Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Borough of Middlesbrough


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep.  JGHowes   talk  23:01, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Borough of Middlesbrough

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This is a duplicate of Middlesbrough and Middlesbrough Council. The borough is not distinct from Middlesbrough, it is Middlesbrough. There was long standing consensus for this until this article was created in February. Eopsid (talk) 09:35, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 10:19, 15 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep The borough is distinct and Middlesbrough has borough status. The borough has villages notable and can have a borough page. Chesterfield is the same with Staveley Old Whittington and Brimington. What notable settlements do Hartlepool and Darlington have which Middlesbrough doesn't? The article is about the wider borough and not the town itself. We had this in February and it was a census of keeping it. So why is it an issue again? You seem to be nominating any article I've made for geographical purposes? And it satisfies WP:UKDISTRICTS so what's the problem? RailwayJG (talk) 11:21, 15 May 2021 (UTC)


 * This is only the second article of yours that i've nominated for deletion, the last was Articles for deletion/Wellingborough and Kettering Urban Area. I did put merge notices on some others. There was no consensus (sorry to be rude but I'd like to point out you misspelt this as census) in February, and I just left it to see how the article would improve. I have no qualms with your new Borough of Chesterfield article. Regarding WP:UKDISTRICTS it has 6 points and if it matches these then we only have one article. Each of these is true for Middlesbrough except the one about current boundaries where the current boundaries are smaller than those in 1974, which I think gives greater strength to it being one article.


 * 1) The built-up area closely matches the boundaries of the district with no rural hinterland
 * 2) There is a lack of other distinct settlements in the district
 * 3) The ONS population for the settlement is roughly the same, or larger than the district
 * 4) The current boundaries of the district are long-established and predate reforms in 1974
 * 5) There are very few or preferably no civil parishes in the district
 * 6) The district does not cover a geographically large area
 * The difference with Hartlepool and Darlington is that they cover a much larger area with rural hinterland and are larger than the 1974 boundaries, so they meet the criteria for distinctness in WP:UKDISTRICTS. I think that WP:UKDISTRICTS needs updating anyway because it links to a deleted (now redirected) article. Eopsid (talk) 11:51, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Eopsid which redirected article is listed at UKDISTRICTS?  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:15, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * ONS population links to List of largest United Kingdom settlements by population which was deleted Articles for deletion/List of largest United Kingdom settlements by population 7 and a half years ago and is now a redirect. Eopsid (talk) 19:37, 15 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep (ec) The place has a complex and shifting history, detailed in We Are Middlesbrough: Where and what is it? which includes the Middlesbrough Municipal Borough and Middlesbrough County Borough. It concludes "in answer to the question "where is Middlesbrough?": Middlesbrough is in the council borough of Middlesbrough, the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire and the Tees Valley authority area.  And that's about as clear as we can make it."  So explaining properly this may require lots of blue links just as we have London, City of London, Greater London, Greater London Council and many more.  Deletion is not helpful in this, per our policy WP:PRESERVE. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:58, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * That linked article is more about what county its in. It doesnt dispute that the current borough and the town are distinct. It says "But in 1996 it was governed by its own unitary authority again, Middlesbrough Borough Council." which implies its governing itself and that Middlesbrough is the Borough of Middlesbrough but then goes on to say its part of other larger areas. There is nowhere in that BBC article that implies Middlesbrough Borough is larger than the town. The local government history can and is covered in the Middlesbrough article. There is nothing in the Borough of Middlesbrough article which isn't already in Middlesbrough Council or Middlesbrough except for parts in the council section which should probably go in Middlesbrough Council. I'll add them there. Eopsid (talk) 12:26, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Actually only things I couldn't find in the other articles were unsourced so I'm not changing anything Eopsid (talk) 12:31, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * None of that is a reason to delete anything and so my !vote stands. There is a distinction between the borough and the town.  I myself live in Ealing and there's a separate page for the London Borough of Ealing which includes other towns and villages such as Acton, Hanwell, Greenford and Southall. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:11, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * There isn't really a distinction. Its more like Luton or Southend-on-Sea where we have one article for the borough and the town. Eopsid (talk) 16:43, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * The Luton article is too big and there's about 100 more Luton-related articles in its nav template. Our policy WP:NOTPAPER applies so that we can take as many pages as we like for such rich and complex topics. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:43, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

