Comment DBCC-4378
Many problems with this scheme.
1. The UK parliamentay boundaries are not very good, so the decision to base these new Welsh constituemcies on them is simply amplifying those problems.
2. In particular the Brecon, Radnor, Neath and Swansea East constituency looks like gerrymandering. What do the old heavy industry areas around Swansea have in common with rural Brecon? As for transportation links, I dare you to drive from Swansea to Knighton and stay within the confines of this constituency.
3. Similarly, Merthyr, Aberdare and Ponty are large enough areas that they each deserve their own local MSs.
4. Aberafan, Rhondda and Ogmore have transportation links? Maybe on a map, but try driving them - Treorchy and Port Talbot are hours apart. Even worse by bus or train.
5. If we are to have more political representation (96 MSs) then shouldn't we have 96 constituencies to effect a more local representation scheme, instead of this proposal of having huge areas (with little in common) represented by multiple (6) people? Divide each of these constituencies by 6 and elect 1 MS each.
6. It has to be noted how difficult it was to find this website. None of the media outlets linked to it, the commision's name is ambiguous and gets mistaken for other boundary commisions in the UK, you don't appear to have your own website, and Google doesn't seem to have heard of you. Surely you can do better?
I don't know if your review will consider the following topics, but the Senedd needs to hear these:
7. We don't need more MSs. We're a small country, 60 will do.
8. I absolutely hate the idea of not being able to vote for an individual, but only for a party list. It removes the ability for the electorate to remove unwanted/unliked/bad MSs and hands that ability over to the party machines instead, allowing bad MSs to remain in power regardless of the will of the people.
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Member of public
This comment refers to
The entire area under review.