Boundary Commission: Local constituency changes

As part of the plans by the Boundary Commission for England, they propose for Forest Hill to be part of a new constituency that would include Lewisham West with parts of New Cross and Peckham, but would lose the Penge and Anerley part to a new Beckenham seat.

The constituency would be called ‘Peckham and Lewisham West’ if approved.

This is all part of the scheme to reduce London seats from 73 to 68.

You can look at the proposed map at http://www.bce2018.org.uk/node/6485?postcode=SE232XH

SE23 residents on the Southwark side of the border would all become part of the Dulwich & West Norwood constituency which is currently split between Dulwich/West Norwood and Camberwell & Peckham.

Someone from the Boundary Commission for England is on BBC now saying that the public is invited to comment and to say whether the boundaries reflect their community and identity.

Doubt it will make much difference to the outcome for our area (see political compass thread!) - unfortunately…

I’ve moved this topic to Politicos and ensured everyone commenting here is made a member so they’re able to continue commenting on this topic. @AndyS and @rbmartin - let me know if you’d prefer to leave politicos for any reason in the future.

From my experience the parties of the right, particularly the Conservatives don’t bother to field particularly good candidates. I’ve been completely underwhelmed by them at any hustings I’ve attended. Hard to take any party seriously which in turn doesn’t do the same.

But yes. I doubt it would make much of a difference even if you had Adam Rickett** flashing his six pack while singing I Breath Again outside Sugar Mountain.

** 90/00s pop star and former Conservative approved parliamentary candidate

It’ll make no difference to Labour winning the seat as part of the new area replaces Harriet Harman’s.

If only we had some form of proportional representation, then these boundaries would be more than divisions between safe seats where the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
It doesn’t really matter if we lose Penge and gain Peckham. It will be nice to have both sides of Standstead Road in the same constituency, but it is fairly meaningless.

Even better, I think this is the first administrative/political area, in anyone’s living memory, that encompasses all of Honor Oak. The MP will have to deal with two different councils which will be challenging. No bad thing IMO.

13 posts were split to a new topic: Should the boundary review topic be in Politicos or the wider forum?

For me the real problem is the reduction of MP’s. It’s supposed to be about standardising constituency population sizes, but in areas like ours, where the birth rate has gone up after a period of decline, we run the risk of being under represented in the future, surely?

The 2012 boundary commission proposal was for Forest Hill to be part of a Dulwich and Sydenham seat, which would have seen both sides of the Southwark/Lewisham border represented by one MP.

This would have been really handy for those who use Forest Hill station, but have a local MP who’s constituency covers North Dulwich, Herne Hill, Gipsy Hill, West Norwood and Tulse Hill, which are going to be a higher priority than constituents like me on the Southwark side who use FH and HOP which are in the current Lewisham West and Penge seat.

“Dulwich and Sydenham” proposed constituency.

Is this good or bad?

I see that Forest Hill will be firmly at the Centre of the new constituency. In London, I often think communities at the edge of constituencies or on the border (like ED will be) receive less focus.

It would seem to indicate a greater chance of anyone but Labour?

The name of the constituency will add £££ to house prices in the area as we will all now live in Dulwich

Unfortunately having the Dulwich demographic onboard won’t deliver a more politically-balanced result:

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Like the rest of London, there’s an extraordinary overall proportion of people living in taxpayer-funded/subsidised accommodation in the existing Dulwich constituency.

And Labour’s focus on identity politics helps woo Dulwich’s 25% Afro-Carribean demographic.

I’d suggest rebranding us as South Dulwich… but I like the name Forest Hill. The Forest Hill in Toronto is the equivalent of Hampstead here.

Good to see the Boundary Commission once again propose the Dulwich & Sydenham option which is a better option that the Lewisham West and Peckham option last considered.

However like most inner London seats, it’ll continue to be a safe Labour seat, although there is a pocket of Conservative support in Village Ward, Dulwich. Wards in SE22 are largely Labour with some Lib Dem support.

Worth noting that Lower Sydenham (Bell Green) won’t be part of this ward and will be part of the new Lewisham and Catford seat with the boundary at Perry Rise.

Looks like this is back on the agenda:

I take it that it’d be the Dulwich & Sydenham proposal?

It’s a bad choice of name, especially when you consider that Lower Sydenham is excluded from the constituency. It would be much better to call it “Dulwich and Forest Hill” - not that I’m biased.

Dulwich and Lewisham South West?

Forest Hill and Surrounds?

No thanks. ‘Forest Hill’ is a soppy American-sounding name dreamt up by some nineteenth century property developer . ‘Sydenham’ on the other hand has the glamour of antiquity, a name that goes back over a thousand years (and, yes, I know it should really be ‘Cippenham.’) Forest Hill is really just a posh suburb of Sydenham anyway.

Maybe a naive question but in what sense are they wrong?

Compare and contrast:

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SE23 should be kept together in a single constituency rather than stretching from Peckham to Bromley. But then i guess the whole concept of constituencies with first past the post electoral system is a bit unrepresentative anyway. But at least the Boundary Commission isn’t deliberately Gerrymandering constituencies in the way that is done in America.

I see your point. I hope for the sake of SE23.life that the changes aren’t too radical. I don’t want a forum refugee crisis.

It’s worth noting that under the current boundaries, Dulwich is split between Dulwich & West Norwood and Peckham and Camberwell, so it’s nothing new that whole postcodes are split within postcodes due to ward boundaries.

For the majority of people who live in FH, they’ll be in a constituency that is closer to home than one that stretches to Penge and Anerley and for the first time, people who live on both sides of Wood Vale and Sydenham Hill will be represented by the same MP, rather than those on the Southwark side represented by an MP who currently also serves constituents in Brixton and Tulse Hill.

It also resolves those who live in Bell Green who are represented currently by a Lewisham and Catford focused MP, rather than Sydenham.

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So this has reverted back to splitting Honor Oak into different constituencies as now. All because of one person objecting to it, or so it seems from the report. Am left wondering why my comment was disregarded if all it took was one voice to change this.

Am not sure why splitting a postcode in this way matters - the postie won’t mind if the local MP changes en route. Splitting communities is much more damaging IMO.

The wards affected by the split border the existing Camberwell and Peckham constituency. This may benefit residents who use One Tree Hill in Honor Oak which is on the Southwark side and issues surrounding Honor Oak Cemetery which is used by both Lewisham and Southwark residents in the locality.

I don’t think that there was any proposal to change these wards or the boroughs that they are in, so don’t see a change in that respect. This is about an MP’s constituency. As a resident who lives by this border, I find it frustrating that there is no channel to challenge Southwark council, for instance, on issues which impact Lewisham residents.

What is nice to see is that Dulwich (on the green map) is now nicely positioned in the middle of what we used to call Forest Hill. That’s a 20% increase in house prices for all the lucky home owners in the area!