The documents below provide the full details of Democratic Audit’s model of how constituency boundaries could change using the new rules contained in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011.
The model, devised by Lewis Baston, Senior Research Fellow, with assistance from Kevin Larkin uses the December 2010 electorate figures, as the Boundary Commissions are required to do. It also adheres to a number of principles which the Boundary Commissions have indicated they will seek to apply, such as avoiding constituency configurations which cross English regional boundaries.
It should be emphasised that this is only a model, not a precise prediction. There are many possible patterns for drawing up constituencies that will be consistent with the new rules, and this is but one solution. The political parties have no doubt done similar work. But the final word will go to the Boundary Commission working in each of the component nations of the United Kingdom – and no doubt the result will be different in significant ways from any other model set of boundaries.
The authors of this work on boundaries hope that it will raise public awareness of the issues involved, and encourage a maximum of informed public participation once the Boundary Commissions invite consultation on their proposals.
Read More:
Lewis Baston: The Democratic Audit model of new Parliamentary boundaries: methodological note 6 June 2011 (PDF)
This paper summarises the assumptions and methods used to undertake the modelling and provides a number of important caveats about how the results should, and should not, be interpreted.
Lewis Baston: Summary of Democratic Audit boundary simulation 7 June 2011 (PDF)
This paper provides an overall summary of the model findings for each standard English region as well as for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. (Note – this is an updated version, with minor changes to the two Warrington seats, which replaces the version published on 6 June 2011).
Lewis Baston: Constituencies left unchanged in the Democratic Audit boundary model 7 June 2011 (PDF)
It has been widely assumed that the new rules to be used by the Boundary Commissions will require changes to the boundaries to almost every constituency. This paper provides details of 88 constituencies, listed by region, which remain unchanged in the Democratic Audit model.
Detailed regional summaries
We have now released all our detailed regional summaries of the model constituencies contained in the mapping exercise. These provide details of the wards making up each proposed constituency in the model.
| Region | Summary (PDF) | Maps |
| Scotland | Download | Scotland with central belt detail (PDF) |
| Wales | Download | Wales and South Wales detail (PDF) |
| Northern Ireland | Download | No map currently available |
| East of England | Download | Eastern region map (PDF) |
| East Midlands | Download | East Midlands region with cities detail (PDF) |
| Greater London | Download | Greater London and Inner London detail (PDF) |
| North West | Download | North West region and metropolitan detail (PDF) |
| North East | Download | North East region and metropolitan areas (PDF) |
| South West | Download | South West region and Bristol area detail (PDF) |
| South East | Download | South East region with county detail (PDF) |
| West Midlands | Download | West Midlands region and metropolitan (PDF) |
| Yorkshire & the Humber | Download | Yorkshire & Humber region and metropolitan (PDF) |
Each regional summary has been produced by Lewis Baston. The maps have been produced by Kevin Larkin, using Ordinance Survey data.
An overall summary of the research findings, and the approach used, can also be found on The Guardian’s datablog.
