Residents in Burnham-On-Sea and Highbridge are likely to find themselves voting in a different Parliamentary constituency at the next General Election.
Final updated plans have been released this week by The Boundary Commission as part of plans to level up the size of MPs’ constituencies across England so that each MP represents between 69,724 and 77,062 electors.
The Commission has redrawn and renamed many parliamentary seats and made some changes to the proposals to re-draw parliamentary boundaries.
The new Bridgwater constituency will be disconnected from West Somerset and will cover Burnham-On-Sea, Berrow, Brean, Highbridge, Huntspill, North Petherton, Puriton, Woolavington and Bridgwater, as shown below. See detailed map here.
The proposed dividing line between the new Bridgwater/Burnham and Wells constituencies will run along the edge of Burnham-On-Sea, from Stoddens Lane along the Frank Foley Parkway to Highbridge.
It means that residents in Brent Knoll, Lympsham and Mark will remain part of the separate Wells constituency.
West Huntspill would be in the new Bridgwater constituency, while East Huntspill would be in the Wells constituency.
The Commission says it has taken into consideration over 45,000 comments sent in by the public during the previous two stages of public consultation, and has changed nearly half of its initial proposals based on this feedback.
A third and final consultation on the new map of revised constituency proposals is open now until 5th December. The public are invited to view and comment on the new map at bcereviews.org.uk.
The area covered by Somerset County Council is currently divided into five constituencies plus North East Somerset. Those six will become eight, to try and even out the number of voters in each area, across England.
How to have your say on the proposals:
The proposals are now subject to a consultation for four weeks until 5th December.
Visit http://bcereviews.org.uk and then enter your postcode to display the detailed map of changes, then click ‘make a comment’.
After this final consultation has closed on 5th December, the Commission says it will analyse the responses and form its final recommendations. These will be submitted to Parliament by 1st July 2023.
