Constituency has changed without knowing

[Tired756]

I opened up my postal vote yesterday to find that I'm now voting for an MP in a town 30 miles away, with several towns in between and absolutely nothing to do with my town. Having googled the boundaries were reviewed and changed last year to balance out the numbers, there's a lot of new build estates here and presumably has tipped the number of constituents over the limit and now the surrounding villages, as well as basically the top few miles of the actual town havd been redistributed. I can't really understand how I'm now voting for an MP so far away rather then the next constituency over, or how they are going to represent a small area of a different town, the fact that these redistributed areas are essentially just going to be lost, but hey ho that's a different debate and I'm far from an expert.
My issue is that no one seemed to know about it until getting their postal cards. Now I've googled I've found a couple of articles about it from a month ago, but none of my neighbours were aware, and from posts I've seen on Facebook groups most people were surprised.

AIBU to expect a leaflet through the door explaining the change before a national election? Like others I've been keeping an eye on the candidates and now it isn't actually who I'm voting for. Oddly we haven't even recieved a single election related leaflet whereas we usually get bombarded with them so I think we've already been forgotten by the potential MPS anyway

This. Our constituency has changed, many of them have. I knew about it because I read the news. I think it was pretty common knowledge tbh.

The changes to the seats were at the time they were proposed expected to make it more likely there would be a Tory majority.

However the opinion poll situation we currently see is pretty wild.

I assumed you knew full well but were trying to pretend the Tories had no input!

The Boundaries Commission is not politically partisan so boundary changes are not a ruse by an incumbent Government to keep seats. It's a feature of a democratic country that boundaries are regularly revised so that you don't end up with the rotten boroughs which were bought and sold in the past. These things are easy to find out about if you are an inquiring citizen.

Many MPs are at risk of losing their seats - some because of boundary changes but mostly because the Conservative Party have lost all credibility and respect after 14 rotten years of rule. I shall personally enjoy watching the heads roll on election night - particularly the likes of Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock, Jacob Rees Mogg, Therese Coffey and Jeremy Hunt.

Ours has changed too- used to be Rishi…. We used to be well within his constituency however we’re not anymore…. Literally go about 5min walk down the road and lots of rishi signs….
Its still conservative but has changed

I am merely citing one of the objections to the proposed changed made in my vocal, affluent marginal seat. I guess it must have worked because the move didn't go ahead and we remain in our original constituency.

I didn’t know about it either as we don’t have terrestrial tv on or the radio so rarely see any news . On the plus side Rishi is no longer our MP

Ours has changed too - it was all over social media and the local news.

This was well publicized where we are, hard to miss in fact.

The government changed the rules this time, previously parliament had to vote on boundary changes, and the proposals were voted down. This time the rules were changed so there was no vote.

To be fair the overall distribution was overdue a change.

However where you draw the lines can have a considerable impact - in normal times, anyway.

I remained in the same constituency, so hadn’t taken a lot of notice. Then I saw actual voting in 2019 and what voting would have been in new area - previously and consistently very much a divide between lib/lab and rest nowhere changed to labour lead and Tories not so far behind. It now makes me laugh that Tories are selling that Labour may change voting to improve their chances to stay in forever. To be fair I guess they all would and do but I don’t really see how we can make it a level playing field for all - though PR would help in my opinion.

I think it’s an individual’s responsibility to keep up with their local news. It was publicised. I don’t think adults should need leaflets through the door.

I haven't explained very well, sorry, what I meant was that it I'm nowhere near the rest of the area this constituency covers. It's like town X plus part of town Y that is 30 miles away, rather than the boundary being extended

Agreed. I don’t think you can not watch, listen to or read the news and then complain that you don’t know what’s going on.

It was well publicized & reported in the media.

It looks very likely Jeremy Hunt will lose his seat as a result of the changes.

I'm Cleethorpes which has always been Conservative, we're now merged with Grimsby which, apart from an anomaly last election, has always been staunch Labour.
This election will certainly be interesting!

You're still not explaining that clearly! The boundary must have moved and has presumably extended from Town X in order to reach a bit of Town Y?

I missed this completely and thought I was pretty news savvy! I listen to radio 5 all day and other news/politics pod casts. I'm wondering what I was so busy with/invested in in November to miss it.

It shouldn't have been a surprise, it was well advertised.

Our constituency, which includes some of the most deprived areas of the country, was combined one of the most desirable areas.
They were up in arms being lumped in with us perceived scum 🤣

I mostly agree with this. It is a social phenomenon how many people say they ignore all news these days, quite concerning really as they make themselves so vulnerable to misinformation or missing out on key dates.

However cuts to local authority budgets also mean more info is just put onto a website and not properly communicated - the changes in planning notification rules for example.

So it is a bit about what news is sent out too.

Ours changed, I definitely knew about it because I commented on the commission proposals. I can't remember how I found out, but we are South West Surrey and lots of changes have occured here.

The irony is that we have moved from one disconnected constituency to another. The previous one had no import to us, and the new one even less. The have plumped completely disaparate regions with others, no connections with towns or boroughs. It is frankly bizarre. Everyone is annoyed.

The issue is that people are disinclined to vote because we are represented by persons with no interest in our area, so what's the point?

All our services come from the local town/borough/county. Our new MP is from a distant other town/borough/county. It's frustrating. And yes to a pp, we are just about surrounded by the far boundaries of four other more appropriate constituencies, we are in a nipple!

I saw the consultation publicised but I missed the announcement that the proposed boundaries were made official. I don’t listen to radio or watch tv news.,

I was aware of the consultation last year and responded to it. Our Parliamentary constituency changed, although oddly we are still part of the former constituency for local government purposes, which seems slightly mad to me. It's pretty clear it was done to improve Conservative chances, though it's not going to work this time round at least.

I am not sure how individual houses should be informed. People move house regularly, and given that a lot of this type of communication gets ignored as 'junk', it would be an absolute waste of public money to send letters to houses.

As everyone has said, it has been widely reported all over the news.

Boundaries also vary between parish/borough council wards and national constituencies as well. We have parts of our borough wards that are in one constituency and the other half of them is in the next one over.

You can look at all of them here:

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/election-maps/gb/?x=485715&y=206624&z=6&bnd1=CPC&bnd2=CTY+GLA&labels=on