The Boundary Commission for England publishes new revised proposals for constituencies across the country and opens a final month-long consultation, giving the public a last opportunity to send in their views.

If approved, the South West Devon constituency will change while the Totnes constituency will be renamed South Devon.

The Commission 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 December 5.

The Commission is undertaking an independent review of all constituencies in England as requested by Parliament. The number of electors within each constituency currently varies widely due to population changes since the last boundary review. The 2023 Boundary Review will rebalance the number of electors each MP represents, resulting in significant change to the existing constituency map. As part of the review, the number of constituencies in England will increase from 533 to 543. Each (apart from five ‘protected’ constituencies) must also contain a number of electors that is no smaller than 69,724 and no larger than 77,062 (as at the fixed date of March 2 2020).

Relatively minor changes were proposed to the existing Totnes constituency, with the inclusion of the Charterlands ward from the existing South West Devon constituency.

The Assistant Commissioners did, however, feel that a more persuasive case had been made for a change of name to the Totnes constituency, which had been altered to a relatively minor level in the initial proposals. They were persuaded that the name ‘Totnes’ could be considered as inappropriate in view of the other significant areas that are included in the constituency, such as Brixham, and agreed that a name change to South Devon would be more inclusive and would be welcomed in the constituency. They therefore recommended no change to the composition of the Totnes constituency, but did recommend that it be renamed South Devon. The Boundary Commission agree with renaming this constituency South Devon under their revised proposals.

The existing Torridge and West Devon, and South West Devon constituencies would be largely unchanged under the initial proposals, apart from the inclusion of the two West Devon district wards of Buckland Monachorum and Burrator in the proposed South West Devon constituency from Torridge and West Devon. This was also approved by the Assistant Commissioners despite opposition including from the two wards.

There were many more than 200 representations and a petition containing 65 names– that supported the call from Anthony Mangnall, MP for Totnes to rename the constituency South Devon. He considered the current name not only ‘fails to reflect the constituency as it now is, but alienates residents who feel they are often overlooked’ and that the name should be more inclusive to those who live in areas of the constituency other than Totnes. This view was also supported by the Liberal Democrats.

After this final consultation has closed on December 5, the Commission will analyse the responses and form its final recommendations. These will be submitted to Parliament by July 1 2023.

Tim Bowden, Secretary to the Boundary Commission for England, said:

“Today we are announcing the publication of our revised proposals. Last year we published our initial proposals for new constituency boundaries – our first go at what the map should look like. We are delighted with the huge number of comments from members of the public on our initial proposals, many which included valuable evidence about local communities.

Today’s publication is the culmination of months of analysis and we have revised nearly half of our initial proposals based on what people have told us. We now believe we are close to the best map of constituencies that can be achieved under the rules we are working to.

However, we still want people to tell us what they think of this latest map before we submit our final recommendations to Parliament next year. This is our final consultation and I encourage you to participate in the 2023 Boundary Review.”

If you would like to view and comment on the new map you can do so at https://www.bcereviews.org.uk/