Boundary Commission for England calls for public input on new constituency borders

People in Greater Manchester and beyond are being urged to have their say as new constituency borders are being designed by the Boundary Commission for England.

The third and final public consultation is now open, and will close on 5 December 2022.

Responses will mould the recommendations on new electorate boundaries, which will be submitted to Parliament by July 2023.

The intention of the Boundary Commission is to distribute the number of electors per constituency more equally throughout England.

This will result in the number of constituencies in England increasing from 533 to 543. 

Half of the Commission’s initial proposals have been revised following two prior public consultations between June 2021 and April 2022, which saw more than 45,000 comments submitted.

The new recommendations would leave only seven out of 27 Greater Manchester constituencies wholly unchanged.

Some of the most drastic changes have been proposed in the regions south of Manchester City Centre.

A new ‘Manchester Rusholme’ constituency has been proposed, encompassing the wards of Ardwick, Fallowfield, Hulme, Moss Side, Rusholme, and Whalley Range. The suggestion has been justified by the notion that all wards are ‘of a similar character’, given the large student population within them.

Another change includes the renaming of Manchester Gorton to ‘Manchester Longsight’, as per the realignment of the constituency beyond the ward of Gorton. Afzal Khan, MP for Gorton, disapproved of the proposed name change. 

Tim Bowden, secretary to the Boundary Commission for England, said: “We are delighted with the huge number of comments from members of the public on our initial proposals, many of which included valuable evidence about local communities.

“Today’s publication is the culmination of months of analysis and we have revised nearly half of our initial proposals based on what people have told us.

“However, we still want people to tell us what they think of this latest map before we submit our final recommendations to parliament next year.”

The new map can be viewed and assessed here: https://www.bcereviews.org.uk/. This consultation period will close on 5 December 2022.