SHROPSHIRE COULD lose an MP under plans to redraw constituencies and cut the number of Commons seats from 650 to 600.
The coalition Government wants all constituencies to contain about 75,000 voters and says boundaries will be redrawn by the Boundary Commission in time for the next election in 2015.
The Electoral Reform Society has now released its own map of possible new parliamentary constituencies.
Under its scheme the county’s five current constituencies – Telford, The Wrekin, North Shropshire, Ludlow and Shrewsbury & Atcham – would be renamed and reduced to just four.
Oswestry & Market Drayton would be made up of all the present North Shropshire electoral wards, plus parts of The Wrekin.
Shrewsbury and Bayston Hill would comprise parts of the existing Shrewsbury & Atcham and Ludlow constituencies.
Parts of The Wrekin, Ludlow and Telford would be served by an MP for Madeley & Bridgnorth.
And, a new seat called Telford Dawley & Oakengates/Donnington would also be created.
But Telford Labour MP David Wright said: “The speculative proposals by the Electoral Society are nonsense – and the danger with the Government’s approach is that local communities will not be allowed to have any input in the process.
“That is appalling, and that is the crucial issue – so much for the coalition’s commitment to listening to local people,” he added.
Shrewsbury and Atcham Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski said it would be “an outrage and simply unacceptable” to cut the number of seats in Shropshire.
“The county is actually under-represented in Parliament,” he said.
“If you compare the sizes of the Shropshire seats they are vastly bigger in size than most of the Welsh and inner-city area seats.”
He added: “I am sure that all Shropshire MPs will work together to fight cuts to any seats in the county.”
Ludlow MP Philip Dunne said he supported a reduction in the number of MPs to make Parliament “a fitter, leaner place”.
But added: “I am firmly of the view that Shropshire deserves five MPs. The county’s growing population justifies five MPs.”
By London Reporter Sunita Patel
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Fingers crossed that it’s David Wright!
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I’ve just had a look at the reports and I can’t see how seperating places like Brookside, Madeley and Woodside from the rest of the Telford and lumping them with Bridgnorth and a vast rural area is a good idea.
If the population of the borough is around 160,000 why don’t they cut it roughly in half to get the deired population level? Unless it is a ploy to dilute the traditional Labour voting areas by placing them with a more affluent Tory majority in the rural areas.
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What, you mean split Telford in two and ADD a constituency? And acquire a second Labour MP in an area which, as it stands, would be Tory today if UKIP had not split the vote at the last election?
I think that the objective of this project is to REDUCE the number of MPs (good) and preferably the number of Labour MPs at the same time (better).
I’m not sure either, how adding Brookside, etc. to Bridgnorth could be seen as diluting the Labour vote. There’s hordes of Labour voters in South Telford – chances are that they’ll swamp the area’s voting demographic and dilute the rustic Tory vote, turning Bridgnorth into a safe red seat!
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Telford is already split into two, the Telford consticuency which features the southern section of the designated new town area with a population of about 75,000 and the Much larger Wrekin constituency featuring the northern parts of the town, the rural parts of the borough and a few parts of East Shrops that are lumped in for good measure. If you split Telford and Wrekin district and returned the East shrops areas into wider rural constituencies you would keep the focus of the urban/rural seats rather than dilute the focus and keep everything within its administrative boundaries ensuring things are left relatively neat and tidy.
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you hit the nail on the head grey thats exactly what it is a plan to make cities more conservative minded, its jerrymandering and corruption of the worst kind, just like the old tories of the 90′s this lot are crooked and sleezy
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Surely this is what the tories want, would eb better Telford having its own Seat using the urban conibation and the rural fringes into the other rural seats, Madeley Dawley Oakengates and Donnington Hadley should be together with newport off into north shrops and wellington and all the rural areas split between north or shrewsbury, dont try and gerry mander the elctorate just to get rid of the labour voters
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that looks good to me
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Well its one less to pay!
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Well to be honest, living in Woodside and having bought my own house a few years, I’d be happier not being part of Telford.
I would prefer it if Woodside were to be incorporated into Shrewsbury or, preferably, Ludlow. It would boost the value of my property and renew pride in the local area as we assumed the mantle of Ludlow’s gastronomic reputation. I’d be more than happy to host a “foodie fair” in Woodside if that were to be the condition of being part of Ludlow.
Time for a referendum to gauge support for the idea, I think.
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Do like they do in Sutton Hill where those with views above their station live in Sutton Heights.
How about Upper Ironbridge?
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Upper Ironbridge? Or even Ironbridge Heights. That’s a spiffing idea Simon, simply splendid.
Yes, I can see it now: Upper Ironbridge in the constituency of Ludlow.
Yes, top hole, that certainly does make the juices flow!
Toodle pip!
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“Upper Ironbridge” – isn’t that the little estate on the old pit bank at the back of Woodside School…no sorry, that’s the “The Keep, Ironbridge”?
When they were selling those places the sales brochure included a map showing Ironbridge Road and Ironbridge bypass (no mention of Woodside), and said that the nearest primary schools and doctors were in Ironbridge and Madeley.
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This report has clearly been written in London offices without any knowledge of the lie of the land. It is a major discredit to the Electoral Reform Society.
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Another 50 less fiddling spongers, we should save a bit on that, now lets reduce it more and save more, MP’s should be paid an attendence allowance, to ensure they are sitting in the house and put in a full week.
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This shows the futility of trying to make every constituancy the same size and will probably have to be altered at least every other election. A much better system would be to elect four MP’s for shropshire by STV. If you say that this breaks the contact with the local MP explain how a MP in Oswestry is going to look after one quarter of Newport.
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the fact that they are spiting Newport north off from the other three seems stupid to me
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Why do we need 600 MP’s,that cost us in the region of £250.000 each per year. The EU tells us what to do anyway.At the last count they were in control of 80% of our parliamentary business.
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Another lie put about by UKIP, the figure is nowhere near 80%. A report by the British Chamber of Commerce and the House of Commons Library shows the figure to be around 10 – 15% of laws passed by the British Parliament to have an origin in Europe.
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just thinking how stupid it is to split Newport between a group of Telford housing estates and an MP that will be based in Oswestry so will never visit.
also the names of the regions seem to have the strangest names, would have though they would named after the most prominent places.
1. North Shropshire
2. Shrewsbury & Shropshire Hills
3. Bridgnorth and Ludlow
4. Telford and Newport
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In these days of cuts and war on waste isn’t it time that parliament looked at itself. I wonder what the cost has already been and will be in the future to implement these changes. They are done by successive governments to try and safeguard themselves. None of this is for the benefit of the people of the country, only for the political parties.
After all the recent troubles over expenses you would think that someone in power could see beyond there own ambitions and think of the country as a whole not just their own party.
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tory 4 labour 0 what a result! Bring back Ramsey Mcdonald Labours greatest ever leader!!
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we need an english parliament of say 250 members, meeting in or near birmingham, shropshire is the largest inland county in england and should provide 4 mp’s from n shropshire, s shropshire, shrewsbury, and telford
in addition there should be an elected second chamber for the uk of say 400 seats again based in the midlands and shropshire should provide 4 seats
any old codgers left in the lords can act as guides in the commons and lords! in a new tourism spot in london
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