New Constituency Boundaries for England and Wales 2006

This page first posted 5 February 2006

THIS PAGE REFERS TO THE REVISED BOUNDARIES PUBLISHED IN 2006.
SEE ALSO NEW BOUNDARIES 2013 (PUBLISHED IN 2011).

During 2005-6, the Boundary Commission for England and the Boundary Commission for Wales have been publishing their final recommendations for the new constituencies boundaries. (Scotland already had a review in the previous parliament.) These boundaries will take effect at the next General Election. The final recommendations were published in July 2006, and our thanks go to both Boundary Commissions for making the full ward details available.

We have calculated implied results for the 2005 election as if it had been run under the new boundaries. These implied results, unlike the earlier provisional results, use the results in the full set of 9,000 local authority wards in England and Wales. These ward results are used to determine how evenly, or not, political support is distributed throughout each old seat. This then implies how the old seat's votes should be divided up amongst the new seats which take its voters. A further article describes the calculation method, and there is a list of the Local Councils and Elections used.

The full implied results for 2005 under the new boundaries can be seen in two formats:

A flat-format text file (78k). Format details are in the historical data section.
Browsable web-style page (402k) for England.
Browsable web-style page (32k) for Wales.

History of revisions. The data presented has been revised at various times.

5 February 2006 Initial version.
19 February 2006 Correction of errors in both data and coding, which caused some seats to be shown with incorrect electorates and implied results. Areas affected included the West Midlands, North London and Humberside. In particular, Birmingham Yardley should be predicted as a Lib Dem hold, not a Labour gain.
29 May 2006 Revised recommendations by the Boundary Commission for England have updated eight seats in the Greater Manchester area (Ashton under Lyne; Denton and Reddish; Hazel Grove; Heywood and Middleton; Oldham East and Saddleworth; Oldham West and Royton; Rochdale; Stockport) along with revised names for the new constituencies "Denton and Reddish", "Worsley and Eccles South" and "Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford".
30 July 2006 Final recommendations by the Boundary Commission for England have now been made. All site predictions are now based on the new boundaries.
22 October 2006 Complete dataset of local election results created and available in the Ward pages.
28 October 2006 New implied results based on local election results published.
18 November 2006 City of Peterborough council revised to use 2006 results.
28 April 2007 Correction of results in wards which had unopposed candidates. These wards were being handled incorrectly. Two seats in the South West were affected, Devon West and Torridge should be a Lib Dem gain and Taunton Deane should be a Lib Dem hold.
15 September 2007 Switched from 2003 to 2007 election results for the City Of York council to get a better description of York politics. Second place in York Outer now Con not Lab.
24 May 2008 Corrected errors in City of Leeds election results. Leeds North West now predicted as Lib Dem hold, not Labour win.
29 March 2009 Made a number of small corrections to the actual 2005 election results data set. No impact on actual or implied winners.
24 May 2009 Made another 10 small corrections to the actual 2005 election results data set. No impact on actual or implied winners.
31 January 2010 Switched Poole Borough council election from 2003 to 2007 to get a better view of Dorset politics. No change to predicted seats.
27 February 2010 Corrected party affiliation of Lib Dem candidate in Portsmouth St Jude's ward. No change to predicted seats.

Changes in numbers of seats

Regions can have either lost or gained seats. The table shows both the changes to total seats and the changes to party totals (as at 5 May 2005). Click on the Region links to see a summary of all the new seats in the region, with changes highlighted. Click on the Ward Breakdown links to see, for each district ward, its old seat, its new seat, and its recent local election result.

Region	Old Seats	New Seats	Change	CON	LAB	LIB	NAT	Ward Breakdown
North	36	35	-1	0	-1	0	0	710 wards
Lancashire	31	31	0	+1	-1	0	0	469 wards
Greater Manchester	28	27	-1	0	-1	0	0	287 wards
Yorkshire	31	30	-1	0	-2	+1	0	405 wards
Humberside	32	31	-1	0	-1	0	0	434 wards
West Midlands	29	28	-1	0	-1	0	0	239 wards
East Midlands	36	38	2	+2	0	0	0	688 wards
Severn	36	36	0	+1	-1	0	0	744 wards
Wales	40	40	0	0	+1	0	-1	891 wards
East Anglia	34	36	2	+1	+1	0	0	817 wards
Essex	35	36	1	0	+1	0	0	665 wards
West	28	30	2	+1	0	+1	0	599 wards
North London	37	36	-1	+1	-2	0	0	400 wards
South London	37	37	0	-1	+1	0	0	373 wards
South West	29	31	2	0	0	+2	0	692 wards
South	37	38	1	0	0	+1	0	695 wards
South East	33	33	0	+4	-4	0	0	614 wards
Total	569	573	4	+10	-10	+5	-1	9,722

These boundary changes result in a net loss of Labour's parliamentary majority of 24.

