How parliamentary constituency boundaries could change in St Helens

The Boundary Commission for England has published its latest recommendations for a shake-up of constituencies in an effort to rebalance the number of voters in each area, with the number of seats in England set to increase from 533 to 543.

Marie Rimmer, Labour, is the current MP for St Helens South and Whiston, while Conor McGinn, Labour, is the current MP for St Helens North.

Revised proposals for boundaries

In the "revised proposals for new parliamentary constituency boundaries in the north west region" document, it says it was proposed that the St Helens North constituency would be modified "slightly", in order to account for required changes to the St Helens South and Whiston constituency, which is ‘outside the permitted electorate range’.

As such, the proposed St Helens North constituency would no longer have included the Parr ward, but instead include the Town Centre ward.

Meanwhile, the proposed St Helens South and Whiston constituency would include all the remaining wards within the borough of St Helens, and also the Prescot South ward from the borough of Knowsley.

'Orphan ward'

It said: “Although this latter would be an ‘orphan ward’, it is currently part of the existing St Helens South and Whiston constituency.

“Various configurations of constituencies in this and the surrounding area were considered in formulating the initial proposals, but we considered that these would be more disruptive and reflect the statutory factors to a lesser extent.”

Furthermore, it states that there was opposition to the initial proposals in St Helens, particularly with regard to the Town Centre ward.

But a counter-proposal was put forward, which would return the Town Centre and Parr wards to their existing constituencies and result in the St Helens North constituency being entirely unchanged from its existing configuration.

In order to bring the St Helens South constituency within the permitted electorate range, polling district ‘WC5’ from the Whiston & Cronton ward would also be included in the constituency.

The counter-proposal would also result in Whiston Hospital being included in the St Helens South constituency.

This constituency would continue to be called St Helens South and Whiston.

The document adds: “Our assistant commissioners visited the area. They found that the counter-proposal had considerable merit and would result in less disruption than the initial proposals.”

It says they therefore recommended the "modification" of the initial proposals for the two St Helens constituencies – with the recommendation agreed to.

Further consultation will now take place until December 5 and the commission will decide whether to make any adjustments before giving its final set of recommendations to the Speaker of the House of Commons by July 1 next year.