This report contends that the regional geography of southern England is not adequately reflected in the boundaries of the official Government Office regions, and that this is partially responsible for the relatively low levels of support for regional government. It proposes an alternative model of geographically and culturally cohesive regions which could, given government support, provide a solution to this problem.

The changes are summarised as follows: Buckinghamshire to be transferred to the East of England region; Cornwall to be given its own assembly, as demanded by its people; Hampshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire to be transferred to the South West region, which should then be renamed Wessex. The rest of this study focuses upon the new Wessex region.

Chapter 1 gives a statistical and geographical overview of the new region.

Chapter 2 focuses on planning issues, and the difficulties which are caused by the present boundary between the South West and South East regions.

Chapter 3 concentrates on economic arguments for the redrawing of the boundaries.

Chapter 4 provides evidence of latent popular identity with Wessex and shows the essential cultural unity of the Wessex region.

Chapter 5 illustrates the preference for a Wessex region among the region’s politicians.

Finally, Appendices review the different regional boundaries that have already existed within southern England, including examples of many organisations with Wessex regions.

FOREWORD

Ten years ago, there was no such region as the North East. It was, and had been for nearly half a century, part of something else: the Northern region. That grouping of five counties, including Cumbria, was so well-entrenched that it seemed to be taken for granted among regional enthusiasts that any future assembly would cover the whole of the Northern region.

Today, as the White Paper, Your Region, Your Choice, is quick to acknowledge, the North East is at the head of the queue for an elected regional assembly.

Similarly dramatic reversals of fortune can be expected elsewhere. Already, there is a growing realisation that the special requirements of Cornwall cannot be accommodated within the South West region as the White Paper envisages it. The history of administrative regionalism should certainly act as a warning against placing the current map beyond criticism. The south of England has been divided into regions that are neither popular nor practical. Among Ministers in particular there is recognition that the existing arrangements present many problems.

It is the purpose of this report to spell out what those problems are and to propose an alternative: a Wessex region stretching from Devon to Berkshire, neighbouring Cornwall to the west and the true ‘South-Eastern’ counties to the east.

‘Wessex’ is a name from the past but it is very much a name with a future. The oldest of the three organisations presenting this joint response has for over a quarter of a century sought the establishment of a Wessex regional government. All are pleased at the growth in public consciousness of Wessex that has taken place over that period and which continues apace. The process is not one that politicians in power have led. It is not one that they can hinder. But it is very much one that they can assist.

David Robins

Convener, Wessex Constitutional Convention

Nick Xylas

Chairman, Wessex Society

Colin Bex

President, Wessex Regionalists

INTRODUCTION

“The Bishop of Exeter speaking on the Today programme last Thursday about the forthcoming conference on a Regional Assembly for the south west drew attention to the total lack of democracy in the present arrangements for regional government. There is an even greater lack of democracy in the way the present regions were devised. Here in Hampshire we have always been part of South West England (or Wessex). Before the 1939/45 war BBC West Region had a station in Southampton. We were part of the Post Office South West Region and the Western Legal Circuit. During the war Hampshire soldiers formed part of the 43^rd Wessex Division. After the war our health services were provided first by the Wessex Regional Health Authority then by the South and West Regional Health Authority. Now arbitrarily Hampshire has been put in a South East Region where we have no historic or cultural affinity and progressively the Health Authority, English Heritage, NFU, the National Trust, the Territorial Army are all adjusting their boundaries to come into line. If the Prime Minister now wants the issue discussed perhaps we could go back to the first principles – what regions?”

- Letter from Jack Sturgess of Lyndhurst, Hants. to The Times, May 2001

This report represents the joint response of the three organisations which comprise the Wessex movement to the White Paper on regional governance, Your Region, Your Choice: Revitalising the English Regions, which was published on 9^th May 2002.

Whilst we welcome the general thrust of the White Paper, we have for some time been critical of the boundaries of the current NUTS-1 [1] regions, and note with dismay the White Paper’s inflexible attachment to them. The boundaries of these regions are unimaginative, driven more by a desire for regions of equal size – something that is actually quite untypical of European practice – than by a desire for regions that are economically, culturally, or even geographically, cohesive. We note with particular concern the partition of Wessex between the South West and South East regions, and it is the boundary between these regions that we propose to address in this report.

The three organisations sponsoring this report are as follows:

· The Wessex Regionalists, founded in 1974 by Alexander Thynne (now Lord Bath), are the oldest regionalist political party in England, and were advocating regional devolution for Wessex long before English regionalism entered mainstream political consciousness. Their discussion document, The Statute of Wessex (1982) suggested a Wessex region comprising historic Berkshire, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Somerset and Wiltshire, with provision for adjacent territories to join.

· Wessex Society is a cultural society set up in 1999 to promote regional identity. It is officially neutral on the issue of regional self-government, but has noted the extent to which unsympathetic, centrally-imposed boundaries have hampered its work, particularly through the creation of the Regional Cultural Consortia. Its main contribution to this work is towards Chapter 4, The Cultural Dimension. The society’s definition of Wessex is more explicit than the Wessex Regionalist definition, extending northwards to include Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Oxfordshire. This definition reflects its specialist interests in history and dialect matters.

· The Wessex Constitutional Convention was launched on 19^th May 2001, and is an all-party pressure group seeking to achieve the broadest consensus on the form of self-government appropriate for Wessex. Its region, though smaller than the Wessex Society definition, as it excludes Herefordshire (though with the proviso that all regional boundaries should be subject to popular will), is the one that enjoys the widest measure of support within the Wessex movement. Except as otherwise indicated, the Wessex Constitutional Convention’s definition is the one used in this report.

