http://www.democraticaudit.com/the-uks-n...itical-map

The current consideration seems to be that Forest Hill and Dulwich will be merged to form a new constituency, along with Sydenham, Bellingham, and the return of Crofton Park to the fold.

It seems that all our neighbours want to take turns to vote alongside the people of Forest Hill.

I like the idea of Forest Hill being right in the centre of this new constituency and, for all its flaws, I feel closer to Dulwich than to Penge.

What I'm not clear about is how much weight this is likely to carry with the Electoral Commission.

I assume someone will already have calculated which party is likely to win the seat assuming current voting patterns. Labour, I'd have thought, with Lib Dems a closeish (?) second?

I mean Boundaries Commission of course - sorry.

Can they not make their minds up? We've just had a major change.

Personally,I think this calls for another referendum; another waste of time and money,but hey, whats new.

I don't see why boundary changes need referendums, they never have in the past. And what happens if Dulwich and Penge both want to be part of Forest Hill but Forest Hill wants to be part of Deptford. Where would we draw the boundaries for such a referendum

Don't forget the background to this, Roz, that is, the Faustian pact the Lib Dems made with the Tories: give us a referendum on AV (which we're sure to win) and we'll agree to your proposal for fewer MPs (to save money, of course) and therefore larger constituencies (which, as a side-effect - quite unintentional, of course - will result in more Tory MPs, but we can live with that).

Surely Democratic that there should be a roughly equal number of people in each constituency.
A slight reduction in the number of MPs again should be a plus.
It is a red herring to refer to people who can not be bothered to register to vote. We should not spent millions writing to the in Somali , chav etc to get them to register, it is quite a simple process.
I have moved house twice in 3 years and informed the electoral registrars in first 2 weeks in each case.

I've produced a little map with colours that have nothing to do with party politics (just order of colours in my pallette).


Red indicates the new Dulwich and Forest Hill constituency, blue is Catford, green is Greenwich and Deptford, and yellow are the bits of Bromley that are currently part of Lewisham West and Penge constituency.

In terms of party politics, both Dulwich and Forest Hill are represented by Labour MPs, Labour AM, and at ward level the new constituency breaks down as:
Labour: 14
Liberal Democrat:7
Conservative: 3
Which is roughly the same balance as the present Lewisham West and Penge constituency.

I hope the new MP will back my plan to bring the Bakerloo line underground to East Dulwich, Forest Hill, and Bell Green!

   

New MP Michael. Who is to say Mr D will not be there for another 20 years.

Good idea about Bakerloo but guess it would change to change its name.

Thanks for taking the trouble to do this, Michael.

Jim Dowd or Tessa Jowell, then?

Two separate issues, I think, Brian. The Boundaries Commission already, I believe, takes account of the first one.

The bondary commission has still left vast differences in the size of constituencies

There's a thought

I of course meant the MP for the new constituency.

There are proposals to redraw the constituency serving SE23. After gaining Penge as a cross Lewisham/Bromley seat, according to the Southwark News a new seat which may be called Dulwich and Sydenham or Dulwich and Forest Hill could become a reality in 2015 making up of 4 wards from the current Lewisham West & Penge seat and 4 seats from the Dulwich and West Norwood seat which are in Southwark.

This would mean for the first time, both parts of Wood Vale and Sydenham Hill would be represented by one MP instead of two going along council boundaries.

Sadly it means Jim Dowd could be replaced by Tessa Jowell in FH!

Why would not Ms Jowell lose her seat?

Tessa's current seat Dulwich and West Norwood covers an area stretching from east of Brixton Road to the edge of Horniman Gardens and Sydenham Hill. It's seen that a cross Lambeth/Southwark seat isn't working, so as part of the boundary review, a seat which borders Lewisham and Southwark will be more relevant to constituents than the current situation where residents in FH share an MP with those in Penge and those in Dulwich with people who live the eastern part of Lambeth.

The new seat would also mean that constituents who live on the Southwark side of Honor Oak Park would also have the same MP as on the Lewisham side. Currently Harriet Harman is the MP for that part of SE23 as it forms part of the Peckham Rye ward.

This was rumoured some time ago on the excellent 853 blog. The full prediction was on Democratic Audit

The actual proposal can now be found at the Boundary Commission, where you can have your say until 5 December.

PS Personally I quite like the idea of including Crofton Park, Forest Hill, Perry Vale and Sydenham in one constituency.

The proposed constituency would be called Dulwich and Sydenham with 73,152 voters. It would comprise the following wards:

Crofton Park Lewisham 9,744
Forest Hill Lewisham 9,462
Perry Vale Lewisham 9,858
Sydenham Lewisham 10,188
College Southwark 8,119
East Dulwich Southwark 8,492
Peckham Rye Southwark 8,854
Village Southwark 8,435

Received from Lewisham Council:

I welcome the proposed change of the seat to merge parts of southern Southwark with FH/Sydenham. It should make it a lot easier to pressure our local MP on transport issues for example when both Dulwich and FH residents use the station and most of the local bus routes which run through the town.

It also brings the whole of SE23 together as one seat instead of the current situation where we either have Jim Dowd, Tessa Jowell or Harriet Harman campaigning on local issues.