As we mentioned yesterday, the initial responses to the proposals of boundary changes were published today.
There have been over 40,000 responses across England so far – and there’s still an opportunity to comment over the coming 27 days.
We had hoped to bring you a slice of what’s been put forward by the public, but frankly, it’s impenetrable.
No separation
The documents for the Isle of Wight would ideally be available grouped together, but unfortunately they’re all bundled in with the South East ones, which appear to number over 5,000 in total.
The Boundary Commission told us they’d have like to have separated them out too, but cite the time constrains they’re under.
Sub-region not split out
If they’d have just allowed the search to specify sub-region, it’d have been a large step forward and given that close to half of them have that information, it’s hard to understand why they didn’t.
All entries have a respondent’s address, which at least gives a guide to which area they’re writing about, but that isn’t searchable either.
Hand-written notes
This is where the second problem occurs – for the Boundary Commission as well as anyone interested enough to try and find out more.
Many of the responses we saw were hand-written, so have to be individually and carefully read, often in handwriting that doesn’t aid comprehension.
Fancy a project?
If you do feel like getting your teeth into a project, we’d certainly be most grateful and happy to publish your findings, giving full credit to those who did the work.
We also fully understand if no one does, as identifying information about the Island would currently entail going through each submission manually – for the South East that over 5,000.
