The Boundary Commission for England is an independent and impartial non-departmental public body which is responsible for reviewing parliamentary constituency boundaries in England. They have the task of periodically reviewing the boundaries of all the parliamentary constituencies in England and are currently conducting a review on the basis of new rules laid down by Parliament.

Let me say immediately that when I stood for re-election at the 2010 general election I obviously had no idea that the result would be the formation of a coalition government who would immediately announce upon taking office that they would reduce the number of constituencies and increase the number of electorate per constituency. The proposal is that in England the present number of 533 constituencies should be reduced to 502. They then announced that these new constituencies could be no smaller than 72,810 and no larger than 80,473.

The proposal for the Eastern region where we all live is that the number of constituencies be reduced from 58 to 56. As far as Westminster itself is concerned, these proposals for England have in themselves led to great uncertainty for ‘sitting’ MPs, some of whom will inevitably be left with no seat to defend at the next election.

Focusing on Essex itself the proposal is to reduce the seats from 18 to 17. Since being first elected to Parliament I have not only observed but been affected by a number of these reviews, perhaps most famously when I was MP for Basildon and the constituency was divided into two thus making me the first and last member of Parliament for Basildon.

Southend however is a town which has long been represented by two members of Parliament, one in the West and one in the East. This arrangement, admittedly from a biased point of view, seems to have worked very well. The problem now however is that these constituencies are too small to meet the new criteria. This is the reason that changes are being suggested, the details of which have come as a surprise to many people. At the moment, Southend West consists of 9 wards; Belfairs, Blenheim Park, Chalkwell, Eastwood Park, Leigh, Prittlewell, St Laurence, West Leigh and Westborough. The proposals suggest that the two wards of Leigh and West Leigh be removed from Southend West and joined on to the existing constituency of Castle Point. At the same time, three additional wards would be taken out of the Southend East and Rochford constituency and put into Southend West; these are Milton, St Lukes and Victoria. The effect of this proposal would be to tear the heart out of Southend andiIt is no wonder that many local residents have been left aghast by it.

Everyone has been invited by the Boundary Commission to make representations about these proposals should they not be happy with them. Four public hearings were held for those people who wanted to give oral evidence. For my part I gave evidence at the Colchester Hearing on the 1st November. I was joined on that occasion by the Deputy Leader of Southend Council, John Lamb. We both gave our views on why we were resisting the proposal to remove Leigh-on-Sea from Southend West. I argued that this was a bad proposal from a community point of view and would lead to considerable confusion among local residents as to whom they could approach for help. John Lamb made an excellent submission citing very strong arguments for why the wards of Leigh and West Leigh should not be removed from the constituency of Southend West. After all Southend is a unitary authority whereas Castle Point is part of Essex County Council. Furthermore, physically there is a natural green belt land boundary between Southend West and Castle Point. In the two wards of Leigh and West Leigh we have a number of churches, community facilities, a police station, an important shopping centre and the wonderful fishing village of Old Leigh. Moreover I know from correspondence with you, the constituents, that there is a concern about the effect these changes will have on catchment areas for our excellent primary and secondary schools. In terms of local government we are blessed with Leigh Town Council, who in a very real sense pull the local community together through general events and by providing various local services.

There are so many other reasons why these proposals are not sensible but to highlight how drastic the changes would be, Chalkwell would move from the end of the constituency to the beginning. I can’t emphasis too strongly that if you also have concerns about the proposed changes you need to write a brief submission to the Boundary Commission. Details of how you can do this can be found on their website and the closing date for submission is the 5th December. It would be a tragedy for future generations if these proposals went ahead. Unless the Commission hears from local residents who are concerned about these changes then the Commission’s proposals may go ahead through default.