User talk:Stortford

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Amwell
Thankyou for you're work on Great Amwell and Little Amwell, as you can see I noted there should probably be a split but the only difference it that Amwell, Hertfordshire now goes to Amwell rather than Great Amwell due to the fact that there is also a hamlet in St Albans district. I have fixed most links to point to one of the specific places but there are 4 links that I can't determine, I have also nominated Category:People from Amwell, Hertfordshire for deletion. Also since you have been working on other Hertfordshire parishes do you have any knowledge about Brickendon Liberty? That title redirects to Brickendon but perhaps should have a separate article however the name may indicate its an alternative name for the village meaning no separate article may be needed. Consider for example Little Amwell was also a liberty.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 18:41, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for sorting out those Amwell links - I managed to find some extra sources for the last four and have disambiguated them too. On Brickendon, I think that plain "Brickendon" is the common name of the village itself, and used to be the name of the parish / parish liberty too - looks like the "Liberty" was only added to the name of the parish in 1929. I'm undecided on how this parish's pages / redirects should be structured so as to be consistent. Stortford (talk) 22:11, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It looks perhaps like there was a Rural and Urban parish split from the original "Brickendon" parish in 1894. No information is give on the Urban one but there is on the Rural one namely that it was created from part of Brickendon in 1894 and then was abolished in 1929 to create the current Liberty parish. Its not clear if it needs a separate article but the only other missing current parish in Hertfordshire is Nettleden with Potten End.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 20:06, 16 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Yes, Brickendon was split in December 1894 - Brickendon Urban was like many such "urban" parishes created that year - it was the bit of the former Brickendon parish which overlapped the borough of Hertford, so it was always governed by the borough corporation rather than having its own parish council. The urban parishes within Hertford borough were all merged in September 1900 to become a single parish called Hertford which was coterminous with the borough, so Brickendon Urban only existed for less than six years and was never self-governing. In 1929 Brickendon Liberty was created as a merger of Brickendon Rural with St John Rural (itself created in 1894 as the bit of the old parish of Hertford St John outside the borough). My feeling is that with some extra sources this is probably all best explained on the Brickendon page as the common name for the village and leave the Brickendon Liberty page as a redirect to it. This would be analogous to Letchworth, where the page title uses the name which is both the common name and historic name rather than the full formal modern name of Letchworth Garden City, which is a redirect. I'll try and put some words together over the next few days. Nettleden with Potten End probably would benefit from a short page about the parish, although linked to the two main settlements the parish is named after - again, I'll see what I can put together. Stortford (talk) 20:35, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, I see it is covered here regarding Brickendon Urban etc. It was pointed out to me on Commons years ago that most "X Village" and "X Town" parishes should normally redirect to "X" such as Aintree Village>Aintree so that may well also apply to "X Urban" parishes but not "X Rural" parishes for example Ellesmere Urban>Ellesmere, Shropshire but Ellesmere Rural is separate. That suggests Brickendon Urban should probably not be separate however it seems like Brickendon Rural also covered the village perhaps partly due to the boundary changes in 1900? However "Brickendon Liberty" is just a re-merge of the Rural and Urban parishes plus a bit of land rather than something new so yes it may well not need a separate article and as noted the Rural one probably doesn't either.
 * Regarding Letchworth, it seems like both "Letchworth" and "Letchworth Garden City" are used for the settlement, the former CP was "Letchworth Garden City" and current unparished area is "Letchworth" so those meanings are definitely synonymous, see the discussions at Talk:Letchworth.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:14, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I've added content at Brickendon for the parishes. I've also created drafts at Draft:Hoddesdon Rural and Draft:Great Berkhampstead Rural for what look to be now the only 1974 former parishes that are missing.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 18:31, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that - I've made a few tweaks to Brickendon to add a bit more narrative and sourcing. I've also replaced the redirect page at Nettleden with Potten End with a short page about the civil parish, although left most information about the area on the separate Nettleden and Potten End pages about the villages - I see you've already tidied a few points there, thanks. Only point I'd make on your Hoddesdon Rural draft is that it was split from Hoddesdon on 4 December 1894, not 1 April - this was one of those changes which occurred on "the appointed day" for the purposes of the Local Government Act 1894, which was defined differently for different purposes. Splitting of parishes took effect on 4 December 1894, which was the day mandated for the first parish meetings. Stortford (talk) 07:16, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
 * My mistake about December rather than April but VOA says 31 not 4 December.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 17:21, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes - Vision of Britain does say 31 December. The transition under the Local Government Act 1894 was not particularly neat - the Act itself only referred to "the appointed day", and it was left to subsequent orders of the Local Government Board to specify what that day was. In the end orders were issued specifying different appointed days for different purposes - the splitting of parishes took effect on 4 December, which was the day for the first parish meetings, parish councils came into their powers on either 13 December if no election was needed or 31 December if an election was needed, rural sanitary districts became rural districts on 28 December, and urban sanitary districts became urban districts on 31 December. I believe Vision of Britain presents all these changes as having taken effect on the last of those dates for simplicity. However, if you'd rather not go into the complexity of all that (especially given the stance Vision of Britain has taken on the point), perhaps just put the date of change as December 1894. Stortford (talk) 19:55, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Letchworth
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Letchworth you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of SounderBruce -- SounderBruce (talk) 07:40, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Berkhamsted Civic Centre
Hi - Please can you take a look at Berkhamsted Civic Centre? I have included a couple of sources which say the site was previously occupied by William Nash & Son whereas the Berkhamsted article suggests the site was occupied by a former Wesleyan chapel. I am not sure which is right: it might be that both are correct but at different periods of site ownership. Thanks. Dormskirk (talk) 11:43, 25 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello - looking into it, I've found a couple of newspaper articles concerning the auction on 26 August 1908 at which the council bought the site (then called 135 High Street). These make clear that the former chapel was behind the main house which faced High Street, but that it had ceased to be a chapel and was occupied along with the rest of the premises by "Nash and Son", builders. A couple of extracts below:
 * Sales by auction, Bucks Herald (Aylesbury), 22 August 1908, page 4
 * "On Wednesday next... The highly valuable freehold property, consisting of the commodious dwelling house, No. 135, High Street, with extensive premises and yard accommodation in the rear, having the great depth of about 545 feet, in the occupation of Messrs. Nash and Son, builders and contractors... for sale by auction..."
 * Berkhamsted: Urban Council's Enterprise - An important development, Watford Observer, 29 August 1908, page 7
 * "By purchasing for £2,300 the premises in the High Street, occupied for a good many years by Messrs. Nash and Son, builders... the Berkhamsted Urban Council have made a decided forward step... The premises, 135 High Street, have ample accommodation for all the necessities of the Urban Council's work, which can in future be concentrated instead of being spread about... They have stabling in Station Road, the fire steamer is housed at the "Goat," the manual is kept at the Town Hall, the Council and committee meetings are held at the Workhouse Boardroom, the surveyor's office is in the High Street, and their yard is in the Lower King's Road, while stores and other materials have to be deposited in various out-of-the-way parts of the district...
 * The premises have a frontage to the High Street, including the gateway, of about 32½ feet... they comprise an area of about three quarters of an acre. Being situated in the very centre of the business part of the town and possessing just such accommodation as the requirements of the Council demands, the premises are splendidly suitable. In addition to the ample accommodation in the house, there is, just at their rear, a large brick and tiled building recently used as a store or workshop, but which in former days was used as a Wesleyan chapel... It is proposed to convert this building into a Council Chamber, for which it is eminently fitted, and for which it will need but little adaptation.
 * Facing it on the other side of the yard is a range of two-storied buildings, upwards of 150 feet long and about 20 feet wide, used as store rooms &c. This building will be altered for use as cart sheds, as well as for a fire station...
 * Biddings commenced with £1,000... the price was carried to £2,300, at which figure it was knocked down to Mr. North on behalf of the Council."
 * Hope that helps. Stortford (talk) 18:40, 25 April 2022 (UTC)


 * That's brilliant. And many thanks for the improvements you have made to the Berkhamsted Civic Centre. Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 19:26, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Hertfordshire former parishes
Do you intend to do anything with Draft:Great Berkhampstead Rural and Draft:Hoddesdon Rural? like the some of the other former parishes.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 16:43, 28 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello - thanks for putting those together. I've now had a look at them both and slightly expanded their history to explain why these areas were made parishes in the context of the creation of urban districts and these rural parishes being the bits left over. Otherwise both pages look good to go. Stortford (talk) 19:09, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

I have sent you a note about a page you started
Hello, Stortford

Thank you for creating 2002 Reading Borough Council election.

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Orphaned non-free image File:North Herts Council logo 2021.png
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I have sent you a note about a page you started
Hello, Stortford

Thank you for creating 2002 Slough Borough Council election.

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Districts
Similar to Talk:Slough there are some districts at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about districts/to do which maybe should be split or merged.

The 1st 2 list districts that have significantly different boundaries to their settlements and should probably be split. The 3rd, Blackpool has similar boundaries to the settlement and should probably be merged (an article on the council already exists).

The "Local authorities" section lists districts that are combined with their settlement but no district council article exists. In the 1st 6 cases the district contains a single unparished area so probably no separate article is needed for the district per WP:UKDISTRICTS but an article on the district councils such as Crawley Borough Council (like Eastbourne Borough Council) probably should exist. The 7th case is a bit less straight forward as although the boundaries of the district are similar to the settlement the district contains 2 parishes that were moved to the district in 1974. In this case we could create an article on the district at City of Worcester, England (or perhaps like City of Lancaster just City of Worcester if its the only 3rd order unit with this name) or like Gloucester/Gloucester City Council and Cheltenham/Cheltenham Borough Council create Worcester City Council and have no separate article for the district (like what you've suggested for Slough. Thoughts?  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:36, 27 July 2022 (UTC)


 * My initial thoughts would be:
 * York - I don't see the pressing need for separate York and City of York articles. The surrounding rural area is relatively modest in the context of the city as a whole, and the York article does note that the administrative area extends beyond the main built up area. It's certainly nothing like as clear-cut as districts like Bedford or Winchester where the rural area goes well beyond the immediate hinterland of the namesake settlement. I'd rather keep City of York Council where it is though to focus on that organisation, about which there's a reasonable amount of information.
 * Redditch - modern borough covers same area as pre-1974 Redditch Urban District (or if there have been tweaks since 1974 they appear to have been very minor). I think having separate Redditch and Borough of Redditch pages would add more confusion and duplication, rather than creating more clarity.
 * Blackpool - I agree with the proposal to merge Borough of Blackpool into Blackpool.
 * Crawley / Gosport / Hastings / Tamworth / Woking - I agree that a separate page for the councils of these boroughs would be good.
 * Lincoln - likewise, I agree that a page for the council would be good, although I don't know whether there's been a discussion elsewhere on the convention for calling the page "Lincoln City Council" or "City of Lincoln Council". From a quick straw poll, most such pages seem to follow the "Place City Council" format, but an exception seems to have been made for "City of York Council", perhaps because that's the word order used by the council itself in its corporate branding. Personally I think "Place City Council" is neater and has the advantage of consistency with all the "Place Borough Council" and "Place District Council" pages.
 * Worcester - I see no need for separate Worcester, England and City of Worcester pages - whilst the modern district did gain two parishes outside the old county borough boundaries in 1974, those two parishes are now largely covered by the urban area. A Worcester City Council page would be the better way of dealing with Worcester in my view. Stortford (talk) 19:22, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Might it also make sense to merge many district councils where the district is already split from the settlement such as Bedford/Borough of Bedford/Bedford Borough Council and when the district name only exists as a district such as South Hams/South Hams District Council. What I'm saying is merge Bedford Borough Council>Borough of Bedford and South Hams District Council>South Hams per WikiProject UK geography/How to write about districts while keeping councils for districts combined with a settlement such as Eastbourne/Eastbourne Borough Council and those combined with another entity such as Isles of Scilly/Council of the Isles of Scilly. For Redditch and York a possibility along those lines would be to create a district article and then merge the district council there.
 * Regarding Lincoln I wouldn't be too worried about what the best title for the council is, I was going by City of Lincoln Council elections and what the council calls its self which I why I changed the suggestion. The title can be changed perhaps at RM later if needed.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 16:49, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

2002 Slough Borough Council election moved to draftspace
An article you recently created, 2002 Slough Borough Council election, is not suitable as written to remain published. It needs more citations from reliable, independent sources. (?) Information that can't be referenced should be removed (verifiability is of central importance on Wikipedia). I've moved your draft to draftspace (with a prefix of " " before the article title) where you can incubate the article with minimal disruption. When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready for mainspace, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page.  Onel 5969  TT me 13:33, 5 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your interest in this one. If I can just explain what has happened here - the Slough Borough Council page had grown to become incredibly long and unwieldy, with lengthy descriptions of each election back to 1997. The page had been tagged by other users as being too long and excessively detailed. Given that there are well-established pages for each election to most UK local authorities, I thought it made sense to copy over the material relating to each election onto separate pages, following the format used for other local authorities, which I did in June 2022. This allowed me to then do a thorough tidy and re-write of the Slough Borough Council page without completely losing the material on the historical elections. The material on the Draft:2002 Slough Borough Council election page and the others like it is no less sourced than it was when it formed a small portion of the Slough Borough Council page. I'm reluctant to put the historic elections material back on the Slough Borough Council page, but I also think it would be a shame to lose the historic elections material altogether if I don't manage to find additional sources to salvage the page you've put into draft. Stortford (talk) 14:02, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

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New council articles
Crawley Borough Council, Gosport Borough Council, Hastings Borough Council, City of Lincoln Council, Tamworth Borough Council and Woking Borough Council articles now exist. You might want to check everything is OK with them, thanks.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 16:48, 7 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for doing those. I've now managed to go through them and have made a few tidying tweaks. Stortford (talk) 18:49, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Woking
Thank you for your edits to the Governance section of the Woking article. There are a couple of things which you've introduced into the text which are not supported by the current references. I have added  templates to highlight them. The sentences are: Would you be able to provide sources for these please? Also I would like to move the first point about the "urban parishes" to a footnote. Would you be happy for me to do this? Best wishes, Mertbiol (talk) 12:19, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The four civil parishes within Woking Urban District after 1933 were therefore Byfleet, Horsell, Pyrford, and Woking; these were "urban parishes" and so did not have parish councils of their own, with Woking Urban District Council being the lowest level representative body.
 * The urban parishes within the borough were abolished at the same time [1974], making it an unparished area.


