The Parliamentary Boundary Commission has now launched the final stage of the national review to decide which constituency we will be in to vote for MP. This will be open until the 5th December.
Overall the number of MPs will be unchanged at 650 but population movements mean that England will get an additional 10 MPs and Kent's total will rise from 17 to 18 MPs.
The Commission, which is non-political, works under rules set by Parliament. The absolute rule they must stick to is that each seat must have no fewer than 69,724 and no more than 77,062 electors. After that they then must take consideration for other factors like community identity. Although the Commission is non-political, they receive a lot of submissions from parties who are not! But they are forbidden from taking account of who might win a seat if the boundaries are changed, so the political parties have to show how their proposals meet the statutory criteria.
In our area change is necessary. Housing developments in Dartford mean the current seat has too many people and so must become smaller. Here is where another difficulty arises. The Commission must not cross regional boundaries, and Dartford is surrounded on two sides with other regions (London, East). Added to this the Commission took the decision early on that the Gravesham seat was to be inviolate. So this meant the boundary of Dartford could only be changed on one side. This would have unwelcome consequences for Hartley and New Ash Green.
Thus Wilmington, Sutton at Hone and Darenth are to be moved from Dartford to Sevenoaks constituency. To make up the numbers elsewhere, this also means that Hartley will be moved from Dartford Constituency and New Ash Green from Sevenoaks .... to Tonbridge Constituency(!!). One speaker from Tonbridge at the public hearing vividly and accurately called this "spare part surgery".
The proposals were supported by the Labour Party - losing 4 Conservative voting villages from Dartford constituency makes it a much more winnable prospect for them. Conversely of course, the Conservatives objected, although not to the principle of the Gravesham seat being unaltered. The only other support I could find for the Tonbridge constituency came from a New Ash Green resident, who said at least Hartley and New Ash Green would be in the same constituency this time.
There were a lot more objections, although it seems that the Commission has more work to do in explaining their work, because a lot of the objectors clearly thought the proposal was to change the council areas.
It was pointed out that Hartley and New Ash Green have almost no community identity with Tonbridge (or the south part of Sevenoaks for that matter), and if they cannot be in a north Kent seat then Sevenoaks would be the better option. This was well summed up in these comments to the review from local residents:
"Whoever drew up these proposals has clearly never lived nor I doubt, visited our area. Should they have, they would have found that geographically, historically and demographically, this area has more in common with Dartford (and to a lesser extent Gravesend) than to Sevenoaks let alone Tonbridge."
"We here ... have more of an affinity with Dartford than Tonbridge which is about 20 miles away whereas Dartford town centre is roughly 4 miles away. Our neck of the wood always seems to be the bit that is moved from pillar to post whenever someone or or some organisation decides to play about with the map..... Life would be much less complicated if the logical and geographical course was taken to put our enclave within the boundaries of Dartford for both council and parliamentary representation."
It was pointed out that Hartley and New Ash Green's links overwhelmingly look north:
- Health - they are in Dartford and Gravesham area, unlike rest of Tonbridge
- Schools - 89% of secondary children in Hartley attend schools in Dartford or Gravesham boroughs.
- Work - 51% work in North Kent, only 9% in Sevenoaks/Tonbridge
- Shopping - 82% comparison shopping is in Dartford or Gravesend, 1% in Sevenoaks, 0% in Tonbridge.
A number of objectors said the problem was when the Commission decided from the beginning not to change Gravesend which means they have not considered a Gravesham/Ebbsfleet seat. A couple of proposals both showed how moving Ebbsfleet to Gravesham could work, as it would set in train a series of changes which would keep most other wards in the Dartford seat, and Hartley and New Ash Green could then be in Sevenoaks constituency.
The Commission in their latest report come close to admitting Hartley and New Ash Green should not be in Tonbridge constituency, but say they didn't like any of the counter proposals.
"Although they acknowledged the merits of retaining the Ash and New Ash Green, and Hartley and Hodsoll Street wards in either a Dartford or Sevenoaks constituency, the Assistant Commissioners felt that no counter-proposal received would achieve this without undesirable knock-on effects."