Greenwich could be split across two parliamentary constituencies, if proposals put forward by the Boundary Commission are accepted.
The Greenwich West ward, along with Blackheath Westcombe, would be part of a new Deptford and Greenwich constituency. The constituency would include six wards from the borough of Lewisham: Blackheath, Brockley, Evelyn, Ladywell, New Cross and Telegraph Hill.
The Peninsula ward, which takes in East Greenwich and the Greenwich Peninsula, would become part of a new constituency called Woolwich.
At the moment, the Greenwich West and Peninsula wards are both part of the Greenwich and Woolwich constituency, represented by Nick Raynsford.
The proposals are part of the Boundary Commission’s review, which was set up with the intention of reducing the number of MPs at Westminster and making constituencies more uniform in size.
You can have your say on the proposals by contacting the Boundary Commission and they are holding public hearings at Lewisham Town Hall on October 24th & 25th to discuss their plans for south-east London.
The proposals will only change parliamentary constituencies and will not affect the make-up of the local council.
No real objection to this but it should be “East Greenwich & Woolwich” or the other way round if it makes them feel better.
I don’t suspect the developers of the new cruise liner terminal currently being built in the East Greenwich Peninsula Ward will be overly chuffed to find out when they finally finish it, it is in Woolwich.
I have a lovely picture in my mind of lost mid-West American tourists turning up at the Woolwich Ferry by accident!
I don’t have a problem with the boundary changes on principle, but I am a bit upset at the thought of my local area being broken up this way!
I live in Maze Hill and will therefore cross back and forth the boundary every single time I walk down the road to town or walk to Maze Hill train station. I just don’t understand why you would break up East and West Greenwich and separate the peninsula from Greenwich even more than it is now!
What about North Greenwich tube, it will be in Woolwich now!
Very confused! Surely the Peninsula ward should be joined to Greenwich?!
I see the logic in joining Deptford to Greenwich as we are closely linked but I don’t understand how the ‘Deptford and Greenwich’ constituency includes Ladywell, Brockley, New Cross and Telegraph Hill! Surely a Greenwich and Woolwich borogh is far more logical?!
Yours upset in Maze Hill.
Brockley and New Cross were part of the old borough of Deptford, merged into Lewisham in 1965. Its old town hall is still there, on New Cross Road. Ladywell’s currently part of the “Lewisham Deptford” seat which succeeded the old Deptford constituency based on that borough.
The boundaries are odd, but even if they go ahead, North Greenwich station will be in Woolwich about as much as The Valley is in Barcelona. It’s MPs that are changing, not geography.
It just makes me a bit sad to have the area split… but… maybe it is a good thing and I can start complaining to twos MPs about Greenwich issues!
The splits don’t make any sense to me at all, it’s as though they are purposefully trying to cross borough boundaries, rather than keeping it simple for the electorate to understand and relate to. I would put Greenwich and Charlton together with the Greenwich borough half of Blackheath, under the MP for Greenwich. I would then put The other side of Blackheath (already in lewisham borough) with lewisham itself, plus Deptford, all under the MP for Lewisham and Deptford. The MP for Woolwich would cover Woolwich, Plumstead and Thamesmead areas. Some recognition of links between areas and borough boundaries seems to make sense to me. Being south of the train line by Maze Hill I will be in the Greenwich/Deptford MP area, and folk across the way will have the Woolwich MP despite being a stone’s throw to Greenwich Park: very strange and unnecessary.
Having said this, electoral boundaries are far less significant to local issues and people compared to the borough boundaries, and clearly splitting Greenwich se10 across two MPs makes no huge difference to us, no change to postcode, borough etc etc, North Greenwich tube is very much still Greenwich.
Strange emotional response to all this, but as ‘Mazer’ astutely points out these are imaginary if arbitrary lines drawn for the political administration, and this is quite telling in that they appear in no discernable way to relate to real life on the ground. This multi layered oversight, Westminster politicos, London Assembly, Local Council, is mirrored in the split personality of our Parliament, swallowed up by Brussels, and the spawning proliferation of quangos. There is an element of wrong side of the railway tracks snobbery evident, without doubt incorrectly percieved as having direct relation to property values. This has existed for decades, wrong side of the A102 being the most obvious, east/west, north/south of the river. The realists amongst us are aware that politicians not only represent voters but businesses. Those same wealth, I’d like to say creators, but it might be more accurate to term wealth collectors, sponsor politicians, in the spirit of mutual benefit. Can I say that? I just did.
I fail to see how any of this proposed change will benefit the local community and fulfill it’s alledged purpose to cut costs to the public purse, to actually save money. No more than if we all wore funny hats on the third friday in the month.
That old cherry springs to mind, ‘a camel is a horse designed by a committee’.
what time are the hearings?
Day 1: 11:00 – 20:00 Day 2: 09:00 – 17:00
Some more info here