 * Hello - thanks for the feedback. I've now added some extra sources and moved the urban parishes point to a footnote as suggested. The perception I was trying to avoid is that there was some extra layer of parish government below the urban district council. The distinction between rural parishes (which could have a parish council) and urban parishes (which couldn't) ceased in 1974 and so the fact of there having been different parishes within the urban district prior to 1974 may be misconstrued by modern readers. Stortford (talk) 15:13, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

Your GA nomination of Letchworth
The article Letchworth you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Letchworth for comments about the article. Well done! If the article has not already appeared on the main page as a "Did you know" item, or as a bold link under "In the News" or in the "On This Day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear in DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On This Day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of SounderBruce -- SounderBruce (talk) 09:21, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Worcester City Council
Thankyou for creating this, now all current districts in England named after other types of places either have a separate article or a district council article. I've started Notability (councils) of which for England this means generally county councils have separate articles from their counties (all at Category:County councils of England exist), district councils generally don't have separate articles from the district unless like Worcester there is no separate article for the district from the settlement of the same name (most at Category:Non-metropolitan district councils of England aren't separate) and parish councils of parishes named after settlements (or other features) may have articles but generally this is only large and important ones and like districts those like Elstree and Borehamwood Town Council that aren't named after a settlement etc generally shouldn't exits (at Category:Parish councils of England only 30 exist/are separate).  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:44, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * So yes I'd also say the merge of Newtown Town Council was appropriate as the community name only exists as a community.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 08:28, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks - I wasn't actively looking for parish / community councils that had their own pages, but stumbled across Newtown Town Council whilst tidying up the various Powys authorities. It seems to me that if we've merged most district / district council pages the same logic should also apply to the lower tier parishes / communities and their councils too. Stortford (talk) 17:43, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes for the likes of those like Hurstpierpoint and Sayers Common where the name only exists as a parish but for those like Crewe Town Council the same logic as Eastbourne/Eastbourne Borough Council might apply to have separate articles.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:07, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed, although I wouldn't want to try and create articles for every parish council where the parish shares a name with a settlement. For the vast majority of such parish councils I would say a line or two in the page about the settlement should be adequate coverage, and only where a council is particularly large or notable will it generate enough content to justify a page itself. Stortford (talk) 05:16, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed, many probably would not pass the notability guidelines and would end up being merged with the settlement/parish article. In most cases adding the info to a "Parish Council", "Civil parish" or governance section would probably be better. Articles for deletion/Ringwood Town Council (pop 14,181) was closed as merge due to back of notability. Maybe as a general rule only those with 20,000+ should exist but per WP:BIG I wouldn't stick too much to that. At List of the most populous civil parishes in England a few exist. Looking at List of English districts by population, ignoring the Isles of Scilly, City of London, Rutland and Richmondshire the smallest district by population we have a council article for is Tamworth (76,696) and Gosport (84,838) which is smaller than a few parishes. In terms of AFD if Norwich City Council ended up at AFD it would probably be kept, if Rossendale Borough Council ended up at AFD I'd expect it would end up being merged even if notable due to overlap, if Buxted Parish Council ended up at AFD it would probably end up being merged due to lack of notability even without the overlap.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 18:22, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Hertfordshire former parishes
I've produced a list of missing former civil parishes at User:Crouch, Swale/Hertfordshire and those that exist at User:Crouch, Swale/Hertfordshire/Exists (see all). Its divided into:


 * 1, parishes that are OS settlements and standalone settlements
 * 2, parishes that are OS settlements that aren't OS settlements but not standalone settlements (put part of the name here to see if "Other Settlement" comes up)
 * 3, parishes that aren't OS settlements.
 * Urban parishes, not the same as the pre-1974 definition at (which I hadn't heard of until that discussion) but only those that are named with the saint or similar in addition to the larger settlement they are part of. These are least priority to create but should probably exist.

What could be added in addition to the missing ones being created is the population at most recent census before abolition and when the parish was abolished. Most articles already have the latter and the former is less important for those like Baldock that still exist as unparished areas or otherwise have current settlement data. For larger places like Bushey it may make more sense to put the population data in the governance section, for smaller places like Wakeley, Hertfordshire it probably makes sense to put it in the lead. For some like Horstead (in Norfolk but just an example) have no information in VOB so I'd consider not bothering to create them.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:08, 24 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello
 * Thanks for preparing that list. Whilst I follow your way of defining "urban parishes", I think the key to understanding the significance of these former civil parishes does lie in the formal urban / rural parish distinction that was initially made in the Local Government Act 1894. Quite a lot of your category 3 parishes were actually urban parishes. (If you're working from Vision of Britain, look on the "relationships and changes" tab at what the upper tier district for each parish was - if it was an urban district or borough, then the parish was an urban parish.) Many of these former urban parishes are prone to mislead by their names - for instance "Brickendon Urban" was part of the borough of Hertford, Sandridge Urban was part of the borough of St Albans, and "South Mimms Urban" was part of the urban district of Barnet. In many cases (Sandridge Urban being typical), they were a corner of an ancient parish (Sandridge) where the urban area of a neighbouring town (St Albans) had spilled over the parish boundary and had been incorporated into the urban sanitary district of that town prior to the 1894 act coming into force. The parish of Sandridge Urban was tiny, only comprising four or five streets on the (then) edge of St Albans.
 * The 1894 Act was effectively a cookie-cutter, turning each segment of the Venn diagram of overlapping parishes and sanitary districts into separate parishes. Many oddities of tiny urban parishes resulted across the country, and for the next few years there was a lot of consolidation and tidying, usually by uniting all the urban parishes within a borough or urban district into a single parish. For example, the urban parishes within St Albans borough, including Sandridge Urban, were consolidated into a single St Albans parish in 1898. The urban parishes never had their own parish councils, because the 1894 Act said only rural parishes could have parish councils. There was therefore never a Sandridge Urban Parish Council - throughout the civil parish's short existence it was governed directly by St Albans Borough Council.
 * I would prefer to say that civil parishes which were only ever urban parishes are not sufficiently notable in their own right to get a separate Wikipedia page. They could be mentioned in passing as part of the administrative history of the town, as I've done with the urban parishes of Haverfordwest, but I think it overstates the importance the urban parishes actually had at the time to automatically give all of them their own pages. I would prefer to say that we focus on the tiers of the geographic hierarchy which actually had an administrative body governing them - so the rural parishes, urban and rural districts, and the various types of borough (and for urban districts and boroughs, I'd say the relevant town's page is where discussion of former urban districts / boroughs which governed the town should go, as I've done at Baldock). That type of structure more closely aligns with how contemporary sources such as Kelly's Directories tended to arrange their lists of settlements.
 * The fact that you've got an "Unnamed, Hertfordshire" on your category 3 list illustrates the point. Assuming you've got this from Vision of Britain here: Unnamed CP, this urban parish was a slither of the old Little Amwell parish which was within the Ware urban sanitary district and so automatically became a separate parish within Ware Urban District in 1894. So little importance attached to it as a parish that it was never given a formal name, yet it existed for ten years until 1904 when someone secured an order merging it into the parish of Ware.
 * Thanks. Stortford (talk) 19:21, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I've modified User:Crouch, Swale/Hertfordshire to split the urban parishes category into 2 parts, the 1st part being category 3 parishes that were classified as "urban" with the 2nd part being the original definition but to be quite honest I probably don't even need that distinction as quite a lot in the 1st group like Bengeo Urban don't have any information at VOB while Hertford St Andrew does. With category 2 parishes I actually meant those that are OS settlements but not standalone settlements like Walsworth. All urban parishes that are OS settlements are still category 1 and 2 parishes, the "Urban parishes" is for non-OS settlements only.
 * Yes I'm working from VOB but UKBMD is also useful for filling in some of the gaps such as old ones and recent changes.
 * I'd still expect urban parishes are likely to be notable as they seem to have had some electoral function like wards, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom/Archive 10 but I agree there is probably little point in creating many of them and the split in the list is very useful as it distinguishes between those that definitely should exist and those that may not need to exist.
 * If we don't give urban parishes separate articles I guess for those like Sandridge Urban where the namesake settlement wasn't part of them the redirect would be better going to the urban district section (or article if the urban district is given its own article) while those like Bengeo Urban that did cover the namesake settlement may be better redirected to the settlement namely Bengeo. I don't really have a strong opinion either way.
 * UKBMD unfortunately no longer specifies individual unparished areas but now just names the entire part(s) as the district name as it classifies Baldock, Hitchin and Letchworth as the "North Hertfordshire" unparished area but Web Archive shows older versions listing the individual unparished areas. My understanding is that didn't have a successor parish and that even if the former district had multiple urban parishes it still became a single unparished area and that if a parish like Southsea is established post 1974 and later abolished it goes back into the original unparished area, that is to say Portsmouth district only contains 1 unparished area namely "Portsmouth" rather than 2 namely "Portsmouth" and "Southsea". The rule of urban parishes (prior to 1974) now becoming unparished areas in their own right probably somewhat reflects the administration insignificance and anyway readers are far more likely to know what former district a place was in than former urban parish. Lucky this doesn't matter for most cases as just before 1974 most urban districts contained only 1 parish.
 * Looking at my list of category 3 parishes Bishops Hatfield is apparently an alternative name for Old Hatfield so may not need an article, Brickendon Rural may also not need an article per the previews discussion, Rickmansworth Rural, St Andrew Rural and St John Rural might and St Michael Rural looks similar to the current St Michael. The rest have drafts or are the same as an existing article.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 20:13, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I've gone through the list of category 1 urban parishes and (ignoring those marked with "=") all other than Hoddesdon Urban, Unnamed and Watford Urban do not have any information at VOB (though UKBMD still does specify when created an abolished) and Unnamed doesn't have a boundary map. So yes writing about those that there isn't any information on may be more difficult/not worth it, Unnamed may well due to as such being (named!) also not be worthwhile and Hoddesdon Urban and Watford Urban may be too similar to the towns to need separate articles.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 23:13, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Bishops Hatfield was the old name for the parish of Hatfield, Hertfordshire. The "Bishops" was finally dropped (after long being informally known simply as Hatfield) at the same time as boundary changes with neighbouring Welwyn Garden City in 1951, shortly after Hatfield had been designated a New Town.
 * Brickendon Rural was the major component of the parish of Brickendon Liberty, created in 1929, which as we've previously discussed is adequately covered at (and so redirects to) Brickendon.
 * Rickmansworth Rural - is already discussed at Rickmansworth. Personally I wouldn't create a page for it - if you Google "Rickmansworth Rural" the top result is the Rickmansworth article where it's already adequately covered to my mind.
 * St Andrew Rural - another oddity created in 1894 when the ancient parish of Hertford St Andrew was split between the urban parish of St Andrew Urban within the borough of Hertford and the rural parish of St Andrew Rural outside it. The rural parish was abolished in 1924 and the area became part of Hertingfordbury - I'd be inclined to say a line on Hertingfordbury's page would be adequate coverage.
 * St John Rural - likewise, another 1894 creation, which is already discussed at Brickendon.
 * St Michael - is effectively the same place as St Michael Rural. St Michael Rural was created in 1894 as the bit of the old St Michael parish outside the borough of St Albans. When the new district boundaries were introduced in 1974, the part of St Michael Rural within the designated area of Hemel Hempstead New Town went to Dacorum and the rest went to St Albans City and District. The New Parishes Order 1973 directed that the part of St Michael Rural which went to St Albans district should become a parish called St Michael.
 * Hoddesdon Urban / Watford Urban - were the major part of their namesake urban districts, and I don't think justify coverage beyond what's on the Hoddesdon / Watford pages.
 * Stortford (talk) 06:49, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I've added most recent population data and abolishment date to those at User:Crouch, Swale/Hertfordshire/Exists except those like Baldock that were the same as an urban district (the old parish of Hitchin's population is given as its different to the UD/unparished area) as well as Old Hatfield, the target of Bishops Hatfield. A problem I have noticed is that we seem to suggest Shephall parish was abolished completely (both there, at Stevenage and at Hitchin Rural District) while both VOB and UKBMD say it was abolished in 1974 though as can be seem from VOB it was indeed in the Stevenage Urban District from 1953 but still existed as a separate parish (but wouldn't have had its own council) until 1974. Since it was an urban parish it wouldn't have become a separate unparished area and nor likely would the parts of Aston and Datchworth transferred in 1974 within the designated new town as it was a minor boundary change rather that moving an entire parish etc.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:00, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Vision of Britain relies heavily on Frederic Youngs' Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England (1979) for the dates that units existed and their hierarchy. Youngs did an impressively enormous amount of work in compiling it and is usually reliable, but his work is not completely without errors. In converting Youngs into a GIS and website for Vision of Britain, some further errors have crept in.
 * For instance, Youngs was unaware of the short-lived Woburn Rural District and Markyate Rural District, which are both well-documented in contemporary sources. He notes that the Hertfordshire parts of the parishes of Caddington, Studham and Whipsnade became separate parishes in 1894, but maintains that Caddington was part of Hemel Hempstead Rural District (it was in Markyate Rural District) and that Studham and Whipsnade along with neighbouring Kensworth were part of "Separate RD". It's possible Youngs meant to say that Studham, Whipsnade and Kensworth were all part of the same Separate Rural District but he didn't know its name, in which case he's fairly close to the truth - it was called Markyate Rural District, but it also included the Caddington Hertfordshire parish. However, Vision of Britain has interpreted Youngs' "Separate RD" as meaning that there was a single parish Kensworth Rural District and Studham Rural District, for which they have pages but they have found no data for them, because they never existed.
 * I therefore use Vision of Britain and Youngs as a starting point, but if primary sources indicate otherwise I'll go with them. Shephall is one such case - Youngs says that Shephall continued to exist as a parish after its absorption into Stevenage Urban District in 1953, only being abolished in 1974 when all urban parishes were abolished. This is contradicted by contemporary Ordnance Survey maps, which showed urban parishes right up to their abolition in 1974 (and which I take as more authoritative than Vision of Britain or Youngs). The 1956 Ordnance Survey map has removed the "Shephall" parish label and no longer shows an internal parish boundary between Stevenage and Shephall.
 * It's informative to note that even at the time there was sometimes misunderstanding about the status of urban parishes. Bulkington in Warwickshire was absorbed into Bedworth Urban District in 1938 and many locals assumed that was the end of Bulkington parish. Legally they were wrong, and it continued to exist as an urban parish until 1954, at which point there was slightly comical local newspaper coverage about the "ghost parish" of Bulkington that everyone thought had been abolished sixteen years earlier but actually still existed and needed a fresh order to abolish it - tells you something about how significant urban parishes actually were in practice.
 * UKBMD is another impressive piece of work by Brett Langston, but I do wish he'd shown his sources. I guess he probably draws on Youngs and Vision of Britain, which would explain him making the same assumption on Shephall.
 * Stortford (talk) 07:35, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I see it says Caddington was in Hemel Hempstead Rural District from 1894-1897, perhaps if there are errors with the data/changes we could report it. Generally I've found VOB generally is best for 1900-1974 content but before that there isn't as much information and after that very little.
 * This 1960 map indeed while this may shows Byfleet even though it was an urban parish.
 * Bulkington UD appears to have been abolished in 1932, indeed the parish seems to have been part of Rugby RD from 1932-1938 but the parish seems to have existed beyond 1958. Skinsmoke seems to think the parish was abolished in 1938 but VOB seems to think the parish existed as part of Bedworth UD until 1974 and UKBMD (old view listing individual unparished areas) says it was abolished in 1974 and became part of Bedworth unparished area which "until 1.4.1974 formed the parishes of Bedworth and Bulkington". Old maps do show Bulkington as being in Bedworth UD and CP though. I can't find any sources confirming Bulkington parish was abolished before 1974, I can't find the new article in the Newspaper Archive. Probably Bulkington will become a separate parish again but we do at least know it isn't currently one and it doesn't seem to be a separate unparished area either.
 * The copyright notice includes a link in the "Brett Langston" text which perhaps could be used to report the errors. I expect UKBMD uses a number of sources and probably due to the fact he is just putting things like renames and what registration district places were in rather than data he maybe didn't think he needed to put his sources.
 * I have also started Warwickshire former parishes list and I created Oldbury, Warwickshire a few days ago.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:41, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Former urban districts
Its interesting to note that most urban districts generally only contained 1 settlement and little rural land exceptions I can think of are Basildon, Tiverton, Stratford upon Avon, Redditch, Fareham, Rothwell, Ryton, Bedworth, Witham, Solihull, Neston, Penzance, Whitehaven, Lymington, Brighton, Rayleigh, Gosport, Hinckley, Newmarket, Newport (Wight), Ryde and Cowes. My understanding now is that its for the reason at Ware, Hertfordshire that parishes couldn't be in both urban and rural district so many were split for the reason at Draft:Hoddesdon Rural that UDs generally didn't preferably include rural areas. What part of the Local Government Act 1894 specified parishes couldn't be in both urban and rural districts? The legislation is so long I couldn't fine it. Of these a few interesting ones are Rothwel which still exists as an unparished area and contains a large number of other settlements, Fareham which still exists today as a district, Bedworth which we recently discussed and Tiverton which is a parish not unparished area today. My understanding is the reason many of these do contain other areas is mergers with other districts and other boundary changes shortly before 1974, this seems to be the last with the 1st 3 ones but not Tiverton though the last boundary changes for both Fareham and Rothwell seem to have been several decades before 1974.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 18:58, 13 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Part 1, Section 1(3) of the Local Government Act 1894: "Where a parish is at the passing of this Act situated partly within and partly without a rural sanitary district, the part of the parish which is within the district, and the part which is without, shall as from the appointed day, but subject to any alteration of area made by or in pursuance of this or any other Act, be separate parishes..."
 * The effect of that section was to divide any parishes which straddled an urban sanitary district and a rural sanitary district. Section 1(1) and 1(2) established parish councils and parish meetings only for "rural parishes", defined as those within rural districts.
 * My own understanding of the reason for the tight urban / rural split is that much of Victorian local government was about public health, with one of the biggest items of expenditure being the laying of sewers. (Water supply and sewerage remained a council function until the Water Act 1973.) If the boundaries for the urban authorities were drawn reasonably tightly, the councils had a chance of being able to supply water and lay sewers to the whole area reasonably cost-effectively. They didn't want to have too many ratepayers in outlying more rural parts to complain about being taxed but with no sewers to show for it (or alternatively having to lay more expensive long sewers out from the town to serve relatively few properties).
 * Following the Local Government Act 1929, county councils were encouraged review all the urban and rural districts in their areas to make them more efficient. Some counties were more zealous than others in combining smaller districts, which sometimes led to a nominally "urban district" including more rural areas, including some of those you've mentioned. Fareham Urban District originally covered just the town itself, but was enlarged in 1932 to also cover several surrounding parishes. Basildon Urban District was created in 1934 as Billericay Urban District, covering numerous formerly rural parishes, later changing its name to Basildon Urban District in 1955. Other examples I can think of where urban districts ended up with notable rural areas include:
 * Thurrock Urban District in Essex, created 1936 as a merger of the three small urban districts of Grays Thurrock, Purfleet, and Tilbury plus numerous formerly rural parishes in the area.
 * Colne Valley Urban District in the West Riding of Yorkshire, created 1937 as a merger of five small urban districts.
 * Lakes Urban District in Westmorland, created 1934 as a merger of the two small urban districts of Ambleside and Grasmere and several surrounding rural parishes.
 * Stortford (talk) 20:03, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Two more to add from West Riding, where sometimes the smaller districts didn't necessarily want to be merged, so contrived names had to be found for the new districts:
 * Aireborough Urban District, created in 1936 as a merger of urban districts of Guiseley, Yeadon, and Rawdon plus several formerly rural parishes - named after a fictional town which featured in the works of a local author.
 * Spenborough Urban District, created in 1915 (a comparatively early merge) as a merger of the urban districts of Cleckheaton, Gomersal and Liversegde - the name Spenborough was invented for the new district, based on the local River Spen.
 * Stortford (talk) 20:14, 13 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks, got it, I was looking too far down the legislation. Indeed most of the parishes that had an "X Urban" and "X Rural" like Shap (formerly Shap Urban) and Shap Rural this was because the UD was concurrent with the "Urban" parish and later (often when the UD was abolished) the "Urban" parish was renamed to remove "Urban" like Halstead Urban>Halstead even if the "Rural" parish still existed. Though sometimes with Sandridge it was the "Rural" parish that included the settlement when part of the parish was split to a larger settlement's UD. We only seem to have 3 "X Urban" parishes left with such names namely Ellesmere Urban, Wem Urban and Whitchurch Urban all in Shropshire and which the UDs we merged to form North Shropshire Rural District in 1967. Indeed normally when formed in 1894 most were largely the same as the town named after. Interestingly Shap Rural parish is nearly as large as the county of Bristol (109.6 km² v 103.7) though interestingly even though Shap (Urban) parish has the same population as the ONS BUA it does still include quite a bit of rural land. Stanhope which is apparently the largest parish in England by area (255.8 km²) perhaps we should have List of largest civil parishes in England by area like List of the most populous civil parishes in England? Stanhope had an urban parish until 1937.
 * I guess after most of the sewage pipes had been done the 1929 act started to change UDs to start what the government is still doing today namely merging districts to form ever larger districts to save money but means services are far less local. Before the reforms most (or maybe all UDs were named after a single settlement) some were small such as Hunsworth (until 1937) which we don't even have an article on the settlement though there was also the likes of Whittington and Newbold (1911-1920) named after 2 settlements. Then through merges we ended up with some including multiple settlements or rural land, I guess the likes of the County Borough of Torbay formed in 1968 like the other examples listed above was moving towards the changes in 1974 where "urban" districts often contain multiple settlements with more contrived boundaries. Many districts that survived the 1974 reforms apart from those of larger cities probably had land added to them from the 1929 act. On a related note perhaps Basildon Urban District and Thurrock Urban District should be merged with Borough of Basildon and Thurrock ad the only changes were a small part of Thurrock within Basildon (as opposed to an entire parish) new town going to Basildon meaning the UDs weren't really abolished but rather more reconstituted/reformed. I'd consider keeping Municipal Borough of Slough separate from Borough of Slough though as even though only small parts were moved those parts did become separate parishes thus arguably making the change major.
 * I guess an unparished area concurrent with a district like Hastings is the closest equivalent to a consolidated city-county in the United States though prior to 1974 this would be more similar if the UD only contained 1 parish. I'm assuming a parish/unparished area is the closest equivalent to an American administrative settlement, an American county is the equivalent to an English district and a US state is equivalent to an English county. Vienna also is similar to Bristol in that Bristol is a ceremonial county, unitary district and unparished area.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:47, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

