Maps revealing revised proposals for constituencies across the country have highlighted boundary changes that will form a new St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire constituency.

The Boundary Commission for England (BCE) published a new constituency map and has now opened a final month-long consultation to give the public a final opportunity to send in their views on the future voting boundaries.

In Huntingdonshire, not much has changed from the initial proposals, apart from changing the name of the proposed new St Neots constituency to St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire.

The new constituency would separate St Neots from Huntingdon, and a new MP would be required.

Why are the boundaries changing?

New parliamentary constituency boundaries are being considered as part of a national review to rebalance the number of people each MP represents.

Secretary to the BCE, Tim Bowden, said the aim is to make Parliament fairer by giving each MP a similar number of voters.

Each constituency in the country, bar five, needs to have between 69,724 and 77,062 electors.

Because of this, the number of constituencies in England is proposed to increase from 533 to 543.

As of 2019, Huntingdon (84,657), South Cambridgeshire (87,288), South-East Cambridgeshire (86,769), North-West Cambridgeshire (94,909) and North-East Cambridgeshire (83,699) were all comfortably above the desired threshold.

When will the boundaries change?

The Initial proposals for the new constituencies and boundaries were published on June 8, 2021.

The BCE published the revised proposals on November 8, 2022, and now invites the public to express their views during a final consultation which closes on December 5.

After this final consultation has closed, the Commission will analyse the responses and form its final recommendations.

These will be submitted to Parliament by July 1, 2023.

A website has been set up with the new constituency map where people can view and leave comments at bcereviews.org.uk.

Breakdown of the Huntingdon parliamentary boundary

The Hunts Post: The proposed parliamentary boundary for the Huntingdon Constituency. The proposed parliamentary boundary for the Huntingdon Constituency. (Image: Boundary Commission for England)

Areas forming part of the new Huntingdon constituency will include Riptons, Somersham, Spaldwick, Sawtry and Warboys.

The new boundaries will reduce the size of the constituency to 75,590 electorates.

The BCE said “relatively few” representations were made about the Huntingdon constituency.

It said that as the plans were “largely uncontentious” and supported, no revisions to the initial proposals were planned.
 

Breakdown of the new St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire boundary

The Commission said it received around 200 representations specifically about the proposed new St Neots constituency.

Most of these comments were supportive, the commission said, but some raised concern about including some South Cambridgeshire local authority wards, such as Histon and Impington, and Girton.

It explained that the concerns centred around these areas having “little connection” to the town of St Neots, compared to a “far stronger” connection to Cambridge and other parts of South Cambridgeshire.

Counter proposals were put forward for either a St Ives constituency, with St Neots remaining with Huntingdon or a large reconfiguration in the south of the county.

However, the commission said that these changes would still include wards with little connection to the main town, and would cause “disruption” to the Huntington constituency.

The Boundary Commission did take on comments made about the proposed name.

Some people argued ‘St Neots’ did not wholly represent the wider planned constituency, and so the commission is proposing to name the new constituency St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire.

Who will be the St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire MP?

Until the consultation period is over and boundary changes are approved, there will be no need to vote in a new MP.

The changes will most likely come into effect when the next general election is, which doesn't have to be called until January 2025, meaning candidates are unlikely to be revealed until closer the time.

 

What have the BCE said ahead of the final consultation?

Mr Bowden said: “Today's (November 8) publication is the culmination of months of analysis and we have revised nearly half of our initial proposals based on what people have told us.

“We now believe we are close to the best map of constituencies that can be achieved under the rules that we are working to.

“However, we still want people to tell us what they think of the latest map before we submit our final recommendations to Parliament next year.

“This is our final consultation, and I encourage you to participate in the 2023 Boundary Review.”