Parliamentary boundary changes

2011 press releases

An article written for the Sussex Express: In Victorian times, the British and the French sat down and drew lines on maps to carve up Africa

In Victorian times, the British and the French sat down and drew lines on maps to carve up Africa, with pleasing straight lines often the end result. Unfortunately, the countries they created often took no account of tribal lands or other important factors, which has exacerbated, even caused, on-going problems across the continent ever since.

Now our own cartographers are at it here in England. They comprise London-based civil servants and are called the Boundary Commission. Under their plans for constituencies, which have just been announced, most existing parliamentary seats in East Sussex will be torn asunder and new artificial creations put in their place.

Looking at their proposals, you can only conclude that this has been a crude desk-based exercise, using calculators and rulers, but without any understanding whatever of the geography or history of the area.

Under the plan, the existing Lewes constituency will be cut up into three parts. A crude north-south dividing line roughly down the Ouse will provide the new constituency boundary. Polegate will be dispatched to join the far east of the county.

For Lewes, this means the county town will no longer be the focal point of a constituency, as it has been for centuries. Instead, Lewes will now find itself at the far right-hand edge of a proposed new seat called "Lewes and Brighton East", which will include areas such as Moulsecoomb, Whitehawk and Woodingdean. And when I say on the far edge I do mean just that. Villages such as Glynde and Ringmer, as well as Newhaven and Seaford, will find themselves in a new seat called "Uckfield".

The new arrangements will split the Lewes District council area down the middle. Indeed, so crude are they that even county councillors including Lewes's own Ros St Pierre, and Newhaven's David Rogers, will find their council wards now cross over into two different constituencies. Stephen Shing at Polegate will find his county ward will have bits in three!

The new boundaries are an insult to Lewes and its history, treating the town as a mere adjunct to bits of Brighton. Even its hinterland in terms of the villages that naturally look to Lewes is to be divorced and told to look to Uckfield instead.

For a very long time there has been a parliamentary seat with Lewes at its centre, and simply called Lewes, by virtue of its status as the county town. The bits round the edge changed now and then but Lewes has always stayed in the centre. Centuries of tradition are now to be swept away, if these proposals go through.

Nor is this mere sentiment. Lewes's status has meant that the town has been the administrative centre of the county, with the courts, the councils, the ambulance headquarters and so on. That is important for local employment and for the prosperity of the town. That will all be much more difficult to sustain if the town is to become just an extremity of Brighton.

For Seaford and Newhaven, the result is as astonishing as it is unwelcome. For decades now, in fact since 1918, the towns have nestled in the same seat as Lewes, in a constituency that roughly equates to the boundaries of Lewes District Council. The present constituency is compact, resembling a slightly leaning rectangle.

But all that is to go, if the Boundary Commission have their way. Instead, Seaford and Newhaven are to be separated from the county town, and a new long thin seat created that stretches through Forest Row as far as the Surrey border, yes as far as Surrey.

What do Seaford and Newhaven have in common with Forest Row? How many people in our coastal towns even know where Forest Row is? Worse, the new seat has Seaford firmly in the bottom right-hand corner from where it is hardly likely to command the attention an important town of 25,000 deserves. And to add insult to injury, the Boundary Commission wants to call the new seat "Uckfield". Many in Seaford over the years have grumbled that the present seat is called "Lewes", when Seaford is actually the biggest town in the constituency, but they have accepted it, both because Lewes is the county town and because of historical precedent. But Seaford playing second fiddle to Uckfield? Come on!

Seaford and Newhaven look to Lewes, for administration, and to Eastbourne and Brighton for health and for shopping. Where are the links that bind Seaford and Uckfield together? There's not even a train service, despite my best endeavours to have the Lewes-Uckfield line reinstated. Tell a lie. You can get to Uckfield by train if you change at Lewes and then again at East Croydon. It will take you two and a bit hours.

For our rural villages, Ringmer is to be separated from Barcombe, Chailey from Newick, Glynde from Lewes, Piddinghoe from Newhaven. Those who find themselves lumped in with Moulsecoomb and Whitehawk are likely to find little sympathy for rural concerns, and that the happy balance that the present Lewes constituency provides between town and country has been skewed heavily in favour of the Brighton estates and suburbs.

Of course there is a political dimension to all this - redrawing boundaries can make seats more winnable or less so, for different parties. I am not going to pretend that the new boundaries are not challenging for the Lib Dems - they are - although on a good day, we could actually win both, giving us a gain of one when compared to the present. And on a personal level, after almost 15 years as a local MP I would be sorry to have to choose between bits of my patch, between Lewes, or Seaford and Newhaven, or Polegate.

But ultimately, I hope local people will not see this as about the outcome for one party or one MP. It is about the integrity of communities, the status of our county town, and the geographical and historical links that people value.

Overall, what the Boundary Commission is proposing is an act of vandalism. Yes, they are under a duty to make sure parliamentary seats are roughly the same size in population terms, but it is perfectly possible to achieve this while respecting natural affiliations and communities. I hope local people, whatever their political views, will join me in objecting to this crude crave-up on the part of the Boundary Commission. Those who want to register their opposition can do so here: http://consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/have-your-say/ , or by writing to this address: Boundary Commission for England, 35 Great Smith Street, London, SW1P 3BQ.