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I have sent you a note about a page you started
Hello, Stortford. Thank you for your work on County Buildings, Kirkcudbright. User:Girth Summit, while examining this page as a part of our page curation process, had the following comments:

To reply, leave a comment here and begin it with. Please remember to sign your reply with ~. (Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.)

Girth Summit  (blether) 09:50, 4 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes - it took a few hours to draft. Thanks for reviewing it. Stortford (talk) 11:59, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I tend to make articles as userspace drafts before moving into article space. I'd guess it probably takes me about twenty edits or so to get even a short article right - I'd be too scared of accidentally closing the browser tab or something to spend hours working one without hitting 'Publish changes' a few times! Girth Summit  (blether)  12:08, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Parish types
I've done the former parishes in Leicestershire and also created User:Crouch, Swale/Parish types and WikiProject UK geography/How to write about parishes. As a point about category 1 and 2 parishes that for category 1 parishes like Kirkby Mallory it makes sense to right "X is a village and former civil parish" and "In 1931 the parish had a population of". For some category 2 parishes like Bushby that were formerly rural parishes this also makes sense but for the likes of New Parks and Barnwood that were urban parishes and have likely changed significantly as well as are/were wards with 21st century population data putting the parish data in the lead isn't useful/gives undue weight to these places today. Also with category 4 parishes I have noted they may not be notable but there isn't yet a consensus on that. With 2 of the urban parishes of Leicester Leicester Abbey and Leicester Blackfriars I have added information on the feature's article about the parish. Perhaps it would be better to add all information about non-notable pre-1974 urban parishes to the former district's article/section rather than the places they are named after. Ignoring urban parishes that are category 1 and 2 parishes and those that were formerly rural parishes I suspect some like Bullers Green and Knight Thorpe may be notable though in these 2 cases they were formerly townships which may well qualify as having their own governance for the purpose of notability.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 22:06, 14 January 2023 (UTC)


 * All seems fair - for what you've defined as category 4 parishes (the pre-1974 urban parishes) I'd err on the side of saying that they are not automatically notable and should just be covered on the page relating to the settlement the former urban district or borough was named after. Stortford (talk) 07:11, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Reconstituted districts
Leaving aside the issue of if districts should be split from the settlements of the same name do you agree it generally makes sense that if a district had no boundary changes in 1974 it makes sense to cover the "former" and current district in 1 article rather than covering the older district in the settlement article like Municipal Borough of Wokingham v Borough of Wokingham. For example Fareham Urban District had no changes in 1974 so goes to Borough of Fareham and Blaby Rural District also had no changes in 1974 so goes to Blaby District. This is also consistent with Woodspring>North Somerset which changed name and gained unitary status but kept the same boundaries. I'd say that this might not apply to districts that the area became a parish/unparished area like Kempston Urban District or Borough of Scarborough as these units are significantly different.

With regards to minor changes (again leaving aside the issue of if we should split the district from the settlement at all) what do you make of merging the following?


 * Basildon Urban District>Borough of Basildon
 * Thurrock Urban District>Thurrock
 * Municipal Borough of Slough>Borough of Slough

My instinct would be that both Basildon and Thurrock should be merged as the only change was moving part of Thurrock into Basildon that was in the designated new town. This seems like a very minor change similar to a normal parish boundary change or other minor district boundary changes. On the other hand with Slough although the parts moved from Elon RD were small parts of parishes rather than a single parish and those areas are effectively part of the town those areas did become separate parishes which arguably makes the change significant. Thoughts?  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:58, 6 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I'd agree that Basildon and Thurrock could be merged - the pages for the current districts could have their history sections expanded to accommodate the merged material, which would probably need some rewording to suit the new setting.
 * Slough does feel to me like it has too many pages treading on each others' toes with Slough, Municipal Borough of Slough, Borough of Slough and Slough Borough Council - but clearly other editors have put a lot of effort into those pages and so it would need a more general discussion there as to what structure is appropriate and if the decision is to merge some of them, how to do that without creating an unwieldy page.
 * I know you say you don't want to consider the question of district / settlement separation, but I don't think we can answer the question of what the best structure for somewhere like Slough is without grappling with how the policy of WP:UKDISTRICTS applies to former districts such as urban districts and municipal boroughs that were in effect the legal definition of their namesake settlements at the time. Ordinarily I'd suggest that the urban district / municipal borough should be a sentence or two and perhaps a small infobox on the settlement's page as part of explaining how that settlement was governed historically and the evolution of its current governance arrangements. However, in some areas (notably historic Buckinghamshire) other editors have created really quite detailed pages for each urban district / municipal borough, which might overload the settlement page were we to merge everything there. Stortford (talk) 08:25, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah perhaps we do need a wider discussion on if we have standalone articles on former urban districts that were abolished completely. I think we can probably agree that apart from those like Blaby Rural District that were reconstituted and those like Alston with Garrigill Rural District that only contained 1 parish that all rural districts should have standalone articles. Urban districts are a bit different though because they were effectively like parishes and often only covered a single settlement. But then yes we do have some developed articles on former districts which probably indicates we could probably develop most former urban districts if users had the skills/time to do so which arguably means we shouldn't merge articles with potential. All those at Template:London Government Act 1963 appear to have standalone article with the exception of Municipal Borough of Harrow due to being reconstituted.
 * So yes I'd say usually for urban districts that have been abolished completely we either cover them in a section in the settlement's article like Newmarket Urban District in Newmarket, Suffolk or have a separate article like Municipal Borough of Chesterfield. For those that survived the 1974 (or 1965) reforms we either cover them in the district that still exists namely Fareham Urban District in Borough of Fareham or (as is more commonly) we just cover them in the settlement's article like County Borough of Hastings in Hastings (though Hastings Borough Council exists). When it comes down to urban district's that were just urban districts there may not be as many sources but those that had municipal or in particular county borough status may have a significant amount of sources though its still arguable they could easily be covered in sections of the settlement's article.
 * I'd agree with Slough having too many pages, I guess we could either merge Municipal Borough of Slough to Slough if its decided urban district's shouldn't have separate articles or to Borough of Slough if its decided it only had minor boundary changes but I have no strong recommendation either way. I'd also argue that Slough Borough Council should be merged with Borough of Slough but at the discussion last year it was asked to keep unitary, metropolitan and London borough councils separate like West Berkshire/West Berkshire Council so that merge is a discussion for another day.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 17:27, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

2022 Aberdeen City Council election
Hey, I saw your edit to 2022 Aberdeen City Council election and wondered if you could help me understand when the suspension of the Labour councillors in Aberdeen ended. I spent a bit of time researching it to see what happened in the run up to the 2022 election but all the evidence I could find pointed to their suspension still being in place. They were on the ballot paper as Aberdeen Labour and not Scottish Labour as with other councils    and the group were referred to as Aberdeen Labour on the council's website until at least June 2022. I couldn't find any reports of the suspension being lifted and the only change I could see was in December 2022 when the council's website had them listed under Scottish Labour. At the time I was updating the article, I thought the party may have kept it quiet and that sometime between June and December 2022 the suspension was lifted. I don't know if I have missed something though so I would appreciate your help understanding this better. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 19:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello - I wondered when exactly the suspension ended too, and like you I was unable to find an exact date. However, it was definitely before the 2022 election, because in February 2022 the UK Labour Party registered "Aberdeen Labour" as an alias name with the Electoral Commission, and so all the candidates who stood as "Aberdeen Labour" in 2022 were official Labour Party candidates. Candidates are allowed to use any of their party's official aliases on the ballot paper. Thanks Stortford (talk) 20:03, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for clearing that up, I appreciate it. I did wonder if it might be something simple that I had missed. Do have a link for it? I'm planning on submitting the article at WP:GAN and I think it would be useful to include. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 11:41, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I've already put the link to the Electoral Commission's registrations page into the article, showing the registration of "Aberdeen Labour" as an alternative description. See source 6. Good luck with the GAN. Stortford (talk) 16:10, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah, that's brilliant, thanks for your help. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 21:44, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Several questions
I'm just wandering about the following things which aren't covered here from what I can see and perhaps we should.


