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Boundary Commission for Scotland
Fifth Periodical Review of Parliamentary Constituencies - Scotland

Final Recommendations for Parliamentary Constituencies in Highland Council Area

• The Boundary Commission for Scotland has decided to make no changes to its revised recommendations for 3 county constituencies covering Highland Council area.

• The provisional proposals for parliamentary constituency boundaries for Highland Council area were published on 7 February 2002.  During the statutory consultation period, the Commission received 81 representations, 54 of which objected to the proposed Inverness and Badenoch constituency name.  The other main issue that emerged was the proposal that the constituency structure in Highland Council area should remain relatively unchanged.

•  With regard to the naming of constituencies, the Commission’s general policy is that, where there is a volume of local support in favour of changing the name of a constituency, the revised name would normally be accepted.  On this occasion, 54 representations were received regarding the proposed Inverness and Badenoch constituency name.  In view of this, the Commission issued revised recommendations on 23 October 2003 adopting the constituency name ‘Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey ’ as proposed by Highland Council.

• The Commission received 23 representations objecting to the proposed constituency boundaries.  Twelve of the objections considered the proposals unnecessary and suggested that Inverness remain divided between 2 constituencies, using the River Ness as a natural boundary.  The Commission noted that this would create constituencies that straddle local authority electoral ward boundaries.  The Commission’s general policy is that local government electoral wards should form the building blocks for revised constituencies.  In this instance, the Commission does not consider there to be sufficient justification to depart from this policy.

•  The Commission decided that no other alteration should be made to the proposed constituencies within Highland Council area.  The Commission received no representations in response to the revised recommendations and, therefore, has agreed that the revised recommendations can now be adopted as final recommendations.

• The Commission has delayed confirming its proposals until the outcome of local inquiries held in adjoining council areas was known.  The Commission has now received the recommendations from these local inquiries and is content that they have no consequential impact on its provisional proposals for constituencies in Highland Council area.

• The Commission’s final recommendations for Highland Council area will be embodied in the Report of the Fifth Periodical Review.  The constituencies (with June 2001 electorate) will be as follows:

• Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross County Constituency            46,533

• Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey County Constituency     67,790

• Ross, Skye and Lochaber County Constituency                                    49,544

• The Commission is not seeking further representations at this stage in respect of this final recommendation but, before submitting its Report, the Commission will wish to re-appraise its final recommendations for constituencies throughout Scotland to ensure that all areas have been considered in a consistent manner.  If the Commission decides, in the light of this re-appraisal, to make any further modifications to its recommendations, it will publish these locally and invite representations on them before submitting them to the Secretary of State in accordance with the statutory procedure. 

Total 46,533