2018 Boundary Review Revised Proposals published
The Boundary Commission for England (BCE) today publishes proposals for new Parliamentary constituency boundaries as it opens its third and final consultation (17 October 2017).
Following a decision by Parliament to reduce the number of constituencies in the UK to 600 from 650, and to ensure that the number of electors in each constituency is equal, the BCE has been asked to make independent recommendations about where the boundaries of English constituencies should be.
An initial 12-week consultation was held in the autumn last year, giving the public the first chance to view and comment on BCE’s plans, followed by a second consultation in the Spring of this year. Over 25,000 public responses were received during these consultations. Based on what the public have told us about their local communities, we have decided to revise over half of our initial proposals.
From today (17 October), people can go to the BCE’s website, www.bce2018.org.uk, to view the new plans we have published. All the public comments we received during the first two consultations are also published on the website.
People have until 11 December to have their say.
Sam Hartley, Secretary to the Boundary Commission for England, said:
“We’re delighted with the huge number of comments on our initial proposals that we’ve received from members of the public, many of which contain valuable evidence about people’s local communities. Based on what people have said to us, we have revised more than half of our initial proposals. The new map of the country we publish today is, we think, close to the best set of Parliamentary constituencies we can achieve, based on the rules to which we work and the evidence given to us by local citizens. But we still want people to tell us what they think of this latest map before we make our final recommendations to Parliament next year. It’s so important to have your say in this fundamental democratic exercise.”
Following this third and final consultation, the Boundary Commissioners will consider all the evidence submitted throughout the process. They will then decide on their final recommendations before submitting them to Parliament in September 2018.
If agreed by Parliament, the new constituencies will be in use at the next scheduled General Election in 2022.
You can find the full press release here.