 * City status, what would happen if Winchester unaprished area as parished? Would like Chichester the city status go to the parish and the district just be a district without any status like Chichester district? I know most of the former Durham and Framwelgate was parished without city status and the charter trustees still exists though but what about if all of Winchester was parished when no charter trustees exists anyway due to the district holding the status? Would "Winchester City Council" become "Winchester District Council" and the parish council be "Winchester City Council" or would the district council stay "Winchester City Council" and the parish council be "Winchester Parish Council"?
 * Borough status, am I right in thinking that (ignoring rural boroughs anyway) only urban districts could hold borough status until 1974? County borough does say only MBs county become CBs but what about rural districts? Could they become boroughs? Today we have some largely rural districts with borough status like Gedling and one that I know of Bracknell Forest that was a continuation of a single rural district (though if the older system have have continued Bracknell likely would have became an urban district). A MB even though it had a different title than an urban district (without status) was effectively an urban district with a status and a county borough was effectively a MB with county powers and the fact in the title List of rural and urban districts in England in 1973 we only use "rural and urban" indicates we have made do with this. Obviously we should specify UD, MB and CB in articles to avoid confusing readers though.
 * Parishes and borough status, while parishes can definitely hold city status like Hereford what is the situation with borough status? I thought parishes can't hold borough status yet charter trustees are established for them until a parish is formed like Bexhill-on-Sea being parished in 2021 and the trustees abolished. Similarly Sudbury had borough status until 1974 and had a successor parish with the district, Babergh not having borough status.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:47, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * As I understand it:
 * City status is not automatically affected by parish arrangements. The status quo for the city status would continue unless and until new letters patent changed things. So when Lichfield (unparished after 1974) was made a parish in April 1980 it initially got a town council. Letters patent followed in November 1980 transferring the city status from the charter trustees to the new parish, with the London Gazette announcement saying "...to ordain that the Town of Lichfield shall have the status of a City." Conversely, Durham (where the creation of the new parish is an administrative mess in my view) the former city status remains with the charter trustees established in 2009 covering the whole area of the pre-2009 Durham district. The new parish called "City of Durham" created in 2018 covering most (but not quite all) of the unparished area corresponding to the pre-1974 municipal borough does not actually hold city status, with the "City of" being part of the parish's geographic name and not actually its status. Its council is therefore "City of Durham Parish Council" rather than "Durham City Council".
 * Borough status - after 1894 it was effectively an honorific a notch below city status that could only be held by urban districts. Urban districts and municipal boroughs (other than county boroughs) had the same powers, but the boroughs could call the chair of the council a mayor. Some areas that were rapidly urbanising climbed the ladder of statuses - Solihull was a rural parish in a rural district until 1932 when it became an urban district, then a municipal borough in 1954 and a county borough in 1964.
 * After 1974 borough status continues to be held only by district-level authorities, not parishes. Any district post-1974 could petition for borough status, and so several districts like Amber Valley and Runnymede that aren't particularly known for their urban areas now hold borough status. The charter trustees created for former boroughs like Bexhill and Worksop are preserving the civic traditions of the place (notably the right to appoint a mayor) but don't confer continuing borough status.
 * Stortford (talk) 05:47, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I personally think it would make sense for them to parish the likes of Winchester and most other similar cases and give the city status to the parish but we don't know when that will happen. Durham (and Chester) are odd in that unlike Carlisle, Harrogate and Scarborough they cover the 1974-2009 district not the pre-1974 district of which the rest are parished.
 * On a similar note while as noted only MBs could become CBs, today districts without borough status like South Gloucestershire can gain unitary status which is effectively the same as a county borough.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:21, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Braintree and Bocking
I have created an article on the unparished area, a while ago you edited the Braintree, Essex article. I guess if the area gets parished and is called just "Braintree" then we can merge the article but until then we need an article.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:26, 25 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for letting me know. I have to say, I'm a little wary of creating pages for unparished areas. An unparished area is not of itself a thing, but rather the absence of a thing. In this case, you say that it's an unparished area called "Braintree and Bocking" and I can see how you reach that conclusion by reference back to the pre-1974 urban district and parish that was abolished. However, officialdom doesn't name the unparished areas. This is merely an unparished area (or "non-civil parish" to use the Ordnance Survey's term) within the modern Braintree district. Elsewhere, no official boundary is retained between adjoining pre-1974 urban districts / boroughs that became unparished if they're in the same district. There's no distinction between Esher and Walton and Weybridge on official maps - they're just part of the wider unparished area of Elmbridge borough. In some parts of the country new parishes cut awkwardly across the pre-1974 boundaries - for example, Durham has numerous small unparished areas left over where the new parish doesn't cover the whole pre-1974 borough, and I certainly wouldn't want to see us try and create pages for each of those small unparished bits of Durham.
 * I happen to think that unparished areas were an unfortunate consequence of the 1972 Act; for towns which didn't get successor parishes and don't give their name to the wider district which now contains them (Accrington, Halifax etc.). There's quite a significant loss of official recognition and definition, and a lack of focus for civic life in those towns. However, this is not the place for musing on how we might like the world to be. Instead we need to report on how it actually is.
 * In the case of Braintree and Bocking, I can see there's merit in having an article of that name, but I'd focus it differently to primarily be about the parish and urban district of that name which existed between 1934 and 1974 and therefore definitely was a thing. Much of the material there already is about that era. I also wouldn't put the reference to Braintree being "now in the unparished area of Braintree and Bocking" so prominently in the lead on the Braintree article. Generally, I don't think a place's status as an unparished area belongs in the lead - it's a quirk of our messy local government system for explaining in a governance section.
 * Thanks Stortford (talk) 06:56, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Luckily there aren't many other missing unparished areas, see User:Crouch, Swale/List of unparished areas of which Ardsley East and West was an UD, Portslade by Sea seems somewhat synonymous for Portslade and Lytham is a settlement with plenty of history. The parts of Durham seem to have articles anyway.
 * I though unparished areas were defined in the 1972 act, see Commons:User talk:Skinsmoke though I've never found any text on it in legislation, UKBMD used to use the former urban districts to define them. In addition as noted by Skinsmoke this is more likely to be useful to most readers who would be more likely to distinguish between Aldershot and Farnborough. I'd also note that I map that I saw in Panfield about 6 months ago did make reference to "Braintree and Bocking" being an unparished area from what I can remember.
 * Yeah I'd say the pre 1974 way worked fine and my preference would have been to parish the vast majority (ignoring the likes of Watford that are concurrent with a single unparished area) except perhaps those in largely urban areas such as the districts of Greater Manchester, those that were merged into only urban districts like say Rushmoor and those like Coventry where the only parishes were almost part of the settlement. I wouldn't do what was done (later) with Milton Keynes and Swindon (and Southsea) and subdivide urban areas into parishes I would instead just have 1 parish covering the entire urban area or just keep it as a district if too large. I guess converting the likes of Hadleigh and Sudbury to successor parishes was kind of similar to what was done previously with North Shropshire Rural District and Clun and Bishop's Castle Rural District where urban districts were merged where you could kind of say similar to Ellesmere Urban district going to form North Shropshire Rural District and Bishop's Castle MB becoming a rural borough you could say the same happened to Hadleigh and Sudbury.
 * If the likes of Winchester had have stayed parished (or become parishes) and the city status goes to the parish it would make things much simpler since we don't split parishes with the same name as settlements and most larger population parishes have similar boundaries to the settlements. Perhaps we would end up with an article at Winchester City Council on the local authority (as the district council would have likely been just Winchester District Council) like Salisbury City Council (which has similar boundaries to the settlement) and City of Ely Council (which covers a significantly larger area).
 * Indeed most of the article is about the 1934-1974 content but the population figures today and geography are for today and seem relevant rather than adding population for the same area when fully functioning.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:22, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The 1972 Act did not create things called "unparished areas". Instead it abolished other things, which left gaps in the map, which have subsequently been termed unparished areas. The relevant bit of the 1972 Act is Section 1 (9), which says that "On that date [1 April 1974]... urban districts, rural districts and urban parishes, shall cease to exist and the council of every such area which has a council shall also cease to exist."
 * It did not therefore create a separate unparished area for each former urban district / urban parish which was abolished. If two such abolished urban districts / parishes adjoined, no official boundary between them remains. Where statutory instruments have occasionally referred to unparished areas since, they make clear that unparished areas are contiguous rather than being a separate unparished area for each former urban district - see for example the The Housing (Right to Enfranchise) (Designated Protected Areas) (England) Order 2009. This describes unparished areas by the parishes surrounding them, and in a footnote says what's in them - for example "Containing the settlements of Leatherhead and Dorking" - not two unparished areas, one each for the former urban districts of each town, but one unparished area with no name that has to be clumsily defined by what's around it. Thanks Stortford (talk) 20:59, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * What was Skinsmoke reference to the LGA creating 2 unparished areas in Rushmoor then?
 * I guess you could divide unparished areas into categories namely (1) those like Exeter which are concurrent with a current district meaning the pre 1974 district survived the LGA 1972 and no parishes have since formed. (2) Those like Bath that have a charter trustees covering the same area. (3) Those like Dartford that have the same name as a current district and there is only 1 unparished area. (4) Those like Swadlincote that are in a district of a different name but there is only 1 unparished area. (5) Those like Aldershot that are in a district with multiple unparished area (including districts which are also partly parished). (6) Those like Newton Hall that are a part of an unparished area left over when an unparished area has partly been parished. The 1st being the least controversial to specify as an unparished area and the last the most controversial.
 * In terms of structure some like Thornton-Cleveleys are about the area, some like Swinton and Pendlebury redirect to the longer title of the former district and the redirect is in the unparished area category and some like Spenborough are about the former district but have the unparished area category. My slight preference would be to do what we have with Braintree and Bocking but indeed as you say most of the content will be about the former district which seems fine.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 22:02, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
 * That was the point I was trying to make - Skinsmoke's view is not supported by the legislation. I can see the logic of how they concluded there are two unparished areas in Rushmoor, but nothing legislatively says the area should be treated as two unparished areas. Two adjoining gaps on the map don't make for two gaps with some notional boundary between them that can only be known by reference back to the area's history - instead they make for one big gap. As in the Leatherhead / Dorking example, when subsequent legislation needs to refer to such unparished areas that were previously separate adjoining urban districts, it treats the area as one unparished area, not two.
 * As time goes on and more community governance reviews are carried out, it gets harder to apply Skinsmoke's type of analysis, as you get new parishes created which straddle multiple former borough / urban districts such as Ingol and Tanterton, the mess that is Rickmansworth where parishes (none of which takes the name Rickmansworth) now cover most but not all of the former urban district leaving two odd corners of the former urban district unparished, and new unparished areas created where a local authority decides to remove an area from the parish structure such as Ebbsfleet Valley.
 * I'm therefore wary of trying to name and categorise all the individual parcels of land which are unparished on Wikipedia, because it requires too much subjective interpretation on our part, so strays into original research. I think Brett Langston at UKBMD used to try and apply an analysis like Skinsmoke's, but has more recently changed to treating all unparished parts of a district as a single unparished area, even when non-contiguous. Citypopulation does likewise - look at its High Peak unparished area and you see it covers both unparished bits of the borough despite them not adjoining, rather than separately defining them as a Glossop and a Buxton unparished area.
 * As you say, your categories do get more controversial as you go down the list. I don't think there's any controversial in noting on the Newton Hall page that it is unparished, but defining there to be such a thing as the Newton Hall unparished area and putting it in lists and category pages probably overstates its significance. Thanks Stortford (talk) 07:31, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I wander where Skinsmoke got the claim that the legislation did define unparished areas. I tried to find the legislation a few years ago but couldn't but I accepted it anyway because the likes of UKBMD did use this definition.
 * With a bit of luck perhaps partly due to more unitary districts being created we will get less and less unparished areas but indeed when you get changes like Ebbsfleet and Rickmansworth we don't appear to have a definition in which case to avoid factual accuracy/original research I'd just avoid or at least be very careful about referring to those areas as unparished areas.
 * As noted with the likes of High Peak its quite clear that Buxton and Glossop have distinct identities and its not difficult to find sources that refer to then as being unparished areas. Although this order makes reference to Buxton and Glossop unparished areas by reference to containing the settlements of such names it does make reference to the unparished area containing the settlement of Braintree. this source makes reference to the same unparished areas as those at Category:Unparished areas in Derbyshire including Riddings which was left over after Alfreton was former not covering all of the former Alfreton Urban District. UKBMD does make reference to "Unparished area of the village of Riddings" in terms of "Amber Valley" unparished area.
 * So yes they may not have any legal status but it seems sources do refer to them and I'd also point out Skinsmoke's point about what is more likely to be useful to the average reader. If you are identifying say Fairfield it is far more useful to state its in Buxton unparished area than High Peak unparished area. I personally would say all but (6) we can probably safely say an area is an unparished area. Certainly its far more useful to divide High Peak into Buxton and Glossop than Sandwell into Warley and West Bromwich but both still seem OK. Also when a former district is named "X and Y" and "X" (or "Y") becomes parished but "Y" doesn't its not too difficult to say "Y" is an unparished area like Heysham. With the likes of Stanley being a separate unparished area to Wakefield then like the Rushmoor example its more dubious but indeed it seems like sources do treat such areas a separate and former urban districts do tend to reflect "natural" boundaries of places which is far better than say using wards.
 * Interestingly there appear to be plans to parish St Albans though that probably wouldn't affect us here as that one's not complicated unless part is left unparished.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:53, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks - I quite agree that in terms of usefulness of pages on Wikipedia we still expect most people to be looking for information about Aldershot / Farnborough or Buxton / Glossop (as examples). We just need to choose our words carefully when describing unparished areas so as not to stray into original research which could be construed as producing our own geographic hierarchy that isn't supported by the legislative framework. Whilst it's interesting to see that Derbyshire County Council have produced that map, I think some other councils would struggle to produce an equivalent map which names each unparished parcel because of the likes of Rickmansworth / Durham etc.
 * In particular, I think mentioning that a place is an unparished area in the lead of an article overstates the significance of the point, effectively defining it by what it is not. For the lead, I'd rather describe places which are unparished simply as a town / village / suburb / area (whatever description is supported by reliable sources for the place) in X district / county, and further down the article in a governance section explain how many layers of local government now cover it, including noting that there are no civil parishes covering it and how / when it came to be unparished.
 * Thanks Stortford (talk) 06:11, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
 * OK this seems a reasonable compromise that I think you have already been using. Mentioning the district and county and then mentioning the unparished area in the history or governance section after mentioning where it went when the parish was abolished.
 * I still wander where Skinsmoke got the claim from that unparished areas were defined in the Local Government Act 1972 but in any case they talk about Wilton and saying due to the split with boundaries in 1974 so even if defined in 1974 it doesn't seem like Skinsmoke was able to provide a clear definition on places split.
 * Reliable sources do appear to refer to the unparished part of Braintree district when referring to the individual area its self as opposed to the name of the current district containing it or with reference to its main settlement. The map in Panfield and formerly UKBMD for example. I agree mentioning it in the lead of the Braintree article overemphasizes on its importance/legal definition though it may be appropriate to do this with category 3 and 4 former parishes. Anyway you're suggestion on generally only mentioning it further down seems sensible, thanks.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 18:21, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

