page_title: Crawley
section_title: Local government
hierarchical_section_title: Crawley / Governance / Local government
caption_attribution_description: English: View of Crawley town hall, looking northwest from The Boulevard. Photographed on 4th August 2007.
context_page_description: Crawley is a large town and borough in West Sussex, England. It is 28 miles south of London, 18 miles north of Brighton and Hove, and 32 miles north-east of the county town of Chichester. Crawley covers an area of 17.36 square miles and had a population of 106,597 at the time of the 2011 Census.
  The area has been inhabited since the Stone Age, and was a centre of ironworking in Roman times. Crawley developed slowly as a market town from the 13th century, serving the surrounding villages in the Weald. Its location on the main road from London to Brighton brought passing trade, which encouraged the development of coaching inns. A rail link to London opened in 1841.
  Gatwick Airport, nowadays one of Britain's busiest international airports, opened on the edge of the town in the 1940s, encouraging commercial and industrial growth. After the Second World War, the British Government planned to move large numbers of people and jobs out of London and into new towns around South East England. The New Towns Act 1946 designated Crawley as the site of one of these.
context_section_description: Crawley Urban District Council was formed in May 1956 from the part of the Horsham Rural District which covered the new town. The Local Government Act 1972 led to the district being reformed as a borough in April 1974, gaining a mayor for the first time.
  The Urban District Council received its coat of arms from the College of Heralds in 1957. After the change to borough status a modified coat of arms, based on the original, was awarded in 1976 and presented to the council on 24 March 1977. It features a central cross on a shield, representing the town's location at the meeting point of North-South and East-West roads. The shield bears nine martlets representing both the county of Sussex and the new town's original nine neighbourhoods. Supporters, of an eagle and a winged lion, relate to the significance of the airport to the locality. The motto featured is I Grow and I Rejoice—a translation of a phrase from the Epistulae of Seneca the Younger.
  Initially, the district (and then borough) council worked with the Commission for New Towns on many aspects of development; but in 1978 many of the commission's assets, such as housing and parks, were surrendered to the council. The authority's boundaries were extended in 1983 to accommodate the Bewbush and Broadfield neighbourhoods.
  The borough remains part of the local two-tier arrangements, with services shared with West Sussex County Council. The authority is divided into 13 wards, each of which is represented by two or three local councillors, forming a total council of 36 members. Most wards are coterminous with the borough's neighbourhoods, but three neighbourhoods are divided: Broadfield, Northgate, and Pound Hill into "Pound Hill North and Forge Wood" and "Pound Hill South and Worth". The council is elected in thirds.
  As of the May 2019 local elections, the authority is Labour-controlled, with seats allocated as follows:
  The Conservative party gained control in May 2006 for the first time since the borough was created. Previously the authority had always been Labour controlled. 
  Following the death of Labour Councillor Geraint Thomas in November 2019 and in the middle of an anti-semitism investigation, the resignation from the Labour Party of Councillors Karen Sudan and Rory Fiveash in June and July 2020, Crawley Borough Council is officially a hung council with no party in overall control.
caption: Crawley Town Hall, on The Boulevard in the town centre
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