Anger over boundary plan to split Stirling
An electoral boundaries shake-up which would divide the city of Stirling has attracted objections.
At the moment the Stirling constituency covers the same area as Stirling Council.
However, the Boundary Commission for Scotland last year put forward proposals to change the electoral map of the UK, reducing the overall number of constituencies from 650 to 600.
They want to cut the number of constituencies in Scotland from 59 to 53 and in central Scotland carve up the current constituencies, including Stirling and Ochil and South Perthshire.
In their place would be two new constituencies: one called Clackmannanshire and Stirling North, the other called Stirling South, which would include parts of the area around Falkirk.
Both the new constituencies would have just over 71,000 electors and include parts of the city.
Stirling South embraces Drymen, Kippen, Killearn, Fintry, Strathblane, Balfron, Gargunnock, Cambusbarron, Dunipace, Denny, Bonnybridge, Plean, Cowie and Stenhousemuir.
Clacks and Stirling North includes Aberfoyle, Crianlarich and Tyndrum, Killin, Thornhill, Dunblane, Doune, Dollar, Alva and Bridge of Allan.
If the changes go ahead voters in St Ninians, Broomridge and Torbrex will find themselves in Stirling South, while those in Braehead, Springkerse, King’s Park and Riverside will be in Clacks and Stirling North.
Following publication of the proposals, the Boundary Commission for Scotland asked for comments and held public hearings across Scotland.
This week they published comments made during the consultation (available on www. bcs2018.org.uk) for a further fourweek period of public scrutiny. Comments can be made until March 27.
Any revised proposals will be published later this year and final recommendations are due to be lodged in September.
Stirling MP Steven Paterson has lodged an official objection.
He said: “This whole process is based on a faux attempt to make savings on the cost of politics.
“Reducing the number of elected, accountable MPs in the House of Commons is nonsensical when the ever- inflating House of Lords continues to increase its membership, now sitting at over 800 unelected, unaccountable peers.
“Constituents have been in touch with my office to raise their concerns over splitting the Stirling constituency in two.
“Communities across the Stirling area, whilst diverse, share history and social culture. This attempt to split Stirling city into two constituencies has not been done in living memory and is purely based on a loose attempt to adhere to the UK Government’s new policy on numbers of electors .”
Resident Michael Boxer said the changes would bring together South Perthshire and Southern Fife, “two areas of very different identities”.
Iain Graham, a resident of Stirling for over 30 years and a resident of Clackmannanshire for 10 years before that, felt the proposals would “undermine the status of the city of Stirling” by dividing some communities from their natural and geographical neighbours and linking others to communities “with which they have had little or no connection” such as Plean and Cowie with Denny, Bonnybridge and Larbert.
Bridge of Allan and Logie SNP branch, who also lodged an objection, said Clacks and Stirling North would be the 10th biggest mainland constituency at 1819 square kilometres and geographically difficult for an MP to cover in one day.
Strathblane Community Council also lodged an objection, complaining that the change would remove the village’s link to Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park and “lump this ward into a territory containing the industrialised areas of Falkirk, which has no empathy whatsoever to the lochs and glens in the north-west”.
The community council added: “It is understandable that the River Forth has been used as a boundary for the proposed changes.
“However, this ignores the geographic reality that the carse is a single geographic feature with common agricultural aspects on both sides and therefore warrants political representation as a single entity.
“Our opinion is that this is a rural community and the MP who represents it should be fully cognisant of the special challenges that rural areas face, such as transport and poor telecommunications.”