Last month the Boundary Commission for England released its updated proposals for new constituency boundaries across the country. The recommendation by the Boundary Commission is that the boundaries for both Oldham West & Royton and Oldham East & Saddleworth will stay the same- a proposal both myself & Debbie Abrahams argued in favour of. You can find my full response below.
Dear Commissioner,
I write to you today in my capacity as the Member of Parliament for Oldham West and Royton to respond to the consultation on the Boundary Commission England (‘BCE’)’s 2023 Review of Parliamentary Constituencies.
Broadly speaking, I am pleased with the Revised Proposals, and particularly their proposal to retain the Royton Seats in the Oldham West and Royton constituency. The proposals much better reflect both the Boundary Commission’s criteria and the natural geography of the constituencies in Oldham than the alternative proposals suggested in the Initial Review.
It remains the case, as with my response to the Initial Proposals, that there is no other combination of wards in the borough that would have the effect of meeting all the BCE’s criteria in a better way.
The current constituency is well designed to maintain the special geographic consideration of the importance of practical transport connectivity achieved by the spine road of Broadway which, together with Manchester Road, connects the constituency together. As I will go into below, it also contains 3 distinct areas, two of which in their totality, and does the minimum amount possible to break any local ties.
Therefore, in the absence of any other combination of wards, the most sensible criteria to prioritise are the inconvenience attendant on any changes and the boundaries of existing constituencies. This suggests that it is paramount for BCE to prioritise maintaining the existing constituency boundaries and I am pleased to see that this has been done.
There is just one further issue that I feel needs to be addressed in the final consultation. It is an issue that both myself and, at various times throughout this and prior boundary reviews, my predecessors and all major local political parties have raised – namely, the addition of the name Chadderton to the constituency name in the form of Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton.
While the BCE has previously rejected this name change, this should not prevent it looking at it again. Nor should the fact that no changes are being proposed to the overall make up of the constituency.
There is no legal guidance as to name but the BCE considers that the constituency name should normally reflect the main population centre(s) contained in the constituency. In this respect, the proposed Oldham West and Royton constituency is misnamed in missing Chadderton out. The reasons for this are as follows:
- Chadderton residents make up 1/3 of the constituency.
- Chadderton is the second largest population centre and is completely within the constituency.
- Chadderton is a clearly defined historical township and areas of Chadderton are to be found in eight of the nine wards in the current constituency.
- There are three wards in Chadderton (with a population of 33597) and two in Royton (with a population of 20742), yet Royton gets included in the name and Chadderton doesn’t. To be clear, we are not asking for Royton to be removed because it is its own clear community.
While it is accepted that it is unusual for constituency names to have three places named within them, there are two examples in England – Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford in Yorkshire and Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner in London. There are a further 8 in Scotland – Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow, and Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.
In each case where three places have been named in the constituency, this is because they all have prominent populations, as is the case with Oldham West, Chadderton, and Royton. The BCE are required to take into account special geographical considerations and changing the name would fulfil this particular criteria.
It is also worth pointing out that another factor that the Boundary Commission England is required to take into account is the inconvenience attendant in making any changes. As an MP, I regularly refer in communications to representing the people of Chadderton, Oldham West and Royton in order to reflect the distinct identities of each area. There would therefore be no inconvenience at all to such a name change, at least over and above a regular constituency name change, while having the positive effect of recognising a distinct and historic community that has long felt left behind.
Throughout the years, the inclusion of the name Chadderton has received widespread cross party support in the area, as demonstrated by Chadderton Historical Society in their response to the BCE’s Initial Proposals. This suggests that it would also be politically uncontroversial and provide low levels of inconvenience.
Thank you for your consideration of these proposals, I strongly urge you to adopt them as such.
Yours sincerely,
Jim McMahon MP
Oldham West and Royton
Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Chair of the Co-op Party
Jim McMahon OBE MP 