FORMER Worcester MP Mike Foster has hit out at the controversial shake-up of parliamentary constituencies, calling it "biased" and "bonkers".

The city's only ever Labour MP, who represented Worcester in the Commons for 13 years until 2010, has delivered a withering verdict on the proposals by calling for them to be scrapped in the light of Brexit.

He also said the alterations to the Worcester seat, which will see it enlarged to take in Norton, Whittington and Drakes Broughton, would make a Labour victory in the city more "rare" unless it can deliver a 1997-style landslide.

Mr Foster said: "The whole process was flawed from the outset - the pledge to reduce the cost of politics was made under the old Coalition.

"But it's defunct - due to Brexit we'll be getting rid of shedloads of MEPs and giving more work to MPs, because that's what 'taking back control is'.

"As much as people hate MPs, I understand that, they work long hours and they'll have more to do after Brexit - I'm not saying have more MPs, but I am saying let's keep what we've got.

"Yet we are giving them even larger constituencies, and the House of Lords has been stuffed full. It's a bit bonkers."

He also said the proposals are "biased for a number of reasons", but did not blame the Boundary Commission.

"The Boundary Commission is not biased, it's the rules that were drawn up which meant these changes would disproportionately impact on Labour - David Cameron and George Osborne knew that full well.

"You've got seats which have been allowed to cross county borders like never before.

"Imagine if you're an MP and you're looking to talk to a council chief executive about bin collections, but you've now got two chief executives from two different councils to deal with."

He admitted that the changes for Worcester will make it tougher to wrestle the seat back from Conservative control.

"It'll require a swing of the kind of size achieved by Tony Blair in 1997 for the Tories to be defeated in Worcester," he said.

"I'm not saying it can't happen, but look in history at how rare that event is. Worcester clearly isn't a safe Conservative seat, but it is 'safer'."

Current city MP Robin Walker has called the Worcester proposals "pretty uncontroversial" and has pointed to the constituency largely returning to its status before 1992, when it included more rural areas.

"To be perfectly honest I would rather it stay as it is, but I accept there was always likely to be some change and I'm glad Worcester only has some minor tweaks," he said.

The Boundary Commission has been tasked with cutting the number of seats from 650 to 600 by 2020, and evening out size disparities so each constituency has close to 75,000 voters.

As we revealed yesterday some other changes include lumping Malvern Hills with north Herefordshire under a 'Malvern and Ledbury' seat, and replacing Mid-Worcestershire with a new constituency covering Evesham, Pershore and Stratford-upon-Avon.

A consultation runs until December 5.