Revised boundary plans get green light

Council backs Stirlingshire pairing over Fife

Councillors have agreed on the revised constituency proposals for Perth and Kinross put forward by the Boundary Commission for Scotland.

Currently, Perthshire is split into Perth and North Perthshire and Ochil and South Perthshire.

However as part of the UK Government’s decision to reform the UK’s parliamentary constituencies, the current arrangement is set to be reshuffled next year.

Scotland’s current 59 constituencies will be reduced to 53 under the scheme following an eight-week public consultation which concluded on December 11. Should the outlines, which were agreed at the full council meeting on Wednesday, December 20, be approved, Pete Wishart MP’s Perth and North Perthshire constituency will remain all but the same, with the entirety of the Strathtay council ward now located within the constituency.

Previously, A9 villages up to and including Bankfoot were located within the constituency’s southern counterpart.

Elsewhere, Luke Graham MP’s Ochil and South Perthshire constituency is set to be torn apart again after only being introduced in 2005.

Perth and Kinross Council’s Almond and Earn, Kinross-shire, Strathallan and Strathearn wards are set to merge with the existing Stirling constituency should the proposition be approved.

This is against the initial proposal which would see the local authority area split into Perth and North Perthshire and a new ‘Kinross-shire and Cowdenbeath’ area

The proposed name of Stirlingshire and South Perthshire, however, was voted against by the elected members after Kinross-shire’s SNP councillor Richard Watters expressed his disappointment in the lack of inclusion of his ward in the constituency’s name.

A number of councillors spoke out to agree with Cllr Watters, acknowledging that the constituency name should reflect the region’s history and culture, one being fellow Kinross-shire elected member Cllr Michael Barnacle.

Cllr Barnacle wrote to the Boundary Commission in January to ask the body to reconsider the initial plans for a Fife pairing and was glad to see the formation of what he described in his letter as an “entirely rural” constituency between Perthshire and Stirling and an “entirely urban” constituency of Dunfermline and Clackmannanshire.

The name change to ‘Stirlingshire, Kinross-shire and South Perthshire’ was agreed unanimously.

The Boundary Commission is set to present the revised proposals to the Secretary of State for Scotland in September.