The West Midlands will lose five MPs in the biggest shake-up of constituency boundaries in electoral history, it was announced today – raising fears that one will go in Shropshire.

The region’s political map will be transformed under the Tory-Lib Dem Coalition’s plans to equalise the size of parliamentary seats.and cut the number of MPs in the House of Commons from 650 to 600.

The area includes Shr- opshire, Telford & Wr- ekin, Birmingham and the Black Country, Cove- ntry, Solihull, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Warwick- shire and Stoke-on-Trent

It will see its parliamentary representation reduced from 59 to 54 MPs.

UK constituencies are to be reviewed and changed to have roughly the same number of voters with a five per cent variation around an average constituency size of a 75,000 electorate.

The boundaries of constituencies which do not me- et that threshold will ine- vitably be revised and could disappear or be merged.

This includes Ludlow (66,399) held by Tory Philip Dunne, The Wrekin (66,111) represented by Tory Mark Pritchard, and Telford (65,938) where Labour’s David Wright is MP.

Mr Dunne said it was likely the constituencies wo- uld be changed, but hoped the county would sustain its existing representation.

Mr Wright said: “It is im- portant Shropshire retains its five MPs, but we will have to see what the Boundary Commission comes up with.

“Any proposals need to make sense to local people and respect the integrity of communities.”

Mr Pritchard said: “The people I have spoken to about this matter want to ensure that Shropshire retains its existing representation. Shropshire does not need a reduction in its voice or say in Parliament, given the number of MPs in urban areas in the West Midlands which appear over-represented.”

The Boundary Commission in England has been charged with mapping the new constituencies in the next 18 months. It said most existing constituencies are likely to be affected.

England will lose 31 MPs (533 to 502), Wales 10 (40 to 30), Scotland seven (59 to 52) and Northern Ireland two (18 to 16) during the process, the independent Boundary Commissions for the nations announced.

The review comes after the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act was passed into law after weeks of wrangling in Parliament.

Labour peers, including Shropshire’s Lord Grocott, tried to derail the legislation. He also feared the mo- ve would cut the county’s MPs from five to four.