page_title: Clitheroe
section_title: Governance
hierarchical_section_title: Clitheroe / Governance
caption_attribution_description: English: James Thomson - mayor died 1850 at Clitheroe Castle Museum Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
context_page_description: Clitheroe is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Ribble Valley in Lancashire, England, approximately 34 miles northwest of Manchester. It is near the Forest of Bowland, and is often used as a base for tourists visiting the area. In 2018, Clitheroe Built Up Area had an estimated population of 16,279.
  The town's most notable building is Clitheroe Castle, said to be one of the smallest Norman keeps in Britain. Several manufacturing companies have sites here, including Dugdale Nutrition, Hanson Cement, Johnson Matthey and Tarmac.
context_section_description: The town elected two members to the Unreformed House of Commons. The Great Reform Act reduced this to one.  The parliamentary borough was abolished under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885.
  It was one of the boroughs reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, and remained a municipal borough until the Local Government Act 1972 came into force in 1974 when it became a successor parish within the Ribble Valley district.
  Since 1991 the town of Clitheroe has elected at least 8 out of the 10 Liberal Democrat borough councillors on Ribble Valley Borough Council, while Clitheroe Town Council has been Liberal Democrat controlled for that period too. Likewise since 1993 the town has elected a Liberal Democrat County Councillor to Lancashire County Council.
  Clitheroe returned one of the first six ever Socialist MPs at the 1906 General Election, due perhaps to the large number of mill workers living locally at that time. Clitheroe has been represented by a Conservative Member of Parliament for many years, with the exception of Michael Carr, who won a by-election in 1991 for the Liberal Democrats but who lost the seat in the general election that followed a year later.
  The current MP is Nigel Evans, who was first elected in 1992. Prior to both men was the high-profile David Waddington.
caption: Mayor James Thomson (from Clitheroe Castle Museum)
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