Whether or not it was following a reminder from the Conservative Party at the end of last week or not, the Scottish Government has today announced that it agrees the suggested new boundaries for council ward boundaries. (See below for a clearer version of the changes in Edinburgh)
The Tories urged the SNP to ‘get its finger out’ last week after they discovered that the boundaries had not yet been agreed just eight months before the next council elections.
The recommendations of the Local Government Boundary Commission for Scotland include changes to the number of councillors and the boundaries for the areas in which they will stand for election. Changes will be made to a total of 25 wards across Scotland.
In Edinburgh there will now be 63 councillors representing five wards with three councillors and twelve with four. The computation centred around allowing 3,800 electors per councillor, but since that ended up almost doubling the number of councillors they did a recount and have increased councillor numbers by five. The council, who were consulted on the change, had agreed that an increase in councillor numbers was necessary as historically the council area had been underrepresented.
The only name change has been in Morningside, but boundary changes have been made throughout the council area to align with natural communities.
The changes are as follows:
Almond Ward – increases from three to four councillors
City Centre – increases from three to four councillors
Colinton/Fairmilehead – remains the same – three councillors
Corstorphine/Murrayfield – remains the same – three councillors
Craigentinny/Duddingston – increases from three to four councillors
Drum Brae/Gyle – remains the same – three councillors
Forth – remains the same – four councillors
Fountainbridge/Craiglockhart – remains the same – three councillors
Inverleith – remains the same – four councillors
Leith – remains the same – three councillors
Leith Walk – remains the same – four councillors
Liberton/Gilmerton – remains the same – four councillors
Meadows/Morningside – becomes Morningside – four councillors
Pentland Hills – increases from three to four councillors
Portobello/Craigmillar – increases from three to four councillors
Sighthill/Gorgie – remains the same – four councillors
Southside/Newington – remains the same – four councillors
The commission state in their report that they have taken notice of rivers and other boundary features where the boundaries of some wards have been changed. There was a point when it was believed that the village of Colinton might be split in two by a boundary realignment.
The review began in February 2014 and the government’s hope is that, with these changes, voters will be more equally represented.
Council elections will take place across the country in May 2017.
This is the map which shows boundary changes although we have to say that this is less than clear so you may wish to look at the full report which has 17 individual maps for each ward. Click here!
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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