As will be seen from the foregoing, and from the maps at Appendix A, many different definitions of Wessex are in use. While at face value this might seem a weakness, compared with the precision of the existing official boundaries, it is in fact a strength. A variety of boundaries is a consequence of the varying needs of the organisations that use them. What is significant is that a choice has been made to use the name of Wessex. It is also clearly evident that, however deep the zones of transition may be, there is a substantial Wessex heartland that is of regional scale. Wessex should never be abused as simply an alternative name for Dorset.

The definition adopted for this report is one that is widely respected. At its core are Dorset and Wiltshire, common to every county-based definition of Wessex in Appendix A. Many other definitions then add either Somerset or Hampshire. The Wessex Tourism Association recognises the validity of drawing in both. To these four shires, Devon and Berkshire are added, making the Wessex of Thomas Hardy’s novels and – in terms of its core network – the area proposed for the Wessex Trains passenger rail franchise. The Cotswold shires – Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire – have more ambiguous loyalties but an affinity with Wessex is manifested in many ways described below. The eight shires thus encompassed – including the modern administrative counties of Bristol and the Isle of Wight – are the Wessex of this report.

While it would certainly be possible to argue for a smaller, or indeed a larger, Wessex region, there are reasons of cohesion that point to the eight-shire region as a sensible area. The nucleus of an administrative Wessex already exists in the form of the South West region, whose fatal flaw however, in terms of popular acceptance, is its inclusion of Cornwall. In losing Cornwall, the South West can move one county-width eastwards to include those shires which, even during the 20^th century, were still regarded as south-western but which are now grouped with the South East. The resultant region should then be renamed Wessex.

As the case for a separate Cornish assembly has been well documented elsewhere [2] , The Case for Wessex will focus on the South West/South East boundary, which is another way of saying that the key problems lie with the definition of the South East. Not only Wessex will benefit from the redrawing of boundaries proposed here. So will the South East: the ‘real South East’ of Surrey, Sussex and Kent. In the shires of eastern Wessex there is much resentment at inclusion in a South East region. Views in the real South East are likely to echo this: the inclusion of the Wessex shires serves only to dilute an otherwise geographically-coherent region, generating confusion and hostility. [3] We also argue for the transfer of Buckingham-shire to the East of England region, recognising that the present boundaries disadvantage its largest settlement, the growing new town of Milton Keynes. In a recent BBC poll [4] , the South East was the only English region not to register a majority in favour of an elected regional assembly. It takes only a glance at its shape on the map to understand why.

CHAPTER 1: WESSEX FACTS AND FIGURES

“In recent years a trend towards regionalism, as a reaction to overmuch centralisation, has revived the concept of Wessex. While some of the suggested new regions have had little logical basis in either history or geography Wessex, based on its historical extent, would have an immense potential and would be at least as homogenous as Wales or Ulster.”

- Ralph Whitlock, Whitlock’s Wessex, 1975

Geography

Wessex, as defined in this report, is an area comprising the traditional shires of Berkshire [5] , Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire (including Bristol), Hampshire (including the Isle of Wight), Oxfordshire, Somerset and Wiltshire. This area covers 10,926 square miles (28,296 sq.km.) and has a population of 7,343,000. At its greatest extent, it measures roughly 160 miles (260 km.) from east to west and 130 miles (210 km.) from north to south (excluding the Isle of Wight). For other regions broadly comparable in terms of area and population, see Table 1 below.

Table 1: Selected regions for comparison

NAME	COUNTRY	AREA (sq. mile/sq. km.)	POPULATION	NOTES
Cataluña	Spain	12,328/31,930	6,090,000	NUTS-2 region, part of Este (East) NUTS-1 region; former local government & regions minister Alan Whitehead described in Roth’s Parliamentary Profiles as believing in “Catalonia-style regionalism”.
Lombardia	Italy	9,211/23,856	8,989,000	Combines NUTS-1 and NUTS-2 status. This is fairly common in the EU: 7 regions – Åland, Attica, Azores, Brussels, Hamburg, Madeira and Madrid – combine NUTS-1,2 and 3 status, much as Cornwall seeks to do. Luxembourg combines NUTS-0,1,2 and 3 status.
Maryland	USA	12,198/31,600	5,135,000	The capital, Annapolis, has roughly the same population as Winchester, historic capital of Wessex.
Niedersachsen	Germany	18,381/47,606	7,832,000	The regional capital, Hannover, is twinned with Bristol, Wessex’s largest city.
*WESSEX*	UK	*10,926/28,296*	*7,343,000*

In passing, it can be noted that all of these regions have a historical/cultural identity and are not defined simply for administrative or economic convenience.

Wessex is larger than Wales but only one-third the size of Scotland. At 28,296 sq.km., Wessex is also larger than the South West (23,289 sq.km.) but is appreciably more compact. From west to east, it measures 260 km., while the South West mainland, from west Cornwall to north-east Gloucestershire, measures 350 km., greater than the distance from Gloucestershire to the Scottish border. The difference becomes even more marked when it is borne in mind that the South West also includes the Isles of Scilly, 40 km. west of Land’s End. In fact, Cornwall, with the Isles of Scilly, accounts for over a third of the South West’s total length. Wessex is only two-thirds as long as the South West, notwithstanding the addition of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Hampshire. It strikes a balance between treating as one region the corridors of movement west of London and forming a region where internal distances are short enough to enable that region to function effectively as a political unit.

Representation

Wessex is administered by 7 county councils with a total of 28 district, 13 borough and 4 city councils; 16 un