Here is the transcript of an email sent to me from the BCE explaining their proposals for Sutton Coldfield and Erdington
Dear Mr Hillcox,
Thank you for your e-mail of 2 January, set out below for ease of reference, which was forwarded to me for a reply. You will recall that I telephoned you a few days ago to discuss your concerns, but I promised to also let you have a written response as well.
As I explained to you, the constraints of the legislation that governs our work require us now to conduct a general review of constituency boundaries across the whole of England at the same time. The effect of this is to make even more of a practical necessity the Commission’s previous practice of drawing up initial proposals based on desk research prior to consultation to obtain the views of local people. This contrasts with the approach the Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) take, where – in essence – it seeks the views of local people on where any new boundaries should be drawn without having first developed initial proposals of its own (beyond the base number of councillors and wards that any new boundaries should encompass). This is reflected in the wording of the different legislation that governs reviews conducted by the two bodies. As a larger organisation, conducting a review in relation to a much smaller administrative area at any one time, the LGBCE is able to take such an approach, whereas it would not be feasible for the Commission to follow the same procedure whilst still delivering a review within the statutory timeframe.
Together with this, at the outset of a review, the Commission and its staff cannot be expected to have detailed knowledge of where local ties exist across the entirety of England, so in many cases, the Commission’s initial proposals are based primarily on an analysis of the maps, looking particularly at local physical geography and infrastructure. These are usually a good indicator of where any local ties run, but, of course, sometimes the situation ‘on the ground’ may be very different. This is where the multi-stage consultation process at the heart of a Parliamentary constituencies review is so important. That is, local people can use the initial consultation period to let the Commission know how different they believe the local ties to be from what the maps may suggest. The Commission are then able to take that into account and revise their proposals as appropriate, leading to a further round of public consultation on those revised proposals before establishing final recommendations to Government and Parliament.
Applying this to the Erdington and Sutton Coldfield constituencies as initially proposed, in the absence of detailed local knowledge of the area, an examination of the maps does not seem to give any clear indication of a strong tie between the New Hall ward and the rest of Sutton Coldfield to the north, as there appears to be much open ground between large parts of the two areas, and the general trend of the road infrastructure appears to be more east/west (and therefore between Walmley/Minworth and the Erdington area) than north/south. In our telephone conversation you also mentioned the confusion about the ‘swapping’ of the New Hall and Kingstanding wards within Sutton Coldfield constituency. On this point, by contrast with what I have just said about how the relationship between New Hall and Sutton Coldfield appears on the map, there appears to be a strong continuity of urban development across the boundary between the Kingstanding and Sutton Vesey wards, which would generally indicate a reasonably strong level of local ties between the two. I must stress that all of that reasoning relies on an analysis of what appears to be the physical geography of the areas, and it may well be demonstrated by evidence from local people that the community ties in fact operate rather differently from what might be assumed from that physical geography. I am, of course, aware of the level of response to our initial proposals generated in the area, though we are not yet in a position to comment on their content.
I hope this has helped to clarify both why the Commission procedure for a review is as it currently is, and also the geographic factors that underlay the Commission’s initial proposals for Sutton Coldfield and Erdington constituencies. We will, of course, consider very carefully all of the representations that have been made in relation to local ties in those areas, and take those into account before producing our revised proposals later this year. Before then, we will be publishing all the representations received on our initial proposals. This is not another opportunity to comment on our own initial proposals, but if you feel that a representation made by somebody else is incorrect, there is a four-week statutory consultation period following publication for comment to be made to us on that.
On the request for an internal review of BCE procedure, I can confirm that the Commission is planning in any event to conduct an analysis of the whole of the process at the conclusion of the review, in order to identify both aspects of good practice and areas that we may need to improve upon for future reviews. I will ensure that your views are fed into that process.
Yours sincerely,
Keep New Hall in Sutton Coldfield Constituency 