Most of the south's largest counties gained a seat in the last boundary review, but although they continue to grow, several of those same counties lose that newly acquired seat this time round.
Essex is one of those counties. It's also more significant for Labour because, to put it mildly, the last boundary review didn't do the party many favours. And that in a county that was among the first to fall out of love with the Labour government and where the party struggles to hold seats even in favourable times.
The Guardian model undertaken by Lewis Baston chose to pair Essex with Suffolk but there is no actual need for this pairing to be undertaken: Essex is entitled to 16.7 seats (17) giving it a mean electorate of 75,326 - well within the range set by the Boundary Commission. Unless a pairing is unavoidable, it's likely the commission will avoid doing so, and that is the assumption used in the example above.
As with Kent, because Labour holds no seats in Essex, and the one Lib Dem seat - Colchester - is almost certainly going to be left unchanged, it's the Conservatives who start off a seat down. That seat will most likely be the one that was created last time round: Witham, so Priti Patel will be hoping a neighbouring MP retires (and Sir Alan Haselhurst must surely start as the favourite), or to contest a selection against a colleague from one of the other seats that takes in parts of her old seat.
Chelmsford is another seat the Conservatives are going to have to watch carefully, given the huge swing to the Lib Dems there last year. Chelmsford is a growing town and if the commission chooses to simply lop off an outlying (Conservative) ward that will make the seat highly marginal. However, the Commission has previous in Essex for splitting towns in half and coupling them with lots of surrounding less urban wards - Colchester was divided like this for many a year. if that happens to Chelmsford, both seats ought to be comfortably Conservative.
There is a real possibility that a constituency very similar to the old Harwich seat could make a comeback at this review; that might represent one of Labour's better electoral prospects on paper, but the distinctly independent and somewhat maverick profile Douglas Carswell has established, would make him a difficult incumbent to oust.
Braintree could be redrawn to take in essentially just the three Labour-ish towns of Braintree, Witham and Bocking but the same political realities that apply to Harwich are likely to apply here too: Braintree was one of Labour's least expected gains in 1997 and the party barely managed to retain it in 2001 before losing it comprehensively in 2005. By 2010 Labour was down to one in five of the votes cast and barely managed to retain second spot.
And then we have Harlow, the seat won and held by Bill Rammell from 1997 to 2010. Harlow is one of those roll-of-the-dice constituencies. If the Commission choose to add additional rural wards from Epping Forest it's going to be very difficult for Labour to take it back. However, the alternative option of taking out existing rural Epping Forest wards and instead extending Harlow south to take in Waltham Abbey, would make the seat very much more competitive.
Epping Forest itself needs to expand, one way or the other, and the most realistic option here would be an expansion into the Ongar part of the seat it currently donates to Brentwood. We're now moving into south Essex and some inevitabilities kick in. Thurrock, for example, is both a perfect size for a seat on the new numbers, and right up against uncrossable boundaries (Greater London and the Thames) on three of its four sides. So it's highly unlikely to see change.
That has consequences for the Brentwood seat, because it severely limits its options for expansion. The most logical option is to pair it with nearby Billericay which in turn enables the re-creation of a unified Basildon seat, minus Pitsea, which moves into Castle Point. Further east along the Thames estuary only minor changes are required to bring the electorates of Southend, Rochford, Rayleigh and Maldon within the Boundary Commission's target sizes.
In summary, the final outcome of the boundary review in Essex is likely to see the Conservatives lose more than just the single seat that seems inevitable before the process has even begun.
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