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MP will fight seat changes
From the Amesbury Journal, first published Thursday 3rd May 2001.
A CLUTCH of electoral wards - including Durrington and Bulford - could disappear from the Salisbury parliamentary constituency under proposed boundary changes.
The Boundary Commission is recommending that Durrington and Bulford be switched to Devizes constituency.It is proposing the transfer of six other wards - Chalke Valley, Donhead, Fonthill and Nadder, Knoyle and Tisbury and Fovant - to the Westbury constituency.
The changes, recommended in a report published by the commission this week, are part of plans to achieve parity in the number of voters in each constituency.
The aim for Wiltshire, with the exception of Swindon which is being dealt with separately by the commissioners, is to get electoral quotas as close as possible to a figure of 64,430.
In order to meet that target the commission is pushing for an additional parliamentary seat in the north of the county (bringing the total of constituencies to five) and reshuffling wards from other constituencies such as Salisbury, which currently has an electorate of more than 80,000.
A scaled-down Salisbury would have 20 wards and a total electorate of 65,016, although it is unlikely that any changes will be made to constituencies before 2007.
Tory MP Robert Key, who has represented Salisbury since 1983, said he would be fighting the commission's proposals. "The recommendations make no sense and would undermine years of historic electoral arrangements," he said. "Instead of making themselves slaves to average numbers the Boundary Commissioners should be servants to delivering what people actually want."
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