A number of Staffordshire Parliamentary constituencies have been earmarked for changes under the 2023 Boundary Review.
The Boundary Commission has made its final recommendations to Parliament for revised constituency areas reflecting population change.
Seven out of the 12 constituencies have been altered considerably, sparking a number of protests at consultation stage.
Stoke-on-Trent Central and Stoke-on-Trent South are both being expanded, with the latter taking in rural areas of Staffordshire and Staffordshire Moorlands.
Stafford is being expanded north-west to include two wards from Newcastle-under-Lyme and it also adopts the wards of Maer and Whitmore, Loggerheads, Eccleshall and Gnosall and Woodseaves from the Stone constituency. To the south and east, Stafford loses areas.
The constituency of Stone is being renamed “Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge.” The re-drawn boundaries relocate Stone to the North-West of the constituency rather than at the centre as previously.
According to the Boundary Commission’s website there has been local opposition to this re-modelling based on the fact that Stone and Penkridge are geographically unrelated.
Staffordshire Moorlands now takes in Cheadle which was previously in the Stone constituency.
The new constituency of Kingswinford and South Staffordshire results from a redrawing of the South Staffordshire and Dudley South constituencies. Former minister Sir Gavin Williamson, the sitting MP for South Staffordshire, has been chosen as the Conservative candidate for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge at the next election.
Kingswinford residents have objected to the new boundaries claiming they are being split off from their Dudley neighbours.
Elsewhere in Staffordshire, Burton (renamed as “Burton and Uttoxeter”) and Cannock Chase remain wholly unchanged.
Lichfield, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Stoke-on-Trent North and Tamworth are changed only to realign with new ward changes.
The final report can be accessed here.
