Have your say on boundary shakeup Two parliamentary consituencies would become three

Residents are being urged to have their say on plans to shake up the boundaries for the UK Parliament constituencies.

Under proposals revealed today from the Boundary Commission for Scotland, the two constituencies which currently cover Renfrewshire – Paisley and Renfrewshire North and Paisley and Renfrewshire South – would be split into three.

The new constituencies would be called Paisley; Renfrewshire West; and Inverclyde and Erskine.

The three new constituencies also take in parts of North Ayrshire and Inverclyde.

The commission has prepared the revised proposals after considering the responses to its consultations on the initial proposals published in October 2016.

Under the revised proposals, the Renfrewshire West constituency would include Foxbar, Johnstone, Lochwinnoch, Largs and Cumbraes.

The Inverclyde and Erskine constituency would stretch from the Erskine Bridge and include Erskine, Bishopton with Greenock and Port Glasgow.

When proposing changes, the boundary commission takes into account special geographical considerations, local government boundaries, boundaries of existing constituencies, local ties that may be broken by changes and the inconvenience of any changes.

A spokesperson said: “Sometimes it is necessary to split towns, or council areas or wards or other “building blocks”, in order to give effect to the legislative requirements regarding maximum and minimum electorates for each constituency.”

Lord Matthews, deputy chair of the Boundary Commission for Scotland, said: “After careful consideration of all of the comments received during the consultations on the initial proposals, the commission has designed this revised set of constituencies.

“Where the legislation has allowed it, we have tried to respond to the views expressed to us.

“However, in some areas, we have been unable to make changes because of the constraints on constituency design within which we work.

“This is the final opportunity we have to obtain views on our proposals so we can further improve them where the legislation allows us to do so. I hope people will take the opportunity to contribute, whether for or against what we have proposed.”

An eight-week consultation on the proposed changes starts today on the Boundary Commission website.

The UK Parliament has decided to reduce the number of constituencies from 650 to 600, meaning in Scotland it will go down from 59 to 53.

Two of these 53, Na h-Eileanan an Iar – the Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland, are defined in the legislation and will not be subject to change.

As set out in legislation, each of the remaining 51 constituencies must not exceed 13,000 square kilometres and be within five per cent of the UK electoral quota of 74,769.

The consultation will run until Monday, December 11.

Members of the public and interested parties can get further information and submit views on the Commission’s interactive portal at www. bcs2018. org.uk