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Unitary councils
What do you make of having separate articles for unitary authorities that continue on with the same boundaries as the county council like North Yorkshire Council and North Yorkshire County Council? IMO its probably best to combine the articles if the boundaries of both are the same namely not Dorset Council (UK) and Dorset County Council (Christchurch removal). There was discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about counties, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/Archive 29, Talk:Somerset County Council and Talk:North Yorkshire Council. I think because the boundaries are the same and in the case of North Yorkshire (as opposed to Buckinghamshire) the order renames rather than abolishes the council its probably better to just have 1 article for both. I'd also support merging the Buckinghamshire articles but maybe not the Dorset articles. Although I feel strongly that things like former units should generally not be merged with the current ones I do think similar to Municipal Borough of Harrow/London Borough of Harrow and Fareham Urban District and Borough of Fareham that we should treat continuations in 1 single article even if the council name dropped "County" unlike Northumberland Council and inherited the district responsibilities. Thoughts?  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 18:38, 15 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I'd prefer to keep the number of articles down and have them merged, as I see North Yorkshire now is, using the current name as the main title but with a history section in the article explaining the history of the previous bodies, some of which may have been legally separate bodies or had different powers or areas. We don't have separate articles (and nor should we in my view) for Oxfordshire County Council 1889-1974 and Oxfordshire County Council post-1974 even though their areas and powers differed, and one could make a case that they are legally distinct bodies.
 * To me, the essential question is what is the geographic name of the area being represented? Whether they're styled "County Council" or just "Council" is a fairly semantic point - plenty of councils in recent years have dropped the District / Borough / City etc. from their name and now just style themselves "Place Council". The reformed Northumberland authority debated whether to style itself County Council or just Council, indicating that it felt it had the power to choose.
 * I'd be happy to see the two Dorset articles merge too - the Dorset County Council article is not a particularly good one as it stands, with the three main sections being a fairly generic description of post-1974 two-tier local government, a lengthy criticism of the Dorset Waste Partnership that takes up nearly half the article, and then a section about the local government reorganisation that's largely repeated on the Dorset Council (UK) page anyway. There's no mention of the county council's initial creation in 1889, the change of powers and gaining of Bournemouth and Christchurch in 1974, or Bournemouth and Poole becoming unitary authorities in 1997. An expanded history section on the Dorset Council page could arguably do just as good a job (probably better) as the current standalone page does of describing the aspects of the former Dorset County Council that are of enduring encyclopaedic interest. Stortford (talk) 07:05, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah even though both Oxfordshire County Councils may have been different legal entities and cover different areas since they have the same name it seems far better to cover them in just 1 article which was what I was also arguing with Herefordshire Council and Herefordshire County Council if they cover the same area even though there was a 24 year gap. Generally with counties and parishes we tend to have a single article and describe the differences in it. That rule is probably a good idea for councils as well.
 * When it comes down to districts as you know we tend to cover a newer district like Borough of Bedford in a separate article and the older one in the settlement like Municipal Borough of Bedford going to Bedford. When it comes down to the council namely Bedford Borough Council do you think it would be sensible to say that the council article should cover the district from 1974 and the pre 1974 council? IMO that seems like a good idea otherwise I'd have suggested just merging "Bedford Borough Council" to "Borough of Bedford".
 * I'd also probably support merging the Dorset articles as well but I guess not merging Dorset but merging Somerset may be a sensible compromise between you're view (and probably mine) that we should have just 1 article even if boundaries change and we should split even if no boundary changes (Mhockey's view).
 * I've added content to the Dorset County Council similar to Lancashire County Council about the changes you mention were missing.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 20:29, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
 * For districts where the bodies created in 1974 share their geographic name with a pre-1974 council I'd include a couple of paragraphs in the history section on the pre-1974 situation too, as I've done for City of Chelmsford and Exeter City Council. That way we don't give the impression that administrative history only began in 1974. The post-1974 Chelmsford Borough Council covered a much larger area and had different powers to its pre-1974 namesake, but I think it helps understand the context to know that there was a very similarly named body before the reforms too. The Exeter City Council page said (until I edited it in June) that Exeter City Council was founded on 1 April 1974, which I think did our readers a disservice - plenty of sources pre-1974 refer to Exeter City Council too.
 * Whilst I think a well-written Dorset Council article could cover the old county council too, I'm happy to leave them as separate if that's the consensus view, and thanks for updating the county council article. Stortford (talk) 05:47, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Exeter district and Exeter City Council were arguably (leaving aside the difference between county borough/non-metropolitan district probably being different legal entities) the same thing as although Exeter district is specified as being the county borough of Exeter and the Devon County Buildings Area in the administrative county of Devon it appears from VOB that it was part of the borough at least some of the time per the "Unit history". Plymouth is also specified as gaining "Plymouth Breakwater (Fort and Lighthouse)" though unlike Exeter its not specified as being in the administrative county of Devon. Compare this to Torbay which per the order was exactly the same area or the other 7 districts that were definitely newly formed. If we had an article on Chelmsford City Council (which I don't think we should) then yes I would argue that we could cover the old council in 1 article. Carlisle City Council similarly would be interesting as unlike Exeter City Council the boundaries were significantly different but we already have City of Carlisle (1974-2023) and County Borough of Carlisle (pre 1974) which enough to deal with both councils.
 * Perhaps we should have a wider discussion about how to handle councils.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 20:12, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Unparished area in lead
While I agree with removing unparished area from the lead of most articles, for the few districts like Blackpool that are a single unparished area (and we have separate articles for) isn't it fine to mention it in the lead. Others seem to be Epsom and Ewell, Fareham, Havant (as "Havant and Waterloo") and perhaps Thurrock.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:27, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Please provide an official UK government document, local authority document or Act of Parliament that explicitly defines the "Havant and Waterloo unparished area", the "Epsom and Ewell unparished area", the "Fareham unparished area", the "Swale unparished area" and the "Thurrock unparished area". Unless you are able to do this, the best way of saying that these areas are unparished, is to include a single sentence in the body of the article which says that there are no civil parishes in the area. It not appropriate to say this in the lead. Mertbiol (talk) 19:57, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think we should have a separate page for Borough of Blackpool and Blackpool, for the same reasons we're discussing currently at Worcester - I'd say use Blackpool for borough and settlement and then we have Blackpool Council for how it's administered. Perhaps a discussion to be had there another day.
 * More generally, whether whole or part of an area is unparished is a somewhat esoteric point. The unparished areas don't have official names, as we have previously discussed. I think putting the unparished status in the lead detracts from the readability of that most important part of the article - it's a minor point for in a governance section to clarify how many tiers of local government there are. Thanks. Stortford (talk) 20:32, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
 * OK I'm fine with this as well then, thanks.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 20:41, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
 * See for discussion and claims about unparished area definition.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk )  20:55, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks I am well aware of that discussion. You have never been able to substantiate Skinsmoke's misinterpretation of "unparished areas", despite repeated requests for official documents and definitions. Mertbiol (talk) 21:05, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I can't recall many requests either to Skinsmoke on Commons (though its usage was controversial as can be seen from their talk page) or to me here for official documentation, back in 2020 you challenged it and asked me for official documentation and although I was unable to provide any I did cite UKBMD that at the time used urban districts to define then, later it changed it to simply the name of the current district but the citation at the time was valid. As mentioned I tried to find legislation but couldn't. Skinsmoke cites the Local Government Act 1972 but has never linked to a part of it that defines unparished areas which I would normally do especially if challenged rather than just stating the legislation. Worcester isn't problematic though because (1) the post 1974 district was only formed from 1 urban district (the County Borough of Worcester) and (2) the unparished area has the same name as the post 1974 district.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 16:13, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Crouch, Swale: I presume you know this already, but a county borough was distinct from an urban district, not a subset. Rcsprinter123   (announce)  20:54, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
 * See question 2 at above and the reply. It seems that county boroughs were urban districts with more powers namely administrative county powers just like today's unitary authorities. From what I can tell the functions were the same otherwise namely the fact that parishes (even if there were multiple) didn't have councils or meetings and the same (apparent) rule about county boroughs becoming unparished areas in 1974 was apparently the same.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk )  18:45, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
 * As I see it, only urban districts being eligible to climb the UD > MB > CB ladder doesn’t make them equivalent. Like, they’d start as one type and then transform. Powers held not being so relevant. But anyway, off topic for this thread. Rcsprinter123   (sermonise)  20:36, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Great Clacton
This isn't an objection as such but I'm wandering if a merge is appropriate? As I noted at User:Crouch, Swale/Essex/Exists "Great Clacton" was a parish until 1974 but had the same area as Clacton Urban District and subsequently the unparished area of Clacton. Although I noted when "Great Clacton" was abolished I didn't put the 1961 census data due to the fact the unparished area continued. If it was a category 4 parish this would surely seems sensible but "Great Clacton" is the name of a settlement that was once a district settlement and is still a settlement today. I'm still unsure if a merge makes sense as it may be better to keep the "Great Clacton" article about the settlement with the mention of the parish being abolished etc. On the other hand I guess it depends how much coverage there is of the settlement as the parish/unparished area is the same as "Clacton". Thoughts?  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 20:50, 3 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm always trying to think what's the most helpful way of presenting information for readers. The Great Clacton article as it stood was a fairly awful article. In one paragraph it managed to confusingly describe the place three ways, as a suburb, a settlement and a town, the latter two both being simply wrong in my view. It then proceed to make a couple of unsourced claims about the name's etymology which are duplicated on the Clacton-on-Sea page anyway, and then had a name of one vicar from the 16th century (which was at least sourced). You'd added the date of the parish's abolition, but that was about it. Someone reading that article would have gained no understanding of the overlapping relationship between the names Great Clacton / Clacton / Clacton-on-Sea. As far as I can see, in no meaningful sense is Great Clacton a separate settlement today - it's part of the Clacton-on-Sea built up area, and the postal address of properties there is Clacton-on-Sea, with Great Clacton not even being a postal locality.
 * Yes, a parish called Great Clacton existed until 1974, but as we've discussed before the pre-1974 urban parishes need to be very carefully presented as many of them are prone to mislead by their names alone. After 1895 the name of the urban district was just Clacton, and that was the more significant layer of the administrative hierarchy; there was no Great Clacton Parish Council - the local authority was Clacton Urban District Council. Someone coming across a pre-1974 reference to "in the parish of Great Clacton" needs to know that area was the Clacton Urban District, and so wasn't limited to just the old village / suburb of Great Clacton but also covered Clacton-on-Sea, Jaywick and Holland-on-Sea / Little Holland.
 * I think it's a lot clearer and neater to explain these relationships on the one page, as I have now tried to do. For page title this should be at the modern name of the place so go with "Clacton-on-Sea" as the name of the built up area and post town, but have Clacton and Great Clacton redirect there.
 * Had the Great Clacton article been more substantial, pointing to a suburban community retaining a strong identity of its own today, then I'd have been more inclined to keep it a separate article and add appropriate discussion about the former parish which was effectively eclipsed by the modern town of Clacton-on-Sea. However, I don't get a sense of a thriving separate community identity for Great Clacton - it gives its name to a school but beyond that most references to it I can see online are to the historic parish, or are derived from automatically generated lists of place names. Thanks. Stortford (talk) 06:51, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Seems reasonable, maybe one day a better article will be written on the suburb but as you say is isn't at the moment and doesn't appear to have any significant content. Its a category 2 parish rather than category 4 as it has a settlement of the same name but as the parish was/is the same as the urban district/unparished area. I guess we would only really need to cover it is there was significant content on the settlement otherwise it can be treated similar to category 4 parishes. And yes my former parish project doesn't require a separate article due to it being the same as an unparished area. If you look at User:Crouch, Swale/Hertfordshire/Exists you can see there is Northaw=Northaw and Cuffley as the parish was renamed but because there is a distinct place called "Northaw" we still have an article there. Consider that like Cuckfield Rural redirecting to Ansty and Staplefield that if there was no village called "Northaw" then "Northaw" would redirect to "Northaw and Cuffley" similar to the fact that if there was no settlement called "Great Clacton" then it would redirect to the unparished area "Clacton" which redirects to the settlement "Clacton-on-Sea" so everything seems fine as we don't otherwise appear to be able to write much about "Great Clacton" suburb.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 20:21, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

