Goodbye Evan, Hello Layla

It came as news to me today that the date of the next general election has been fixed as May 7th 2015, which will coincide with the next District and Town Council elections, and be about nine months after the Scottish Independence Referendum.
Boundary Changes from May 7th 2015
Last night Abingdon-on-Thames Town Council held a special meeting to respond to the Local Government Boundary changes proposed for May 7th 2015. Individuals and organisations can make their own response on the Boundary Commission Website .

For twelve years we will have had the anomaly that Caldecott Road and Caldecott School are outside Caldecott Ward. If these recommendations are used that will no longer be the case, but Northcourt will be outside NorthCourt Ward, and Larkmead and John Mason will be in Fitzharris Ward, and Fitzharris School will be outside.
Boundary Changes from May 7th 2015
As to the general election the Oxford West and Abingdon Lib-Dems have just chosen the person they want to stand as their candidate – pictured above. So it is Goodbye Evan, and Hello Layla.

10 thoughts on “Goodbye Evan, Hello Layla

  1. Anon

    Why can’t somebody manage to put the ward lines where the named roads and named buildings are in accordance to the wards names. It cant be that hard to get the red marker pen out and draw a different line….so Northcourt Road is in the Northcourt Ward etc.

    Reply
  2. patlon

    Well, there are all sorts of criteria to take in to account, but the main thing to note is that the above are district council wards. The town council voted on names for the above five district wards, some of which are different from those in the diagram which, in any case, does not show a name for Peachcroft/Barton!

    Reply
  3. Old Ghost

    It’s good to see a new face as Evan was a bit Clap(ton)ed out? Hopefully for the LibDems she will knock her opponents down like …dominoes!

    Reply
  4. Angela

    The Boundary Commision’s recommendations take no account of natural community divisions when drawing their ward boundaries or sensible things like ward names being assigned to the areas that they belong to. The town council has voted to correct that. The Boundary commission takes more notice of individuals than it does of politicinas so if you feel strongly about their recommendations do, please, put in your own comments.

    Reply
  5. HelenP

    This is what you need to look at:

    https://consultation.lgbce.org.uk/node/696/la=155

    Zoom in on the map and look at Abingdon.
    Click to toggle the blue lines and you will see the wards as they are now. Click to toggle the red lines and you will see the boundary commission’s draft proposals.

    Scroll down the page and you will see the report that goes with it.
    The guidelines are quite complex – but the aim is to have a roughly equal number of residents to each councillor. Also the overall aim of the review was to reduce the total number of district councils.

    Hope some of you will be interested enough to comment!

    Reply
  6. patlon

    Yes, and so is the Drayton Road, though there are probably only houses on one side? Similarly, most of the Wootton Road, about half of the Radley Road and part of Audlett Drive. However, try this one. The county council ward boundaries and district council ward boundaries can overlap each other, but the parish ward boundaries have to be wholly within both. You can see the problem given that there are three county wards and five district wards. If you superimpose the two sets of boundary lines, then every separate ‘area’ within that diagram has to be a parish ward. Hence the agonising over careful choice of same and issue about whether a boundary goes through the middle of a street is thus not high on the ‘agenda’.

    Reply

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