Talk:Local Government Act 1972/Archive 1

message: This is an excellent article, and it clearly must have been written with several references to hand. Unfortunately it does not cite any of them, which is a real shame. Especially as I was looking to find more detail on the strip of land near Great Yarmouth that Norfolk annexed from Suffolk. I've added a References section, with the Unreferenced template, in the hope this will flush that detail out. -- Chris j wood 15:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The reference is the Act itself! Owain 15:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I can grab out the exact wording when I get back home to my flat (which will be this evening).  Have added the two main references.  If I remember correctly, it consisted of land south of the Waveney, so you should be able to find that on a map.  Morwen - Talk 14:45, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, at  you will find a typed in copy of Schedule 1, Part II, which contains the required info.  Morwen - Talk 21:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreferenced 

message: I notice that the Local Government Boundary Commission for England issued proposals for names for non-metropolitan districts  in March 1973. Apparently "names were chosen with regard to local feeling, and to geographical or historical background. Simple names were preferred to hybrid or concocted nemes, and care was taken to avoid names that might cause confusion between the new districts and existing parishes or other authorities."
I'd always thought this was a job for the committee of the merging councils. My father, an erstwhile urban councillor, was on one. I remember he said the guidelines discouraged the use of "this place and that place", preferring a single name. There was some concern about whether the City and County of Durham would both be allowed the use of the name. Whatever about the guidelines, contrivances made it through (Wychavon for one!)Lozleader 20:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some of the Welsh names are particularly odd, as well.  Morwen - Talk 20:49, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is this likely to have anything interesting in it (ie rationales) might fish it out, but not sure how much info it can get in 9 pages.  Morwen - Talk 13:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Names

message: The tables that define the non-metropolitan and metropolitan counties do so with reference to the the three rightmost columns. Given that there are "county borough" and "other parts" columns then surely "Existing geographic county or subdivision" is really just "administrative county"? i.e. the terminology used in the Act. Owain (talk) 11:44, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Remember, administrative counties did not include the county boroughs.  Using terminology of the time someone would have said that Caversham did not form part of the administrative county of Berkshire, but part of the geographic county of Berkshire.  Using the term "administrative county" in the second column would imply the administrative counties were considered to include the county boroughs.  Morwen - Talk 11:51, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes I appreciate that, but the way I read the table it suggests that the first column is composed of the parts listed in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th columns, therefore by listing county boroughs separately from the geographic counties, you are listing the same thing twice. Owain (talk) 12:01, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: the idea is that we are showing the contemporary geographic county, the county boroughs comprised therein that were used, and then specify what parts of the corresponding administrative county were included (if any).  From column 2, column 3 and column 4.  The lists of the county boroughs are needed because of e.g. Bournemouth.  we could unify columns 3 and 4 but i thought it would look neater this way, and i didn't want to make separate rows for the county boroughs, which would have been another way of doing it, as there are rather a lot of them.  Morwen - Talk 12:12, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I understand your reasoning now, although I think that columns 2 and 4 could be merged, because the way it reads now is that, say, Avon was composed of the entire of Gloucestershire and Somerset along with Bristol and Bath county boroughs and then something called "northern part" and "southern part". It was somewhat confusing to me, and I understand this stuff! :) Owain (talk) 12:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps it would help if column 2 and 3 were swapped?  I did consult a random person not knowledgeable in the area and he seemed to understand it.  Morwen - Talk 12:49, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Existing geographic county or subdivision" vs "administrative county" 

message: So, um anyone want to grab the 1971/1981 census and figure out which of the education authorities (if any) went under this limit?  Certainly the Isle of Wight did but that was a special case.  Counting today (which isn't really relevant), there are many   metropolitan boroughs smaller than that and of course lots of unitary authorities.  But even the smallest shire county (Shropshire minus Telford) beats 250,000. Morwen - Talk 18:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Trafford for one: 227, 972 in 1971, 221,029 in 1981. Lozleader 19:38, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I've checked out VoB and found these among the Metropolitan Boroughs:
Borough       	1971   	1981   	2001
Bury          	174,165	175,459	180,608
Oldham        	224,071	219,462	217,273
Rochdale      	204,071	206,351	205,357
Salford       	280,739	241,532	216,103
Tameside      	221,067	217,050	213,043
Trafford      	227,972	221,029	210,145
Knowsley      	194,549	172,991	150,459
St Helens     	188,689	189,245	176,843
Barnsley      	225,751	223,901	218,063
Rotherham     	243,118	250,340	248,175
Gateshead     	225,075	210,950	191,151
North Tyneside	207,215	197,446	191,659
South Tyneside	176,687	160,112	152,785
Powys would definitely have been below 250,000, maybe gwynedd, but I'm not sure if the principle extended to Wales.
Lozleader 20:15, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's interesting - well not very interesting - that Bury/Rochdale and St Helens/Knowsley went under the 250,000 limit due to a split that the government consented to.  And I suppose in Tyne and Wear any less than 4 districts on the Tyne would have been politically unfeasible.  Morwen - Talk 22:17, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at current figures these have been joined by Wolverhampton, Solihull and Calderdale,  Morwen - Talk 10:09, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 250,000

