'˜Bizarre' boundary change plan means thousands of Milton Keynes families will live in BUCKINGHAM

The “bizarre” proposal would mean the city would be divided into three parts - with one part going into the BUCKINGHAM constituency.

A new ‘Milton Keynes Newport Pagnell’ constituency would include Woughton and Fishermead, Danesborough and Walton, Monkston, Campbell Park and Broughton.

The proposed ‘Milton Keynes Bletchley’ ward would include Stantonbury, Bradwell, Shenley Brook End and Loughton.

But the biggest chance would be for Wolverton and Stony Stratford, where residents would find themselves firmly in the Buckingham constituency - possibly with John Bercow as their MP.

And to top it all, local councillors are convinced the changes, which were unveiled this week by the Parliamentary Boundary Commission, have missed out more than 8,000 people in fast-growing Milton Keynes.

MK council leader Pete Marland slammed the concept as “bizarre” and would lead to a divided city.

He said: “The proposals break up Milton Keynes shifting areas out of the new city, reversing thirty years of work to create a coherent, cohesive new city. This reflects the Governments requirement that all voters who joined the register after December 2015 should be ignored. I don’t call that democracy and it undermines Milton Keynes.”

He said the boundary proposals lump together areas like Pennylands in the north east of the city with Bletchley in the South.

“They then ignore historic links that go back 50 years between areas like Beanhill and Bletchley. Beanhill is linked to Brooklands!”

Mr Marland added: “The Boundary Commission has clearly taken no account of where people live, shop, go to work or travel to. They have done a number crunching exercise reflecting the Governments decision to exclude two million voters. Our democracy and our city deserve better than these bizarre boundaries.

“It is a shabby attempt by the Tories to fix the electoral system to their own advantage by breaking up Milton Keynes.”