Historic names escape axe in shake-up of constituencies

Published on Wednesday 20 May 2009 22:04

HISTORIC names of Scottish constituencies will not disappear in the latest boundary review after the Boundary Commission bowed to pressure.

The commission has today published its final consultation document on constituency boundaries for Holyrood.

While there will still be major changes to their shapes, many of the traditional names such as Edinburgh Pentlands, Glasgow Pollok and Glasgow Cathcart will remain.

Previously, the commission had wanted to replace them with "compass" names such as South Glasgow and East Edinburgh.

In Glasgow, and in many other places, names have been chosen in an attempt to differentiate them from similarly named Westminster constituencies that cover similar areas but with different boundaries.

The review, however, has been met with a mixed political reaction as the boundaries change the Scottish political landscape.

Privately, the Conservatives are believed to be the happiest with boundary changes in the north-east, including a new Angus North and Mearns constituency, and alterations in Ayr and Edinburgh which may help them in terms of winning constituency rather than list seats.

Labour are still strongly contesting the division of Dumfries into two different seats and other changes, including the loss of a seat in Glasgow, could be detrimental to their prospects.

The Liberal Democrats have privately admitted that the new configuration is mixed for them, although it strengthens their hold on constituencies in the north-east and Edinburgh.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott said: "I'm pleased that the interim report reflects some of the representations made by Liberal Democrats."

The SNP claimed to be happy overall but said there were some areas the party intends to contest.

An SNP spokeswoman added: "In particular we are pleased to see that constituency names have been retained."

Radical changes on what was originally proposed will occur in Aberdeen. The earlier recommendation was for an east-west split but the commission is now proposing an Aberdeen Central and Aberdeen Donside split.

Dundee's two Holyrood seats are to become Dundee City East and Dundee City West, while planned changes in the central belt have also been revised.

The commission had last year proposed a North Renfrewshire and Clydebank constituency, straddling the Clyde between Renfrewshire and Dunbartonshire, but this has been dropped in favour of rejigging other boundaries.

Population shifts were also to have given West Lothian two-and-a-bit constituencies, through the creation of a seat called Lanark, Shotts and Whitburn.

But for the final recommendations there will be just two constituencies, Almond Valley and Linlithgow, even though these will have big electorates – 60,080 and 62,810 respectively.

New maps and overlaps leave many voters confused

THE changes and overlaps between Westminster and Holyrood constituencies have continued to cause confusion among some voters, in terms of realising who represents them.

If you live in the Leith Links area in Edinburgh you would be in the Edinburgh North and Leith Holyrood constituency, but in the Edinburgh East Westminster constituency.

Previously, residents there had been in the Edinburgh North and Leith Westminster constituency as well.

Under the new proposals, their Holyrood constituency is changing its name again to Edinburgh Trinity and Leith.

Meanwhile, residents in Maryhill in Glasgow will also have to get used to some different names. They have been in the Glasgow Baillieston Holyrood seat represented by Margaret Curran, who fought and lost the Glasgow East by-election for Westminster last summer for Labour.

Glasgow East is the Westminster seat for Maryhill.

However, Glasgow is losing a constituency and going down from nine to eight.

This means that Glasgow Baillieston is disappearing and voters will, if these proposals are accepted, end up in a new, larger Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn seat.

In Aberdeen, it is more straightforward. Residents north of the River Don would have once been in Aberdeen North for both Westminster and Holyrood. There was a proposal to put them in new Holyrood seats of Aberdeen East or West, but this has been scrapped for a new Aberdeen Donside seat.