message: I'm plodding through the Times archives for 1972, and I was very intrested to note that Newmarket UDC was very opposed to remaining in Suffolk, and made at least two attempts to jump into Cambridgeshire. Harwich borough corporation wanted the town to go into Suffolk, not remain in Essex. So much for "county loyalty". I shall put a bit about these when I have them digested. Lozleader 17:25, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And also search for the string 'Botchdale' - which was the nickname for the proposed Bury/Rochdale district.  Fabulous!  I am reminded of the proposal to merge West Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse in the 1990s to form a unitary authority, which was quickly dubbed "Vale of White Elephant".  82.35.9.122 22:38, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And, February 17 has an article "proposed new areas and their composition" which outlines the White Paper proposals in great great detail.  Morwen - Talk 10:23, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text: found em : 18 new districts announced in November (in 22/11/72 edition)Lozleader 20:31, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newmarket 

message: I'm trying to figure out when the proposal to move Lymington to Dorset got in.  The map I have from the Bill in November 1971 clearly shows the Dorset/Hampshire boundary going between Christchurch and Lymington.  The earliest I can find in The Times in reference to Lymington is a Lords amendment reported on September 12, 1972 (Lymington stays in Hampshire) with the government losing a division on keeping Lymington on the Dorset side.  It surfaces again on October 17, 1972 (Peers fight to keep Lymington undivided) : with the government proposing the Barton, Becton and Milton wards of the borough of Lymington be detached from the rest and became part of Dorset.  Finally in October 18, 1972 (Lymington to remain undivided) we learn that the government gave up.
So did an amendment happen between November 1971 and September 1972 to add Lymington to dorset?  Hmm.  Wood doesn't shed any light on the matter.
The government lost a few other divisions in the Lords around that time, Rothwell, Wilmslow, Poynton (Triple Lords defeat for Government on boundaries Bill)
:The effect of the first two defeats [...] was to remove the urban district of Wilmslow and the parish of Poynton with Worth from the proposed new metropolitan county of Greater Manchester, leaving them as they are now in the county of Cheshire.
The second was just about which metropolitan district to put Rothwell in - change from Wakefield to Leeds. 
This was also when the "save Somerset" campaign was taking place - the government won a division on the same day by 42 to 41.  (saving Somerset, it must be noted, largely consisted of removing Weston-super-Mare from Avon (also Wrington, Butcombe, Compton Martin, Ubley, West Harptree and East Harptree).  The government was apparently nearly running out of time with this one with the next session of Parliament starting soon and the Bill still being debated 11 months after its introduction.
Morwen - Talk 19:33, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: oh, and I've found letters saying apparently the Weston Corporation supported Avon.  Morwen - Talk 19:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Lymington

message: The structure of the article rather seems to have turned to random recently, probably as a result of me adding content without having thought about it beforehand.  There's a particular problem in that the backgrounds for England and Wales are entirely different, as were the debates over boundaries, but the actual process of the passage of the Act was the same.  any suggestions/anyone want to edit?  i'm thinking that having prose under the sections with the tables in is a bad idea.  Morwen - Talk 20:50, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I could have a go. I'm reading a text on this at the moment that goes into some detail; it has a shortish introduction and then deals with Wales and England in separate sections. It is probably a good idea to mirror this. MRSC 10:31, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, bizarrely I seem to have started work on structuring it just as you were writing that.  How odd.  Morwen - Talk 10:33, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I will leave you to it. I will have another look at it some other time. MRSC 10:40, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Possibly, as the article is getting long, some content could go in Metropolitan county and Shire county (shire county is quite short and metropolitan county probably duplicates). The two would also need extensive copyediting. MRSC 10:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, splitting off sub-articles wouldn't be a bad idea.  I'd rather see it become a huge sprawling article that we then edit down to be balanced.  I think it currently focuses too much on boundaries, and we could do with more about things like agency, the demands of large districts for extra powers, changes to the actual structure of councils (abolition of aldermen) as well.  also more about the electoral system it set up, the provisional designation of electoral divisions that were replaced for the next set of elections, how they decided who was going to be up for re-election the next time, that sort of thing.   Do we need "reaction and aftermath" as a section on its own?  Some of it could be moved to other sections: other bits were just the side effects of edit wars and probably shouldn't be there. Morwen - Talk 12:08, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah. By the way, in the redo of the functions bit, it seems to have dropped the fact about some Welsh districts having extra powers.  The last page of the white paper outlines proposed functions in England, I could probably type that in. Morwen - Talk 12:53, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please do. Do the GLC / London boroughs get any new/amended powers under this Act? Perhaps that could get noted at the end of the table with the welsh variations. MRSC 13:02, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Structure

message: What is the wording of the source regarding this?  I can't find really any powers of the Secretary of State to create new metropolitan counties anywhere so am unsure what this means. Morwen - Talk 16:11, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, I see what I think it means.  The Local Government Boundary Commission for England was given the power to recommend making this change - the Welsh one wasn't it.  Can we clarify the wording?  Morwen - Talk 16:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I no longer have Arnold-Baker (it is an annotated version of the LGA1972). My notes tell me that counties could not be designated metropolitan in Wales by the Secretary of State. I will take another look at it to get the exact wording, probably tomorrow. MRSC 16:21, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Ah, I see what I think it means.  The Local Government Boundary Commission for England was given the power to recommend making this change - the Welsh one wasn't it.  Can we clarify the wording?  Morwen - Talk 16:14, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: metropolitan counties in Wales