South Turton
As this area (apart from the South Turton Area Forum from 2000-2008) appears to exist only as an unparished area I'd say that it is appropriate to call it an "unparished area" in the lead. The article's main scope from its creation in 2007 has it seems been the unparished area.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:35, 6 September 2023 (UTC)


 * I left the page there for now, but I'm tempted to say we shouldn't have a South Turton article at all - it should be a postscript at the end of the Turton Urban District article (to which South Turton could redirect). The notion that there is a "South Turton Unparished Area" is wrong, for the logic we have discussed several times elsewhere - it is simply a part of the borough of Bolton which is unparished, but there is no official boundary between it and the rest of the unparished area in the borough to the south of it. The name "South Turton" wasn't officially given to it in the 1974 reorganisation - the old Turton urban district was split between a parish of North Turton in Blackburn district and an area in Bolton which ceased to be part of any parish. Whilst the assumption that the southern part in Bolton could be described as "South Turton" is a tempting logical next step to take, the legislation did not go that far. (For what it's worth, I wish they'd done things differently in 1965 and 1974 and not created the confusion of having areas that are outside any parish, but we have to report on what actually happened and exists now, not misrepresent it by inventing named unparished areas and boundaries between them that do not in fact exist.)
 * I can find no references to the term "South Turton" in the British Newspaper Archive from 1974 to 1999. Yes, Bolton Council used the term for one of its area committees from 2000 to 2008, but then they abolished that committee in favour of smaller area committees which more closely aligned to community identities such as Bromley Cross and Bradshaw. It's also worth bearing in mind that Turton Urban District was one of those oddities of an urban district that didn't follow the normal pattern of being a small to medium sized town - it was a collection of villages that were gradually coalescing on the edge of Bolton, most of which had been chapelries / townships in the ancient parish of Bolton (or Bolton-le-Moors) prior to being deemed separate civil parishes under the Poor Law Amendment Act 1866 and then being added to the Turton Urban District in 1898.
 * I think people's sense of community identity here was more towards their township or the wider Bolton area, and "Turton" was always a bit of an artificial construct. Even within the old township of Turton, Egerton had become the largest settlement before the urban district was created and the old village of Turton had become known as Chapeltown. "South Turton" doesn't appear on Ordnance Survey maps, and most results that come up when searching for the term appear to be derived from the Wikipedia page rather than from a strong local community identity. Thanks. Stortford (talk) 06:40, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I think given both the unparished area and committee it should remain a separate article, yes unlike its neighbour North Turton its not a full fledged municipality but it seems recognized enough. When UKBMD used to list individual unparished areas it listed "South Turton" as "Unparished area which until 1.4.1974 formed part of the parish and urban district of Turton." even though UKBMD no longer makes a distinction it used to.
 * I think as unlike say Hitchin it isn't the name of a settlement and unlike say Epsom and Ewell isn't even the name of a district so unlike the points about about giving undue weight to a minor point I think as a compromise we should keep it in the lead for articles like this, thanks.
 * As a side note Turton is a category 4 parish for both Greater Manchester and Lancashire but seems to be one like several in Greater Manchester that are category 4 but probably do satisfy our notability criteria unlike say Sandridge Urban as many were townships and have other coverage.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 20:37, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Parishes project
I don't think you know but unfortunately for the last 2 weeks we haven't been able to access and of the statistics like population etc (example) but the rest of the website is working. I have reported it, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography but although I'd still checking for former parishes I'm not working on articles until this problem is sorted. Just letting you know, thanks.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 17:27, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Blackpool
Thanks for your thoughtful additions to the Blackpool Governance section. I wondered if we could reinstate the header as Governance and Politics? Largely because it covers political conferences. AntoniaStack (talk) 18:19, 26 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Fair enough - now done. Thanks Stortford (talk) 05:16, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Havant
A few days ago I expanded Borough of Havant to include information about the "previous" district but there is a bit of a problem. According to VOB it was formed in 1884 (per "Date created") but at the "Boundary changes" says it was created from several districts in 1932 while in the names section further up it was named "Havant" until 1932 and "Havant and Waterloo" after then. As we've said before that when a district "survived" the 1974 reforms (even though the UD and NMD are different legal entities they are a geographical continuation) we should discuss in more detail the "previous" district.

As a side note per you're comment at 20:03, 13 November 2022 about county councils reviewing boundaries and merging district and some councils being more zealous it looks like Hampshire may have been one of them as there were 5 district that survived the 1974 changes and all 5 of them had boundary changes in the 1930s or later. Clearing up this would also follow the scope problems as discussed from this, thanks.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 23:11, 3 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Vision of Britain sometimes needs a bit of care to interpret. I think its "created" / "abolished" etc. labels may be automatically generated from the GIS mapping which they have created by plotting old Ordnance Survey maps cross-referenced against Youngs' Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, and confusion does sometimes creep in. Looking at my physical copy of Youngs' book, I think what has happened here is that Vision of Britain has deemed Havant Urban District and Havant and Waterloo Urban District to be one district that grew, whereas Youngs deemed it that Havant UD was abolished when Havant and Waterloo UD was created in 1932.
 * My overview of the situation is that there was an ancient parish of Havant, which was made a Local Board District in 1852. All such Local Board Districts were reconstituted as Urban Districts in 1894. The Havant Urban District was substantially enlarged in 1932 to take in the whole or main part (the bit with the namesake settlement) of the parishes of Bedhampton, North Hayling, South Hayling, Warblington (which had been an urban district since 1894, in which the largest settlement was Emsworth) and Waterloo. At the same time there were more minor adjustments with other neighbouring parishes. The enlarged urban district was renamed "Havant and Waterloo", and the whole area was made a single urban parish called Havant. Hope that helps. Stortford (talk) 07:35, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for expanding the article further. I guess if we knew the "Havant and Waterloo" was definitely created in 1932 from "Havant" then it would be logical to start coverage from 1932 and cover the old "Havant" UD in the Havant article but since its not clear that's the case it probably makes sense to just cover from 1894-present in the district article.
 * It also looks like a similar problem has happened with Stoke-upon-Trent/Stoke-on-Trent where VOB treats the district and parish (oddly it seems the rename of the parish happened in 1920) as one entity when actually the are 2. My understanding with Stoke is that "Stoke-upon-Trent" is the name of one of the towns and MB/CP and the MB/CP was merged with other districts like Hanley to form a new CB and CP called "Stoke-on-Trent" a bit like Brighton and Hove being an amalgamation of the 2 NMDs but in both cases the new areas were just administrative units rather than settlements. However over time the name "Stoke-on-Trent" became used for the name of the conurbation which is why its polycentric. To a lesser extent the name "Brighton and Hove" has become used for the conurbation as its used as a BUA and BUASD in the 2011 census. Stoke-on-Trent CB was reconstituted as a NMD in Staffordshire administrative county and became unitary again in 1997. Normally if you have "X-on-X" and "X-upon-Y" like Aston-on-Trent/Aston upon Trent its synonymous where the former is the current name of the settlement and the latter is the current name of the parish and formerly for the village as well but in this case "Stoke-upon-Trent" and "Stoke-on-Trent" have different meanings.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:54, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Continuations
I've created User:Crouch, Swale/Continuation which notes some changes are legal, geographic or name continuations and says we generally prefer 1 article. Correct me if I'm wrong but technically the change to Fareham Urban District to Fareham non-metropolitan district was a legal abolishment and reformation even though the boundaries and name are the same and Skegness urban parish and Skegness successor parish are also legally 2 different entities even though they have the same name and area but in this case while the successor parish has significantly less powers than the urban district unlike the urban parish it is a fully functioning municipality as opposed to only relying on the district council. The same would also be the case of "Halstead Urban">"Halstead". With parishes the only time we would normally make a distinction with a legal continuation is like Dobwalls and Trewidland when a significant boundary change happened. Do these rules seem sensible?

Along those lines am I right in thinking per you're comment above about St Michael Rural/St Michael, Hertfordshire that the latter is a legal continuation of the former with small boundary changes and a change of name and that I should partly revert my changes saying the parish was abolished?  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:56, 10 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I think in trying to get clear historic changes in areas or names of parishes and districts my overarching concern is that we have to be careful not to lose clarity of understanding the narrative for readers. Former names and styles of parish or district authorities can usually be covered adequately on the page for the modern settlement / parish / district. I would argue that it's clearer to explain the former statuses / names on the page for the current place, as part of the historic context for how it used to be governed. It's helpful to explain that Blackpool was governed by the Layton with Warbreck Local Board until 1868 when it was renamed the Blackpool Local Board, for example.
 * You're right, Fareham Urban District was abolished and replaced by Fareham non-metropolitan district, and I agree they should be covered together on one article. I think splitting those pages would detract from the ease of understanding we should be aiming for, whereas keeping them together helps understand that although 1974 was a significant point of reformation for Fareham, there was also much continuity with what had gone before.
 * It's hard to be definitive about whether a new place is a legal successor of an old one - I fully expect there will have been orders / rules about which new authorities inherited the property / staff of which old authorities each time there's been a reform, which is sometimes covered in the statutory instruments giving effect to the reforms. It seems reasonable to deduce that the St Michael parish is the legal successor to the old St Michael Rural parish, but I'm hesitant to say so definitively without sourcing an order. It's also quite an overly-detailed point going beyond what I think is necessary to cover. St Michael Rural / St Michael covered very similar areas and had very similar names - it's adequate in my view to note the tweak to both territory and name in 1974, but I don't think we need to get hung up on whether that was an abolition and re-creation or a legal continuation. I have generally expanded the St Michael article this morning anyway as it was a bit sparse as it stood. Stortford (talk) 08:16, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I wander if we should clarify the abolishment/reformation in the likes of Wiltshire or Borough of Brighton. As we know with counties and parishes (unlike districts) we generally have a single article even if boundaries and legal changes happened like Hampshire loosing parts to Dorset. Looking at the Wiltshire article (and History of Wiltshire) it doesn't even appear to mention anything about 1974 (or the 1972 act). While the point about the 1972 act abolishing it and its council and reforming it probably doesn't need to be mentioned in the lead I think it should still be mentioned. Similarly the Borough of Brighton (which I wrote some of) doesn't specify it was abolished and reformed in 1974 but rather like the "previous" MB/CB change that happened in 1889 implies the 1974 change from CB to NMD was a legal continuation when a term like "reconstituted" as with Borough of Fareham may be more accurate.
 * I think all parishes with a distinct name (other than category 4 parishes) should have an article but indeed we should consider if the change was small enough that it might not be helpful to have separate articles. The New Parishes Order you cited the only mention about a rename seems to be for Fritton in 4(2), otherwise the name of the order would seem to imply they are new. I think if St Michael was a rename it would say something like "The reduced parish of St. Michael Rural shall be renamed and in the order referred to as St. Michael".
 * While I don't think we need to be excessively technical in the lead I think we do need to make sure we generally specify if things were abolished or not though for Borough of Brighton I'd suggest that something along the likes of "Brighton was a local government district from 1854 until 1997" would be good. We then go into more detail in the "History" section. Obviously Borough of Hove isn't a problem as per WP:UKDISTRICTS its scope is 1974-1997 as there were significant boundary changes in 1974 though it does discuss the 2 districts it was formed from.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:24, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I think we could get too many references to abolition then, which would overstate the amount of change there has actually been. If you look at the New Parishes Order 1973, you'll see that many of the "new parishes" had the same names as an old parish but with slightly altered areas - e.g. the part of the old parish of Redbourn outside the designated area for Hemel Hempstead New Town became a new parish called Redbourn. Whilst legally that was a simultaneous abolition and new creation, the practical effect was that a parish called Redbourn continued to exist, just minus a few fields on the western fringe of the parish. I'd therefore exercise caution in whether it's actually necessary for the narrative to explain that there was an abolition and reformation - in the case of Redbourn and others like it I'd say it's not necessary. Stortford (talk) 06:24, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think mentioning abolishment and reformation in the history section causes problems, it just doesn't need to be mentioned in the lead. I don't think mentioning in the lead that "St Michael Rural, which was renamed St Michael in 1974" is appropriate, instead I'd mention something like most of it came from St Michael Rural or just remove it from the lead. In the case of Wiltshire/Wiltshire Council, the 1974 "changes" that didn't modify the area should probably be mentioned in the history but don't need to be mentioned in the lead.
 * If you look at the changes in Avon you can see that while "Bath and North East Somerset" was formed from an amalgamation of "Bath" and "Northavon" districts that "Woodspring" was renamed (though ending up just "North Somerset") that's why most districts like Bedford start coverage from 1974 not 1996 (or 2009 in Bedford's case) since while changes happened to governance they were both a geographical and legal continuation. This is why all districts named after a settlement start coverage at 1974 or earlier with one exception York as the order explicitally created a "new district" from the old one and parts of Harrogate, Ryedale and Selby.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:38, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I see you have answered my question Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/Archive 29 about if Herefordshire pre 1974 and Herefordshire post 1998 had identical boundaries or not. I can see arguments both ways about if Herefordshire Council and Herefordshire County Council should both exist. In favour of keeping separate they have/had different boundaries and are/were different legal entities. In favour of merging, they are similar entities with similar boundaries and similar names but I'm fine wither way. Thanks anyway for making those changes.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:26, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Population figures
VOB population figures are now working again but unfortunately when they started working again the boundary maps stopped working though that's not as much of a problem for the category 1 and 2 parishes as they have all been checked for covering the settlement of the same name. A few weeks ago the population figures temporarily started working again with boundary maps not working. It seems odd that when the population figures start working the maps stop working. Interestingly for some units 1971 figures now are shown example Panton though I'm not going to bother to update those that I have already added only 1961 data to.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:42, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