Disappearing Seats

These eight old seats, although they do not vanish into space, are particularly fragmented after the boundary changes and do not form the largest part of any new seat. The current MPs for those seats will have to find an alternative neighbouring seat before the next election.

Old seat	Current MP	County/Area
Sunderland South	Chris Mullin	Newcastle area (North)
Knowsley North and Sefton East	George Howarth	Merseyside (Lancashire)
Eccles	Ian Stewart	Central Manchester (Greater Manchester)
Normanton	Ed Balls	West Yorkshire (Yorkshire)
Barnsley West and Penistone	Michael Clapham	South Yorkshire (Humberside)
Birmingham Selly Oak	Lynne Jones	Birmingham (West Midlands)
Brent South	Dawn Butler	Brent (North London)
Hornchurch	James Brokenshire	Havering (North London)

Seats changing hands

We calculate that the following seats would have had a different outcome at the last general election had the new boundaries been in force then. This is the answer to a hypothetical question, so cannot be proved, but it is our best current estimate.

Old seat	Current MP	New seat	Implied Majority	County/Area
Caernarfon	Hywel Williams	Arfon	255	Gwynedd (Wales)
Brent East	Sarah Teather	Brent Central	8,767	Brent (North London)
Croydon Central	Andrew Pelling	Croydon Central	221	Croydon (South London)
Devon West and Torridge	Geoffrey Cox	Devon West and Torridge	52	Devon (South West)
Enfield North	Joan Ryan	Enfield North	275	Enfield (North London)
Finchley and Golders Green	Rudi Vis	Finchley and Golders Green	281	Barnet (North London)
Gillingham	Paul Clark	Gillingham and Rainham	83	Kent (South East)
Guildford	Anne Milton	Guildford	105	Surrey (South)
Hammersmith and Fulham	Greg Hands	Hammersmith	4,733	Hammersmith and Fulham (North London)
Hampstead and Highgate	Glenda Jackson	Hampstead and Kilburn	621	Camden (North London)
Lancaster and Wyre	Ben Wallace	Lancaster and Fleetwood	6,790	Lancashire (Lancashire)
Milton Keynes North East	Mark Lancaster	Milton Keynes North	1,465	Buckinghamshire (Essex)
Northampton South	Brian Binley	Northampton South	2,155	Northamptonshire (East Anglia)
Medway	Robert Marshall-Andrews	Rochester and Strood	667	Kent (South East)
Selby	John Grogan	Selby and Ainsty	771	North Yorkshire (Yorkshire)
Sittingbourne and Sheppey	Derek Wyatt	Sittingbourne and Sheppey	56	Kent (South East)
Staffordshire Moorlands	Charlotte Atkins	Staffordshire Moorlands	1,340	Staffordshire (Severn)
Thanet South	Stephen Ladyman	Thanet South	588	Kent (South East)
Wirral West	Stephen Hesford	Wirral West	184	Merseyside (Lancashire)
Vale of York	Anne McIntosh	York Outer	2,262	North Yorkshire (Yorkshire)

Newly created seats

This list of 12 newly created seats provides a rare opportunity for prospective parliamentary candidates to get selected for a winnable seat which has no incumbent.

New seat	Party	Implied Majority	County/Area
Broadland	Con	514	Norfolk (East Anglia)
Chelsea and Fulham	Con	10,066	Hammersmith and Fulham (North London)
Chippenham	Lib	3,841	Wiltshire (West)
Derbyshire Mid	Con	5,899	Derbyshire (East Midlands)
Devon Central	Con	4,546	Devon (South West)
Filton and Bradley Stoke	Con	1,461	Bristol area (West)
Kenilworth and Southam	Con	10,559	Warwickshire (East Midlands)
Meon Valley	Con	2,089	Hampshire (South)
Northamptonshire South	Con	10,862	Northamptonshire (East Anglia)
St Austell and Newquay	Lib	6,037	Cornwall (South West)
Witham	Con	7,286	Essex (Essex)
Wyre and Preston North	Con	15,117	Lancashire (Lancashire)

Local election results

As part of the process of making more accurate implied 2005 results, we have built up a dataset of local election results. This was a big project and is now complete. The local election results are visible in the Ward Breakdown pages in the table of regions above.

Our special thanks both to Andrew Teale, whose website is very useful for the 2003 and 2004 elections, and to Richard Kimber for his invaluable archive at Keele. We are also grateful to all those district and borough councils who have made their results available on the web, and to those council officers and councillors who have responded to additional requests for results.