Where the total seats are being slashed from 40 to 29

The boundary changes to be announced tonight (and to the MP’s from England and Wales today) will see the first reduction in the number of seats in Wales since the Great Reform Act of 1832 and see Wales be reduced from forty seats to just twenty nine (it’s lowest number since the Great Reform Act) and will the be fifth set of boundary changes since true democracy (one elector, one vote) was introduced in 1950

Wales 1950 – 1970

The boundaries that were introduced for the 1950 general election saw the number of seats in Wales remain unchanged at 36, but saw the abolition of the University of Wales seat and the sole remaining borough seat in Caernarfon (made up of the towns of Bangor, Caernarfon, Conwy, Pwllheli and the Nefyn) making each constituency elected by everyone in that constituency. Amongst the constituency changes, the Caernarfon county seat was split into two (Caernarfon and Conwy), Flint was split into a Flint East and Flint West and there were some cosmetic changes to the South Wales valley seats.

Wales 1974 – 1979

The 1974 boundary changes were more a tidying up operation compared to the 1950 changes. Newport met with up Pontypool (leaving an enclave of Monmouth sandwiched between Newport and Cardiff), the Rhonddas were merged into a single Rhondda and Neath lost some land to the Gower as did Llanelli.

Wales 1983 – 1992

The 1983 boundary changes were ruthless. The Denbigh seat was carved up into Clwyd South West, Conwy was shrunken to accommodate the new Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (hived out of the old Merioneth), Flint East was reunited with it’s partner the other side of Wrexham and the two became the new Wrexham and Alyn and Deeside. Cardiganshire dived into Pembrokeshire and became Ceredigion and Pembroke North. Newport was split into two allowing Monmouth to become whole again and the South Wales valleys were put into some semblance of order.

Wales 1997 – 2005

For the 1997 boundary changes it was Clwyd and Dyfed that felt the Boundary Commissioner’s force. Clwyd South West and Clwyd North West were craved up again into Clwyd West, Vale of Clwyd and Clwyd South. In Dyfed Carmarthen was split into two (East and Dinefwr, West and Pembrokeshire South) as was Pembrokeshire (Preseli) with Ceredigion returning to it’s pre 1983 shape.

Wales 2010 – present

And in 2010, it was Gwynedd’s turn as the arrangement of Ynys Môn, Conwy, Meirionnydd and Caernarfon was scrapped and replaced by Ynys Môn, Aberconwy (diving deep into Meirionnydd), Arfon (the area around Bangor) and Dwyfor Meirionnydd (which combined Caernarfon with the remainder of Meirionnydd).

So seeing how much Wales has changed upwards since 1950, what will the Boundary Commissioners do now? Well, one thing is for sure. Eleven seats have to go and according to the electorate date published at the start of this process, of the top twenty five smallest electorates in the United Kingdom twenty of them are in Wales (Arfon, number 3, 37,915, Carmarthen East, number 24, 54,357). The map of Wales from 2020 onwards will be completely unrecognisable to anyone bar those time travellers from 1832!

Once the Boundary Commissioners have made their initial recommendations for England and Wales , I will publish a link to a my Google Drive which will contain a spreadsheet that will list every ward in England and Wales, their electorate and what constituency they are in at the moment. I am hoping that in a mass effort of crowdsourcing, members will fill in what constituencies the wards are proposed to be in and make a note of how many electors from each old seat are in which new seat and the proportion of the old seat (for instance 27,000 electors from Birmingham, Edgbaston (% of Birmingham, Edgbaston) and 16,000 electors from Birmingham, Yardley (% of Birmingham, Yardley) can be found in the new constituency of Birmingham, Handsworth) so that by the time Scotland announces on October 8th, it should be possible to create a whole new map of Britain by the end of October

Harry Hayfield