Pressure mounts on the Boundary Commission as Highland MP highlights how proposed changes will impact communities across region
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HIGHLAND MP Drew Hendry has called for “farcical and insulting” Boundary Review proposals to change Highland constituencies to be scrapped.
His call came at the start of a new round of public consultation on the 2023 review of Westminster parliamentary constituencies.
The review has concluded that the current Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey constituency should be divided between three new areas titled Highland North, Highland Central and Highland East and Elgin.
The new constituencies will reduce Highland representation by one MP as part of the UK government’s reduction of Scottish representation in Westminster by two MPs overall.
The Boundary Commission public consultation on the proposals runs until March 23 with the public invited to write in or email their views or to attend a public hearing in the Jury’s Inn Hotel in Inverness on February 25.
That, Mr Hendry argued, is totally inadequate given the scale of the changes proposed and the potential damage he said they would do to democracy across the Highlands.
The current proposals would see much of Inverness divorced from its immediate surrounding area including the city's airport.
He said: “It is vital that any changes to boundaries in the Highlands reflect the real lives of the people living in our communities, as this is essential for public trust and true representation.
“I have urged the Boundary Commission to reflect on their decisions given the scale of the proposed changes, which will include the creation of the UK’s largest ever constituency in Highland North, which is actually bigger than 49 countries. It is farcical and insulting to people in the Highlands.
“The Boundary Commission has seemingly made its decisions based solely on a very literal interpretation of the population criteria, ignoring real-life factors such as local transport links, employment, or even the ability to reasonably cross a constituency in a single day.
“The proposals will also divide Inverness from its surrounding areas, meaning the city and the airport won’t be in the same constituency, but Inverness and the whole of Skye will be joined together.
“As anyone living here will know, there continues to be significant growth in and around Inverness. According to NHBC registration data, my constituency of Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey has had consistently above average new homes built within its communities over the past several years.
“NHBC registrations for this area were over twice the national average for the whole of 2021, more than double for 2019, and even during the first year of the pandemic, were nearly 20 per cent higher than the UK national average.
“Our communities continue to grow and reducing representation for people living in the Highlands should be unthinkable.
“The very fact that the Boundary Commission is only holding a single event in the Highlands, in Inverness, speaks to the lack of consideration for the people who live here or understanding of the sheer distances people would need to travel to attend their event.
“These proposals must be reconsidered, and a proper consultation undertaken with impacted communities.
“I would encourage the public to make their views heard, as the Boundary Commission has been granted flexibility on these changes due to the sheer scale of the constituencies involved.”
To submit your views you can visit the Boundary Commission website by clicking here
You can also see the proposed change more close by navigating through this map from Electoral Calculus
