CONTROVERSIAL plans to wipe out one of the county’s Westminster seats will be dropped, Tories now believe.

David Cameron is poised to abandon a pledge to cut the number of constituencies across the UK by 50, because his small majority makes backbench opposition too risky.

The proposal – blocked by the Liberal Democrats in the last parliament – would probably have cut the number of seats in Hampshire, Southampton and Portsmouth from 18 to 17.

An original Boundary Commission blueprint would have joined Romsey with the New Forest East constituency and transferred large parts of New Forest East, including Lyndhurst, into the New Forest West seat.

Southampton would have been represented by four different MPs, with Bitterne ward moved to a new Hedge End and Hamble seat and Swaythling becoming part of Eastleigh.

After protests, that proposal was rewritten – but the surviving plans would still have axed the Meon Valley seat held by George Hollingberry for the Conservatives.

And the Isle of Wight would be split into two constituencies – because it currently has a whopping 110,000 voters, instead of the target of around 75,000.

The Conservative election manifesto vowed to forge ahead with what it described as a “long overdue” reduction to seats, to “make votes of more equal value”.

The party has long complained that the political map has failed to keep pace with voters moving out of the inner-cities, where Labour wins seats with smaller electorates.

But the plan is deeply unpopular on the Tory benches, where many nervous MPs fear for their own seats – and oppose new constituencies that ignore natural boundaries.

Now the influential chairman of the Conservative 1922 backbench committee, Graham Brady, has called for the Commons to remain “at its current size at the moment”.

And Tory whips have told their MPs the shake-up is thought too contentious to pursue when the Government has majority of just 12.

Part of the new Tory thinking is that party can still gain from a “normal” boundary review, which would redraw some seats but leave the total at 650.

That is because such a review would reduce the number of constituencies in Wales, where Labour dominates, as well as in some inner-cities.

The Boundary Commissions are now expected to start that review next year and submit a report to parliament on proposed boundary changes in 2018.