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Your Gorleston Norfolk claim
Hi Stortford, just dropped by to let you know I've readded town to the Borough of Yarmouth article and to the Gorleston article for the town. I did research and more than five websites use town for Gorleston including a visit Norfolk site which obviously involves the whole county so the town or suburb.argument is slightly answered by these historical looks using town in Suffolk and town in Norfolk. Anyway just thought I'd let you know in case you wanted to debate it or not on their respective talkpages. Thanks DragonofBatley (talk) 04:30, 7 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi @DragonofBatley - I'm not going to get overly hung up on this one. Yes, some sources (many trying to promote it as a tourist destination) call it a town. Equally there are others out there which call it a suburb, and to my mind that it a better description for it - it has been administratively part of Great Yarmouth since 1836, doesn't have a town council, isn't a post town, and was never a market town. Acknowledging the ambiguity, I'd therefore prefer to be a bit more circumspect in the choice of words for it and would personally not call it a town in the lead section of Borough of Great Yarmouth page. Its status could perhaps be more fully discussed at Gorleston-on-Sea. However, I'm not going to go back and make further changes now. Stortford (talk) 13:55, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Boxford, Suffolk
In terms of former administrative divisions do you agree with my decision on putting the fact it was in the administrative county of West Suffolk (and Cosford Rural District and Babergh hundred) in the "Governance" section rather than the lead? However I have put the historic county Lancashire for Woodhouses in the lead. The reason being that the historic county for Woodhouses is important to the history as changes to counties are usually controversial and other articles like Oldham mention this, on the other hand West Suffolk was never ceremonial and it wasn't until 2012 that I found out that there were East and West Suffolk counties which surprised me, though more recently I have found out that's because they were never ceremonial which is probably why they have far less significance to residents and thus may not be suitable for the lead.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 18:40, 19 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Seems reasonable to me. I agree, the old administrative counties of East and West Suffolk don't seem to have left much legacy in terms of public memory or sense of identity. I think those two administrative counties were a bit of a confection in 1888. The government originally proposed one Suffolk County Council but was persuaded to split it by Lord Bristol who I think (reading between the lines) felt he would have more sway over a West Suffolk County Council based in Bury St Edmunds near his estates, whereas he'd be somewhat more marginal from the perspective of a Suffolk-wide council based over in Ipswich. Whether the broad thrust of public opinion was with him or not, I don't know. Stortford (talk) 19:49, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Rhondda
Rhondda has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:34, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Geographically large parishes
What do you make of the like of Stanhope, County Durham which has an area of either 221 km2 or 255.8 the largest in England, larger than Stockton-on-Tees district (204.9), Darlington (197.5) and Hartlepool (93.72) which makes it the largest administrative unit in County Durham after the district. On here Category:Stanhope, County Durham has a large number of pages but Commons:Category:Stanhope, County Durham (civil parish) has even more. Notice that Stanhope has only 1 article here (though they are split on Commons) even though the smaller units of Hartlepool, Darlington and Stockton-on-Tees are split. I think this is correct, the convention in most parts of the world is normally to have separate articles for districts from the settlements of the same name but with municipalities they are normally combined. I'd argue that the unparished areas a somewhat the equivalent to a municipality even though they don't generally have administrative roles. If I'd been the one doing the local government in 1974 I'd probably have had every urban district that wasn't large enough to stay as a single district having a successor parish and have also abolished smaller parishes that became part of urban areas like Worcester's 2 parishes. In terms of the other large parishes there is also Kirkburton which contains quite a few district settlements (and its urban district had absorbed several other districts) and which I have created many Commons categories for, see Commons:Category:Kirkburton. Interestingly assuming Stanhope is 255.8 it would be England's 53rd largest district! out of 296 see List of English districts by population. What do you think about a list similar to List of the most populous civil parishes in England for the largest by area? I don't know of any sources that show parishes by area, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/Archive 28.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 22:41, 4 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm not at all surprised that there are some large parishes out there - some areas are very mountainous or sparsely inhabited moorland or the like. Some coastal parishes also include extensive tracts of "land" that are only exposed at low tide - Lower Holker has an unremarkable amount of land above the high tide mark, but an enormous area exposed at low tide because the parish includes much of Morecambe Bay. Strange ancient anomalies still exist up on some of the moors - for example the large area of Fylingdales Moor which is deemed to be part of both the two parishes of Fylingdales and Hawsker-cum-Stainsacre.
 * Therefore I don't see great value in compiling a list of the biggest by area. I'm also not aware of a reliable source that would let you do it. Thanks Stortford (talk) 20:30, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Many of these like Dartmoor Forest do indeed cover very rural areas but its interesting to note that some of them like Lakes and Kirkburton were successor parishes and the urban districts had been formed from/absorbed other districts, maybe at some point these parishes will be divided like Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury was due to being too large but in any case I think even for Stanhope (which an "urban" parish and district was formed for the urban part but the rural part was just "Stanhope) we should not split the article even though it covers a huge area with other district settlements though I guess we could say Stanhope parish has longstanding boundaries due to the "urban" split being reversed.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:21, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Buckinghamshire
I've merged Buckinghamshire County Council into Buckinghamshire Council and have made a few improvements, you might want to have a look to see if anything else needs doing, thanks.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 23:26, 28 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks - Buckinghamshire's an odd one in that unlike Somerset, Wiltshire, North Yorkshire and other recent ones where they let the existing county council take over district level functions, in Buckinghamshire they explicitly abolished the county council and created a new district council to be the unitary authority. I don't know why they did it that way around for Buckinghamshire, but I've reworded the lead accordingly. Stortford (talk) 17:56, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I might be a bit cautious about saying it was founded in 2020 as the previous one was reformed with different boundaries in 1974. I thought just to keep the statement that it was formed in 1889 like the rest of the councils as the statement that it was abolished and reformed is already discussed, that said I don't have a problem with changing this though.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 18:51, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * As they've made a point of it on their new logo of saying "est. 2020" it looks odd if we don't address why they say that. Stortford (talk) 19:04, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I've added a footnote noting the previous formations. I agree the logo is an important factor so this makes sense, thanks.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:11, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Local government in X articles
I'm not saying this is necessarily a good idea as I don't generally think descriptive articles as opposed to articles on specific topics are generally a good idea but what are you're thoughts on "Local government in X" articles? Examples:


 * Local government in Maldon would cover the municipal borough and parish that existed until 1974, the unparished area and charter trustees from 1974-1987 and the parish from 1987-present. The district that has existed since 1974 would be covered in the separate article namely Maldon District but could still be mentioned in the article.
 * Local government in Darlington would cover the county borough and parish that existed until 1974 and the unparished area from 1974-present. Again Borough of Darlington would stay separate but could be mentioned.
 * Local government in Lowestoft would cover the municipal borough and parish that existed until 1974, the unparished area and charter trustees from 1974-2017 and the parish from 2017-present.

As mention I don't necessarily think this is a good idea and articles like Municipal Borough of Wisbech and Wisbech Town Council might work better than Local government in Wisbech but its a thought if its better to avoid splitting local governance from districts to unparished areas and parishes. In cases like Fareham/Borough of Fareham where the pre 1974 district and unparished area are such articles would likely not be used as they would be redundant as likely would be with Eastbourne/Eastbourne Borough Council, thoughts?  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:17, 21 April 2024 (UTC)


 * I'd err on the side of not having such pages. I think the vast majority of places can have their administrative history discussed fairly succinctly on the page for the settlement, either under the history or governance sections, and that would suffice. Where current / former districts or councils named after the place are eligible for their own pages anyway, include links to them. I'm not sure how much value an additional page specifically focussed on local government might add, except in some of the most complicated cases. There is, for example, a History of local government in Bristol page. That said, even there I have wondered about trying to rationalise the split of material between that page, Bristol City Council, History of Bristol City Council, Politics of Bristol and Bristol City Council elections, which all tread on each others' toes to a greater or lesser extent. Stortford (talk) 12:37, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Skegby and unparished areas
Hi I have been having an extended discussion with at his talk page about the wording to be used when talking about unparished areas. We are trying to agree a form of words that can be used across many settlement articles, which not only explains how/when a civil parish was abolished, but also does not imply that there is an officially defined unparished area of which it is now part. Our discussion has touched on the wording that you introduced to the Skegby article with this edit. I am a little concerned by the final part of the final paragraph of the History section. For context I am quoting the final three sentences, but it is only the final phrase which I would like to query.
 * "On 1 April 1935 the parish was abolished and merged with the parish and urban district of Sutton in Ashfield.[Vision of Britain] Sutton in Ashfield Urban District was in turn abolished in 1974 to become part of the new district of Ashfield. No successor parish was created for the former urban district and so it became an unparished area.[The English Non-metropolitan Districts (Definition) Order 1972]"

My concern is that the words "and so it became an unparished area". I think it is fair to say that both and I agree that this wording could be read as implying that there is a “Sutton in Ashfield unparished area”. I think it’s fair to say that we both agree that there is no official “Sutton in Ashfield unparished area”. The point of difference between and me is that he believes that there is an unofficial “Sutton in Ashfield unparished area”, to which it is appropriate to allude, whereas I do not. I would also note that The English Non-metropolitan Districts (Definition) Order 1972, used as reference, does not include the term “unparished area”.

My proposal would be to tweak the wording of the final part of the paragraph, to avoid any implication that there might be a “Sutton in Ashfield unparished area” (whether official or not). My proposal would be (again the final three sentences are given for context, but it is only the final part of the final sentence that has changed):
 * On 1 April 1935 the parish was abolished and merged with the parish and urban district of Sutton in Ashfield.[Vision of Britain] Sutton in Ashfield Urban District was in turn abolished in 1974 to become part of the new district of Ashfield. No successor parish was created for the former urban district and so Skegby became part of an unparished area.[The English Non-metropolitan Districts (Definition) Order 1972]

Could we ask for your feedback on this proposal please? Mertbiol (talk) 11:57, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I'd prefer keeping it as is, the individual unparished areas are far more likely to be understood by people and I don't think the current wording gives the impression there is an "official" unparished area by that name.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 12:01, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks both. My wording on Skegby was not intended to imply that there is a "Sutton in Ashfield unparished area". As Crouch, Swale and I have discussed several times, there is no boundary retained between adjoining former urban districts which became unparished; they are not "individual unparished areas" as Crouch, Swale puts it. In this example, the adjoining former Sutton and Kirkby urban districts both became unparished in 1974, and so they together form the unparished part of Ashfield district. Looking at Skegby again, I would actually be inclined to delete the whole of the final sentence Mertbiol highlighted (except the source at the end, which was intended to cover both the penultimate and final sentences). I had mentioned the unparished area in the history section because I was deleting it from a very prominent position in the lead, but it makes enough sense without it. Failing that, I'd go with Mertbiol's "part of" addition to that sentence.
 * On the sourcing, you're quite right, the 1972 Definition Order doesn't use the term "unparished area". Section 1(10) of the Local Government Act 1972 abolished all urban parishes (those in urban districts, which often covered the whole district, as was the case with Sutton in Ashfield), except in the cases subsequently listed in the various successor parish orders. As Sutton was an urban district and no successor parish was created for it, the parish it contained was abolished on the creation of Ashfield (for which the 1972 Definition Order is the source). If we are keeping the sentence in, we could perhaps make the sourcing clearer by adding a reference to Section 1(10) of the 1972 Act. Stortford (talk) 13:11, 27 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks
 * You've written that you'd be happy to delete the final part of the final sentence. This would be my preferred option too (i.e. omitting the term unparished area altogether), but I didn't propose it as I felt it too extreme(!), especially in the context of the discussion at 's talk page.
 * Could I suggest that you go ahead and make your preferred change(s) to the Skegby article? Once you’re happy, I will then work with at his talk page to produce a generic version of that paragraph, which he can then deploy more widely across the encyclopaedia. You would, of course, be most welcome to join that discussion. (I most likely won’t get to that before Sunday evening.)
 * Thanks very much for your input. Best wishes, Mertbiol (talk) 14:01, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks @Mertbiol - I've now deleted that last sentence at Skegby, as discussed. Hopefully that will suffice. Stortford (talk) 16:10, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I still think using the "individual" unparished areas is more useful. As noted at Commons:User talk:Skinsmoke where I tried to apply a similar logic it was pointed out that people are more likely to know them as being separate unparished areas. If we're saying we shouldn't make reference to individual unparished areas then I'll just add the population data and when the parish was abolished.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 17:57, 27 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much that looks great.
 * Skinsmoke was wrong - this has been patiently explained to you in detail several times. And no, "people" (whoever they might be - certainly not Wikipedia readers or ordinary members of the UK public) are not "more likely to know them as being separate unparished areas". I will pick this up on your talk page tomorrow afternoon.
 * Best wishes, Mertbiol (talk) 20:52, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree with you in part about Skinsmoke being wrong namely about the legislation specifically creating unparished areas but I still agree with the point about people being more likely to know the pre 1974 areas.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:09, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
 * 1 April 1974 is now over 50 years ago. There will be few people under the age of 60 who remember the pre-1974 areas. Even fewer will make a connection to non-existent so-called unparished areas based on their boundaries. Mertbiol (talk) 21:53, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Surrey category 2 parishes have now been done.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:40, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Unparished area cleanup
Hi Thanks very much for your input over this weekend. I have made a quick search for articles that use the same form of words as Skegby used up until Saturday lunchtime - i.e. those that include the sentence "No successor parish was created for the former urban district and so it became an unparished area." or similar. I think there are between 50 and 80 such articles, depending on the exact search term used. Can I check that you'd be happy for me to edit these, so that they are in line with the current version of the Skegby article please? (I'd hope to be able to do a handful of these every few days - I can't spend more time than that.) Best wishes Mertbiol (talk) 16:07, 28 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Of course - go ahead. Many thanks. Stortford (talk) 19:41, 28 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks . It would be a great if you could keep an eye on the edits that I make to those articles and do please jump in as necessary! Best wishes Mertbiol (talk) 17:04, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Category 3 parishes
I've now done all category 2 former parishes in non-metropolitan areas. Although many like Faxton are also names of former villages or the like and the standard UK place infobox seems correct it may be better for the likes of South Wilford that only ever existed as a parish to use the historic subdivision infobox however there seems to have been more of a movement to always use the UK place infobox for all types of parishes so I guess using it for defunct parishes seems fine.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 21:41, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Non-metropolitan counties
Hi @Stortford, I've been trying to understand how the list was selected for the non-metropolitan counties in your recent infobox change. But I can't get my head around it.

