Hull City Council

Hull City Council, or Kingston upon Hull City Council, is the local authority for the city of Kingston upon Hull (generally known as Hull) in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Hull has had a council since 1299, which has been reformed on numerous occasions. Since 1996 the council has been a unitary authority, being a district council which also performs the functions of a county council; it is independent from East Riding of Yorkshire Council, the unitary authority which administers the rest of the county.

The council has been under Liberal Democrat majority control since 2022. It is based at the Guildhall.

History
Hull was an ancient borough. It was granted its first charter in 1299 by Edward I. He had acquired the small port town of Wyke upon Hull six years earlier in 1293, and had renamed it Kingston upon Hull to reflect its new royal ownership. The 1299 charter gave the borough certain rights of self-government. A subsequent charter in 1331 gave the borough the right to appoint a mayor.

In 1440 the borough was given the right to appoint its own sheriff, which made it a county corporate and removed it from the jurisdiction of the Sheriff of Yorkshire. Seven years later, in 1447, the county corporate was extended to also include an adjoining rural area lying to the west of Hull itself, which became known as Hullshire. Although independent from the Sheriff of Yorkshire, Hull remained part of the geographical county of Yorkshire and continued to form part of the East Riding for the purposes of lieutenancy until 1974.

Hull was reformed in 1836 to become a municipal borough under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, which standardised how most boroughs operated across the country. The town was then governed by a body formally called the 'mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Kingston upon Hull', generally known as the corporation or town council. The reformed borough was enlarged to match the Kingston upon Hull constituency, which had been expanded in 1832 to take in areas including Drypool and Sculcoates. As part of the same reforms, Hull lost its jurisdiction over the parts of Hullshire outside the enlarged borough boundary (the parishes of Hessle, Kirk Ella and North Ferriby and their associated townships), which were returned to the jurisdiction of the Sheriff of Yorkshire.

When elected county councils were established in 1889, Hull was considered large enough for the existing corporation to also take on county council functions, making it a county borough. The borough boundaries were enlarged on several occasions.

In 1897, Hull was awarded city status, after which the corporation was also known as the city council. In 1914 the city's mayor was awarded the honorific title of lord mayor.

Local government was reformed in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. Hull kept the same boundaries (which had last been expanded in 1968) but was reconstituted as a non-metropolitan district and placed in the new county of Humberside, with county-level functions passing to Humberside County Council. Hull's borough and city statuses and its lord mayoralty were all transferred to the new district and its council.

The legal name of the district is 'Kingston upon Hull', but the council styles itself 'Hull City Council' rather than its full formal name of 'Kingston upon Hull City Council'. The full name is sometimes used in official documents.

In 1996 the county of Humberside and its council were abolished, and Hull City Council gained responsibility for county-level services. The way this change was legally implemented was to create a new non-metropolitan county of Kingston upon Hull covering the same area as the existing district, but with no separate county council; instead the existing city council took on county functions, making it a unitary authority. This therefore had the effect of restoring the city council to the powers it had held when Hull was a county borough prior to 1974. A ceremonial county called East Riding of Yorkshire was established at the same time, covering both Hull and the neighbouring East Riding of Yorkshire unitary authority area.

Governance
The council provides both district-level and county-level functions. There are no civil parishes in the city.

Political control
The council has been under Liberal Democrat majority control since 2022.

Political control of the council since 1929 has been as follows:

Leadership
The role of Lord Mayor is largely ceremonial. Political leadership is provided by the leader of the council. The leaders since 2007 have been:

Composition
Following the 2024 election and a subsequent change of allegiance in June 2024, the composition of the council was:

The next election is due in May 2026.

Elections
Since the last boundary changes in 2018, the council has comprised 57 councillors representing 21 wards, with each ward electing two or three councillors. Elections are held three years out of every four, with a third of the council elected each time for a four-year term of office.

Premises
The council meets at the Guildhall at the junction of Alfred Gelder Street and Lowgate in the city centre. The building was purpose-built for the council and was completed in 1914. It has several other administrative buildings, including the Wilson Centre, also on Alfred Gelder Street (which houses the main customer service centre), and the City Treasury building on Guildhall Road, immediately north of the Guildhall.