Exmouth beats Exeter to first-name rights

New constituency will be Exmouth and East Exeter

A new parliamentary constituency featuring parts of the current East Devon and Exeter seats will be called ‘Exmouth and East Exeter’.

The Boundary Commission has published its final recommendations for a shake-up of England’s map for general elections, which aims to give each MP roughly the same number of voters.

The changes will give Devon a total of 13 MPs – up one on the existing 12 – although one will be split across Devon and Somerset in a new ‘Tiverton and Minehead’ constituency.

There will also be a newly titled ‘Honiton and Sidmouth’ seat, which current East Devon MP Simon Jupp has announced he will contest at the next election, while the commission has now recommended a new neighbouring seat is called ‘Exmouth and East Exeter’.

The current Exeter constituency has an electorate of just over 80,000, higher than between the 69,724 and 77,062 allowed under the new national proposals.

It will remain largely unchanged, but three wards – Pinhoe, St Loye’s and Topsham – will join the new seat with Exmouth, Cranbrook, Budleigh Salterton and surrounding areas.

Previously Priory had been included, but this was met by opposition from Labour and the Tories. City council leader Phil Bialyk was against the idea, while East Devon MP Simon Jupp said: “The Priory ward is categorically part of Exeter city, with residents identifying themselves as living in Exeter.”

On the new seat being called ‘Exmouth and East Exeter’, the Boundary Commission’s report says: “We noted that there is significant support for changing the name of the Exeter East and Exmouth constituency to Exmouth and Exeter East.

“We noted that the population of Exmouth surpasses the combined population of the three Exeter wards. We therefore revise our proposals and change the name of the constituency to Exmouth and Exeter East.”

It “acknowledged the logic” of renaming Exeter as ‘Exeter West’, but concluded “the constituency, apart from minor readjustments, is otherwise unchanged from the existing constituency and we saw no support for this proposal.”

Subject to MPs adopting the recommendations, the new seats will be contested at the next general election.