By my understanding, there are presently 21 non-metropolitan counties which still exist as originally intended. Plus Berkshire as I believe that was retained somehow, though to be honest, I can't understand the Berkshire (Structural Change) Order 1996 so I can't point to how.

But there are 30 in your list. Am I right in thinking that you've included what we might call 'technical' non-metropolitan counties? That is to say, unitary authorities. Is that why Cornwall and Buckinghamshire are in there, for example?

But then if that's so, shouldn't County Durham and the like be in there?

And should we really be calling these technical non-metropolitan counties as such? Otherwise we'd need to call Cheshire West and Cheshire East and so on as 'non-metropolitan counties'. When the agreed term is unitary authorities, regardless of the fact that they are technically non-metropolitan counties. Dgp4004 (talk) 13:19, 12 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Because if we were call these unitaries 'non-metropolitan counties', it follows that we ought to call them 'non-metropolitan county and non-metropolitan district'. Which is surely more cumbersome than 'unitary authority'. Dgp4004 (talk) 13:32, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Hello @Dgp4004 - the list I added is those counties where the Wikipedia page is serving dual roles, describing both a non-metropolitan county and a ceremonial county. Particularly where those definitions cover differing territories (e.g. Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire), I think it's important to be clear up front (including at the top of the infobox) that the page is catering for multiple definitions. You're quite right, there are legally others which are also both non-metropolitan and ceremonial counties, although only in five cases: Bristol, Dorset, County Durham, Rutland and Shropshire. For Dorset, County Durham and Shropshire there are separate Wikipedia pages for each definition. (I don't think there should be, but that's another debate.) The Rutland page uses the 'infobox settlement' template rather than the 'infobox English county' one, so I left it off for now.
 * There are many other non-metropolitan counties which aren't also ceremonial counties, including your Cheshire East / Cheshire West & Chester examples; as far as I can tell they all use 'infobox settlement' rather than 'infobox English county'. This is well-established practice and I don't propose changing that, and I agree we should not routinely describe those areas as non-metropolitan counties in running text. I agree that 'unitary authority' is less of a mouthful, but there are some editors who are very hot on pointing out that unitary authority is an unofficial description for the type of council, not a term for the territory, leading to clunky phrases like 'unitary authority area'. I have tried clarifying the wording on some pages, including Borough of Hartlepool.
 * For each non-metropolitan county which is not also a ceremonial county, the area is legally both a district and a county but with no separate county council; the district council also performs county council functions. I'd therefore say the better way of describing such areas in running text is the 'district', or the 'borough' or 'city' if the district has such honorific statuses. This logic also applies to Bristol - although both a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, the council is legally a district council that also performs county functions, and the district has city status, so 'city' is the better way to describe it. The Bristol page also uses 'infobox settlement' rather than 'infobox English county' (as explicitly catered for on the template's documentation page), which is why I didn't include it on my list.
 * Berkshire is an oddity - all other reorganisations that abolished a county council also abolished the associated county, but that wasn't done in Berkshire, and so it remains a non-metropolitan county but with no county council and the six district councils serving as unitary authorities. Stortford (talk) 16:24, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply. What a nightmare local government has become. I thought it couldn't possibly get any worse. But then they introduced combined county authorities. So I'm sure it can get worse still. Dgp4004 (talk) 16:32, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

@Stortford, can I suggest that you start a discussion at WP:WikiProject UK geography about this topic. I am inclined to agree with 's reversion of your edits to Buckinghamshire and Cambridgeshire but it would be a good idea to get a consensus position on the main discussion forum rather than taking each on a case-by-case basis. You might explain what you mean by "county council functions": taking Buckinghamshire for example, Buckinghamshire Council has no jurisdiction over the 'territory' of Milton Keynes City Council.--𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:53, 12 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks @JMF. Not sure I have the capacity to start a wider discussion including the word 'counties' in the title just at the moment, knowing how much of a hornet's nest such discussions often are, coupled with the fact I'm going away for a few days shortly. This morning's flurry of activity on the topic was triggered by yet another discussion about which county flags are allowed to be shown where. This is an issue which I think is exacerbated by a failure to be clearer about the fact that some Wikipedia pages, including Buckinghamshire, actually cover two different definitions of that name.
 * For now, just trying to answer your specific question on how this relates to Buckinghamshire - you're quite right, Buckinghamshire Council has no jurisdiction over the City of Milton Keynes, and I had hoped that my edit which A.D.Hope has since reverted would have helped make that clearer. Since 1974, all of England except for Greater London and the Isles of Scilly, has been legally divided into counties, each of which is divided into districts. Both counties and districts are also sub-categorised as either metropolitan or non-metropolitan. Local government functions are assigned to either a county council (notably including highways, education and social services) or a district council (notably including housing, waste collection and town planning).
 * Since 1995 there have been a growing number of cases where boundaries have been adjusted to make a county contain just one district, with the same name as the county. In such cases, instead of having both a district council and a county council, the structural change order specifies either that the district council should also perform the functions of the absent county council, or the county council should also perform the functions of the absent district council. Such councils are generally known as unitary authorities, but this is an informal term for them - each unitary authority remains legally either a district council or a county council.
 * There is a non-metropolitan district and non-metropolitan county called Milton Keynes, where the district council performs both district council and county council functions. As the district has city status, that district council is called Milton Keynes City Council. Likewise, there's a non-metropolitan district and a non-metropolitan county both called Buckinghamshire, again with a district council that performs the functions of a county council, and that council is called Buckinghamshire Council.
 * Separately from the legal counties, we have the ceremonial counties, formally the 'counties for the purposes of lieutenancy'. These have virtually no actual functions, merely being the areas to which lord-lieutenants and high sheriffs are appointed, but which nevertheless are commonly used as a geographic frame of reference, including on Wikipedia. The ceremonial county of Buckinghamshire covers both the Buckinghamshire non-metropolitan county and district and the Milton Keynes non-metropolitan county and district. The Buckinghamshire Wikipedia page covers both the ceremonial and the non-metropolitan definitions of Buckinghamshire. There is nowhere else for discussing the population statistics etc. of the non-metropolitan county - the Buckinghamshire Council page is about the council, not its territory. That being the case, I was trying to make clearer from the outset that the page covers both definitions and that they are different. As the non-metropolitan county has far greater direct impact on residents' daily lives I was trying to give it equal billing with the far less significant (in practical terms) ceremonial version of the county, but for now I have been overruled on that front. Thanks, Stortford (talk) 20:55, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * No, it is not going to be easy and illogical thinking in HMG doesn't help. Bedfordshire was handled properly: there are three UAs and none are called Bedfordshire. Buckinghamshire is a mess: for example, Olney, Buckinghamshire [sic] is in Buckinghamshire, just not in the part of the county that is administered by Buckinghamshire Council. We have sort of gotten round that by having Buckinghamshire be about the ceremonial county [don't mention "traditional county", that's another nest of vipers], which explains that it is divided for administration into two districts (which, as you say, are legally counties in their own right but tbh that is a legislative convenience to avoid having to amend 1000+ Acts going back to Edward II). We have a City of Milton Keynes article, which is about the geography. We have a Milton Keynes City Council, which is about the administration. We have a Buckinghamshire Council about the administration of the centre and south of the county but we don't have anything separate about its geography –  it is lumped into the ceremonial county article. There's a lot of sloppy thinking about: the ONS census stats divides Milton Keynes into Bletchley... and "Milton Keynes"! (i.e, the rest of MK after taking out Bletchley). So muddle through is forced upon us and the articles must explain that "it's complicated" and names have multiple meanings that differ according to context. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:26, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Template update
Hi @Stortford, I've reverted the addition of the non-metropolitan list to remove the unitaries pending discussion when you are back as I do think it will be a contentious change. Dgp4004 (talk) 18:39, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I would support Stortford's addition had it been done consistently. So if "Buckinghamshire" (aka the Bucks Council area) is to be included, then so should City of Milton Keynes. Ditto "Cambridgeshire" and Peterborough. Etc etc. These UAs are legally counties in their own right. Whether the "non-metropolitan" designation makes sense any more is a different topic. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:36, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * My objection would be the latter. If we're going to call unitaries 'non-met counties' then it should be 'non-met county and non-met district' which is quite a chunky term. Whereas unitary authority is a far more elegant term. The unitary authorities of England article explains very well that they hold the powers of a non-met county and district for those who seek a technical explanation. Dgp4004 (talk) 19:53, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks both - appreciate @Dgp4004 you letting me know about the partial reversion to the infobox for unitaries, and understood. This is an area where I feel some of our Wikipedia conventions occasionally make an already confusing system even less understandable, notably by giving the impression that the non-metropolitan counties / districts only mean the two-tier ones, and in not being clear enough that pages like Buckinghamshire, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire are in fact the main page for the geography etc. of the non-metropolitan county (be it two-tier or unitary) as well as being about the larger ceremonial county. @JMF - this was a change focussed on the template 'Infobox English county', which is only used by the ceremonial counties. Those unitaries such as Milton Keynes / Cheshire East / Luton etc. which aren't also ceremonial counties use 'Infobox settlement', in which the equivalent field already says "unitary authority" or "unitary authority area", which I agree is an adequately simple term for an infobox - I wasn't advocating the adoption of the chunky phrase "non-metropolitan county and non-metropolitan district" more generally.
 * Whilst I am now back, and still have reservations about how that infobox presents the remaining unitaries that are also ceremonial counties with no separate Wikipedia page (Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, East Riding of Yorkshire, Herefordshire, Isle of Wight, North Yorkshire, Northumberland, Somerset and Wiltshire), I think on reflection I'm content to leave this infobox as it now stands. Thanks, Stortford (talk) 19:33, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
 * But the entity called "Buckinghamshire", controlled by Bucks Council, is not a ceremonial county. It just happens to have the same name. Its status is exactly the same as that of City of MK. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:29, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed - the two definitions of Buckinghamshire are different, but we cover both on the same Wikipedia page. The whole point of the changes I was doing was to try and make clearer that the page covers two separate definitions and that those definitions are different. Stortford (talk) 20:57, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It's possible to display data for both the ceremonial and unitary counties in the same infobox where they differ, as with Cornwall and Wiltshire. You just have to enter the 'unitary authority' and 'gss code' fields. Whether that would give the impression that MK comes under the Bucks unitary, I don't know. If it does, the only other way around it would be to create a separate Bucks (district) article. Dgp4004 (talk) 21:06, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I certainly agree with Stortford's objective, indeed to the extent that I disapprove of combining the two Buckinghamshires in the same infobox unless it also includes CoMK. Ditto 2xCambridgeshire & Peterborough, 2xWiltshire & Swindon etc.
 * I doubt that Buckinghamshire (district) would get support as there is already a kickback against having separate articles for districts v their councils. [My preference for separation is that the council section ends up overwhelming the physical geography with years and years of election results.] 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 21:58, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
 * If you look at Lincolnshire or Gloucestershire, which have both had the ceremonial version of the county larger than the non-metropolitan version since 1996, you see the infobox has sections for both versions of the county, with different areas and population statistics etc. Cornwall and Wiltshire follow a similar model, just with 'unitary authority' instead of 'non-metropolitan county', which is fine for the infobox. I therefore don't see a problem with covering different definitions in the same box; it just needs to be clear which bits relate to which definition or both.
 * I agree that separate pages for each version of the county would be one way of solving things, but I wouldn't support that - in the vast majority of cases there's only one article at the moment, with (as far as I can see) three exceptions which have been split: County Durham (district), Shropshire (district) and Dorset (district). Whilst it's clearer what their infoboxes are showing, the article text doesn't really know what to do with itself, heavily overlapping both the council page and the ceremonial county page. My preference is to keep entities with the same name on the same page and explain the differences in definition in one place.
 * For pages where the territory and its council are covered together, I generally wouldn't object to putting the geography section ahead of the governance one. So far I've been putting governance first following the order recommended for settlements at WP:UKTOWNS in the absence of any meaningful guidance on article structure at WP:UKDISTRICTS. My reservation on that is that I wouldn't want to drag the sometimes enormous tables of demographic data (which often have an unhealthy fixation on reporting race, to what I'd consider an excessive degree) to sit ahead of the governance section. Stortford (talk) 06:05, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Districts and unparished areas future
If in the future the government decides to parish all areas (which I think it should) which would mean most "individual" unparished area becoming parishes like Buxton (or in some cases multiple for those with multiple distinct settlements such Witham which was divided into Witham, Rivenhall and Silver End) with those that are the same as a district like Reading which similar to pre 1974 urban districts could belong to a "single parish district" where the parish wouldn't function and such districts would be encoraged to (where the settlement has expanded beyond the district/parish boundaries) have the boundaries expanded to cover such areas like what was done with many pre 1974 urban districts. Obviously with the likes of Buxton this wouldn't have much effect on how our article structure would work apart from noting such places are parishes and creating new articles for any parishes with new names since otherwise we would have a single article on Buxton regardless of whether its a parish or unparished area as per convention. With respect to single parish districts I guess that the convention would be to have a single article for nearly all of them since this would make the arguments for splitting Reading (district) due to the district being smaller than the town largley moot.

With repect to the current suituation, while currently the distinction between "rural" districts and "urban" districts is no longer legally defined we can kind of (although I wouldn't mention this in articles since as stated its no longer legally defined and probably has little significance) you could describe a "rural" district to be one that is completely parished like Wokingham, one partly "rural" and partly "urban" as one that is partly parished like Winchester and one that is a "urban" as being one that is completely unparished like Hastings or arguably Nuneaton and Bedworth.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 18:24, 21 July 2024 (UTC)


 * If the situation changes, of course we would need to reconsider our conventions on here for how to present things, but I see little merit in speculating what we may do unless and until it's clear that such a change is coming. I think we're more likely to get more comprehensive coverage of combined authority mayoralties ahead of universal parish coverage, but we'll just have to see.
 * There's no harm in using rural and urban as adjectives to describe the general character of an administrative area, but be careful not to over-generalise. Wokingham might be fully parished, but about half the borough's population lives in the very built-up parishes on the south-east side of Reading that are effectively its suburbs. Stortford (talk) 19:13, 21 July 2024 (UTC)