has Mark Francois as MP) would lose Hawkwell and Hockley, but gain parts of Pitsea and Vange…..
Erm, on the face of it that doesn’t make much sense. I can understand Hockley and Hawkwell, but isn’t there a big boundary line between Rayleigh/Wickford and our Greater Basildon located neighbours, I thinks it’s called the A127! In all seriousness what is the reasoning behind this and will it have any impact…?
From the map it looks like Ashindon, Canewdon and Hullbridge will also be saying goodbye to Rayleigh and Wickford.
As ever Hullbridge is missing, but just to clarify it too has been removed from the Rayleigh & Wickford seat and has been transfered to the new look Rochford and Southend East constituency along with Hawkwell and Hockley as already mentioned.
Can’t really see Rayleigh and Wickford with Pitsea and Vange. Who the hell decided on that?
Well, the government is proposing a cut in the number of MPs in the UK., so the boundary commission has to draw up new boundaries and carve Essex up into areas of equal population.
The geography of Essex makes this quite tricky, with several peninsulas.
You really have to start off with Castle Point. that’s no longer big enough to be a constituency by itself. So you either expand the constituency eastwards, to take in a bit of Leigh, northwards, to take in the southern part of Rayleigh, or westawards to take Pitsea.
The boundary commission have decided to do the first…
So Castle Point takes a bit of Leigh from Southend West.
To compensate, Southend West has to take some of the Rochford and Southend East constituency.
To compensate for that Rochford and Southend and Southend East has to expand to take Hawkwell, Hockley and Hullbridge.
So Rayleigh and Wickford constituency is now too small, so it takes some Pitsea and Vange.
These are only proposals anyway, and might well get changed.
Agree Mike, it is just ridiculous, Why not Billericay for instance it’s on the way and would seem logial, or Woodham Ferrers?
Just looks a little bit like, right who’s going to have Pitsea and Vange? oh yeah Rayleigh and Wickford, give it to them, I mean P&V are not even on the right side of Basildon, closer to Canvey than Rayleigh or Wickford…
Chris, this is obviously a serious matter, as I would think the political views of those of Pitsea & Vange may differ somewhat from the people of Rayleigh.
Kris, it is certainly a matter to consider seriously. There are pros and cons.
I’m not saying that a Rayleigh-Wickford-Pitsea-Vange-Hanningfield agglomeration is the best answer. But it would make the constituency a less safe Conservative seat, which might cause the powers that be to pay a bit more attention to Rayleigh’s interests…