Did you make comments last November on the Boundary Commission proposals to split West Norwood into two constituencies? If you felt this was an absurd idea, the published latest proposals show your views have not been adopted, and the Commission cannot even be bothered to let you know.

The Boundary Commission is still proposing to split up the Norwood wards into two separate parliamentary constituencies giving us two different MPs, though the detail has changed:

• Thurlow Park ward moves to the Streatham and Brixton South constituency
• Gipsy Hill and Knights Hill wards move to the Norwood and Thornton Heath constituency.

• The Boundary Commission proposals are supposed to take account of “any local ties that would be broken”. Norwood is made up of the three wards of Gipsy Hill, Knights Hill and Thurlow Park, and has long been a cohesive community within a well defined area.  Norwood functions as a recognisable unit for the purposes of schools and transport and shopping.
• There would be unnecessary complexities caused for decision-making if the current proposals were enacted. For instance, Norwood and Thornton Heath constituency covers Lambeth and Croydon Councils.
• The existing constituency of Dulwich and West Norwood complies with the Boundary Commission’s own guidance on constituency size (between 71,000 and 79,000 constituents) and so other ways should be found to make the necessary adjustments for other constituencies.
• The proposed national reorganisation is in any case flawed as the December 2015 Electoral register has been used as the basis for the proposals yet it is known that there was a large increase in elector registration in some areas in the run up to the June 2016 referendum. Furthermore, despite London’s rising population there is proposed to be a decrease from 73 MPs to 68 MPs in London. The current proposals should therefore be scrapped, and new proposals developed on the basis of the soon to be published 2017 register and not one that is now two years out of date and was known to be an inaccurate basis for a review.
• The consultation process is also flawed in that those commenting on the November 2016 proposals have not been informed directly of the outcome and invited to comment on the latest version. To make comments, the Boundary Commission require personal data to be provided, including email and postal addresses.  The Commission has not used these contact details to keep people informed and seek their further views, despite stating "In undertaking the 2018 Review, we rely heavily on evidence from the public about their local area".

The deadline for comments is 10 December 2017; please let us know what comments you make (to our usual address: info@norwoodforum.org).