Boundary Commission's revised Ayrshire Parliamentary boundaries

Sandra Osborne has welcomed today's (Thursday 17 July) announcement of the Boundary Commission's revised boundaries for UK Parliamentary Constituencies within Ayrshire.

She said

“The original proposals for the four new seats were broadly acceptable and made sense given the Boundary Commission's remit. Along with other colleagues in the Labour Party, I suggested to the Public Inquiry some minor changes which would make the new constituency boundaries more acceptable to the public without changing the thrust of what the Boundary Commission was asked to achieve. I am delighted that the Labour Party's suggested modifications have been accepted both by the Assistant Commissioner who presided over the Inquiry and the Boundary Commission in its revised proposals.

Adding the two Cumnock wards to Ayr Carrick and Cumnock makes good sense as does bringing Annbank/Mossblown into Central Ayrshire and allowing Crosshouse to return to the Kilmarnock and Loudoun constituency.

The counter proposals submitted by the Conservative Party linking Irvine and part of Kilmarnock relied on splitting historic suburbs of Kilmarnock off from the town and lumping them in with a mostly rural constituency. The Assistant Commissioner was right to reject these proposals. The Tory case wasn't helped by the number of submissions from its supporters that didn't even attempt to hide a party political bias.

I am pleased that the Boundary Commission has focused on the job in hand and come up with practical objective proposals for new boundaries that comply with its remit. I will be writing to the Secretary of the Boundary Commission to indicate my full support for these proposals.