Implementing the review before the new boundaries come into force
Where the polling districts/polling places review is carried out before the new electoral boundaries are fully in force, it will need to reflect both the current electoral boundaries and also the new boundaries that will come into effect at the next UK Parliamentary general election.
To avoid having to review the polling districts and polling places again once the new boundaries are fully in force, any parts of existing electoral areas that will be split when the new boundaries come into effect could be made into separate polling districts as part of the review.
Additionally, until the new boundaries are fully in force, the electoral register will need to be constructed in such a way that is capable of reflecting both the current and the new boundaries. Again, this can be achieved by making any parts of existing electoral areas that will be split when the new boundaries come into effect into separate polling districts. Your EMS software supplier will be able to advise how this can be implemented in practice.
For the same reasons, where, as a result of a review of one set of electoral boundaries, the boundaries for different elections are no longer co-terminous, (i.e. they no longer share the same boundaries) those areas that are no longer co-terminous could be also be made into separate polling districts.
The example below sets out how registers could be split, to ensure that registers can be produced on both new existing and new structures.
Example
Anyfield City Council has 20 wards split between two Parliamentary constituencies, Anyfield and Newtown. All the polling districts are numbered according to constituency (A or N) then ward number (1-20) [numbers used for illustrative purposes for this example only].
The Anyfield City Council ward boundaries matched the old UK Parliamentary constituency boundaries, with wards 1-10 being in the Anyfield constituency and 11-20 being in the Newtown constituency. However under the new constituency boundaries, ward 11 is split between the two constituencies.
Therefore, the four polling districts (N11A-N11D) in ward 11 were reviewed to separate out the streets in the Anyfield constituency, creating a new polling district, A11E:
N11A
N11B
N11C
N11D
A11E
Although in some cases polling districts like A11E may only have a few streets, creating a separate polling district will ensure that the electoral register reflects the new boundaries.
If required, you can produce registers on the old or new UK Parliamentary boundaries in case of requests from prospective candidates/parties based on the required polling districts for the constituency.