Parliamentary boundary review 2023
The Boundary Commission for England (BC) reviewed the parliamentary constituency boundaries in England. The review was designed to make sure MPs represent roughly the same number of people in each constituency.
They aim to make sure that all MP constituencies have between 69,724 and 77,062 people eligible to vote in a general election and they drew up new constituency boundaries to distribute MPs across the country evenly.
At the last general election in December 2019, the Harlow constituency had 68,078 eligible electors, making it too small.
The initial proposals saw an increase in the size of the Harlow constituency to include Broadley Common, Epping Upland and Nazeing, which would result in an increase of 1,797 electors.
The initial proposals for new boundaries were published on 8 June 2021 and the first consultation ran until 2 August 2021. The secondary consultation took place from Tuesday 22 February to Monday 4 April 2022.
The BC took your comments from the first 2 consultations into account and made significant changes to their initial proposals based on this feedback.
They changed the Harlow constituency boundary and now proposed that it will increase by taking in Hatfield Heath, Broad Oak and the Hallingbury’s. This is instead of including Broadly Common, Epping Upland and Nazeing which was initially proposed.
They held one final 4 week consultation on these new constituency proposals from 8 November 2022 to 5 December 2022.
You can view a map of the proposals for Harlow on the Boundary Commission's website
For more information, you can read a guide to the 2023 review on the Boundary Commission website.
Local ward boundary review
The Local Government Boundary Commission (LGBC) also reviewed the local council ward boundaries in Harlow. The review is designed to make sure councillors represent roughly the same number of people eligible to vote in each ward.
They proposed that Harlow should continue to have 33 councillors in the future but they drew up new ward boundaries to distribute these 33 councillors across the town evenly.
The LGBC asked for views of local residents and organisations on where the new ward boundaries should be drawn. This first stage of the consultation closed in July 2022 and the second stage closed in December 2022.
Harlow Council’s consultation response
At the Full Council meeting on 28 July 2022, we agreed and submitted our response to the first consultation on ward boundaries for Harlow.
Our proposals included:
- changing the existing ward boundaries of all wards to help distribute the number of residents in each one more evenly
- using natural ward boundaries more effectively - things like the A414 that divide neighbourhoods for example
- changing the names of 6 of the 11 wards
You can read Harlow Council's ward boundary review response (pdf)
You can view a copy of Harlow Council’s proposed ward boundary map (pdf)
Second consultation
The LGBC used all the feedback they received during the first stage on the consultation to create proposals for new ward boundaries. They then drew up these proposals.
In the proposals, the boundaries of all wards were changed. Other major changes include:
- creating new boundaries called ‘Old Harlow’, ‘Church Langley North and Newhall’ and ‘Church Langley South and Potter Street’ from the existing wards of ‘Old Harlow’, ‘Church Langley’ and ‘Harlow Common’
- including Harlow town centre in the new ‘Little Parndon’ ward
A second consultation took place from 4 October 2022 to 12 December 2022.
You can view the proposed new ward boundaries.
The council’s cross-party Electoral Review Working Group met in October 2022 to look at the LGBC’s proposals. The final recommendations will be published by the LGBC in February 2023.
Once the recommendations have been published, all 33 seats will be up for election in the 2024 local council elections. The elections in 2023 will take place as normal, with just a third of councillors being up for election.