I'd merge the council page to borough because Chesterfield for example has Chesterfield Borough Council but because it contains Staveley which has a town council and Brimington with a parish council. it can stand alone. Middlesbrough has a borough council and has borough status. But also I point out. Scunthorpe has a town council but is part of North Lincolnshire. Beverley has a town council but answers to the East Riding of Yorkshire Unitary authority. I think it's important to know the difference between unitary authority and borough. Unitary authority is a single governing council which governs the borough city town etc with the status from a county council. A borough is what surrounds the boundaries of a town or city or a collection of towns and cities etc. Middlesbrough has a borough council. The name meaning borough of Middlesbrough. The unitary authority is the council so the council is both the governing body and the borough. But the borough is different in covering the whole borough of Middlesbrough and the unitary authority covers the legal side transportation etc services.
 * Keep 2 articles, there are 3 entities here, the town, the district and the district's council. There was a consensus (although weak) to keep this separate from the town at Talk:Middlesbrough/Archive 1. However I'd recommend merging the council article into the district article per WikiProject UK geography/How to write about districts since most of what you would want to say about the council you would also want to say about the district so we don't need all 3 and RailwayJG agreed with this suggestion. Alternatively like Plymouth this could be redirected to the town and any content moved to the council's article. I'd slightly prefer the 1st since it allows the unparished area distinction but I'm also OK with the other since as noted most of the points at UKDISTRICTS are satisfied for a single article.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 16:21, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Another point to mention is the Unitary authority of Blackpool. It covers a borough and a unitary authority. No ruralness neither but some suburbs and villages as well as a BUA. Another is of course Blackburn as aside from Darwen. And some villages not many notable settlements but it's a borough and unitary authority. The other one to mention is Telford it has a borough status and unitary authority yes it's a new town or was but it still was a collection of towns made into one. And another one is as mentioned before Hartlepool. As it has the town and Seaton Carew maybe one more village. But isn't as rural as other boroughs. It's nearly contiguous with Middlesbrough and Stockton on Tees. So I think the Borough page should stay and the council merged into it to form a unitary page with the borough and council in it bit like I did with the borough of Chesterfield.
 * So Blackpool has one article but Middlesbrough has 2 what is the difference? Eopsid (talk) 18:55, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * See User:Crouch, Swale/District split there are less ticks for Middlesbrough as well as having 2 parishes though in both cases the 1st is boarderline.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:15, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Eopsid, the same applies to Blackburn it and Darwen aside from being two towns are a unitary authority but they have a borough page because they are a borough and unitary authority. It covers one for both and the council have it's own page. And of course the two towns. Again Blackpool only has one because it covers the town of Blackpool but Blackpool has always been one hughe settlement. The difference with Middlesbrough is it larger and covers a bigger area with parts of Stockton-on-Tees and Redcar and Cleveland almost contiguous with it.

You also made the case that Darlington and Hartlepool have notable settlements. Yet Middlesbrough has suburban villages which are of notice. If they wanted to make a single articles for places like Bolton Bury Oldham Rochdale Stockport Solihull Dudley Walsall Bradford Leeds Wakefield and St Helens. They are unitary authorities in different counties but have all got borough articles because they are metropolitan boroughs. But they still have only one name and that's the main town or city they are named after.

The town is important but so are the neighbouring towns villages hamlets etc. It's not different to Leeds Bradford and Wakefield having their own borough articles and Middlesbrough. Middlesbrough has a defining place on maps and like Crouch, Swale and Andrew have said it passes and changes a lot. So deletion is pointless. And again the borough covers the borough and not the town alone. Hence why I made the article before and other editors took issue with it but nobody has said anything about the chesterfield one.
 * But Blackpool has parts of neighbouring districts contiguous with it too. It also has almost the exact same population as Middlesbrough and both are part of much larger built-up areas. Although I will concede that Middlesbrough borough is much less dense than Blackpool, but both are still almost entirely urban. There is no massive difference that I can see. Sorry I struggle to understand what you write a lot of the time because you go off on tangents. Eopsid (talk) 22:35, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Not a case of "Tangents". It's understanding the difference. A unitary authority is a governing council. A borough covers a town and suburbs or other settlements. It's not a hard thing to differ and Middlesbrough can boast both. The council page doesn't even cover every suburb or village of Middlesbrough and hence why the borough of Middlesbrough page was made. And to cover the district code. There simply put.
 * But a town can be a borough as well, and a unitary authority can have borough status. Eopsid (talk) 23:22, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

I've seen no further input and the current stand is to keep it. Maybe Eopsid this is the same answer from the last discussion on it. RailwayJG (talk) 11:12, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * @RailwayJG An admin will come in soon and most likely close the discussion as keep. That or they'll relist it. Articles for deletion says how these usually work if you are unfamiliar. Eopsid (talk) 16:39, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Comment - This is an addendum to my original nomination argument which I have copied from a similar discussion (Talk:Wolverhampton): I think WP:COMMONAME has to come into play, I don't think in common usage a distinction is normally made in the concept of Middlesbrough and the Borough of Middlesbrough. Eopsid (talk) 16:42, 21 May 2021 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  13:03, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Still the same as the last two times and it is to keep the article. I am sure it is still the same for and. I can't seriously understand this issue with the article. RailwayJG (talk) 15:43, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
 * , there are unitary authority and borough/district articles which could be called into question but they still like Middlesbrough have notable settlements and lack the greener land you mention with Hartlepool and Darlington.


 * Burnley, Burnley Borough Council and Borough of Burnley. These three cover the town, council and borough. Now aside from Padiham. The borough is not widely rural and quite built up also smaller then Middlesbrough. Not a unitary authority.
 * Hyndburn, Hyndburn Borough Council and Acrrington. The borough mostly covers the towns of Acrrington and Oswaldwhistle. Two towns but not fully rural. Quite built up and not a unitary authority.
 * Borough of Barrow-in-Furness, Barrow Borough Council and Barrow-in-Furness. No real notable settlements other then Dalton-in-Furness and Askam and Ireleth. Much smaller population.
 * Carlisle, City of Carlisle and Carlisle City Council. Covers only the city of Carlisle and its suburbs. But has two articles for both the city and district.

These were some examples quite a few more with like Telford and Wrekin and Telford. But the point is. These have strong standing articles for the settlement, borough/district and council. The difference for Middlesbrough, Middlesbrough Borough Council and Borough of Middlesbrough is simple. The town is Middlesbrough, the council for the town and borough Middlesbrough Borough Council and the unparished areas and villages of Middlesbrough is the Borough of Middlesbrough. Following the Redcar and Cleveland, Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, Borough of Hartlepool and Borough of Darlington to give clarity for the towns, councils and areas of towns/boroughs. Hope this gives more clarity. A unitary authority and borough article can be kept side by side. I think the villages of Nunthorpe, Stainton and Marton-in-Cleveland are notable. RailwayJG (talk) 16:08, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge to Middlesbrough or elsewhere as appropriate. Even if the borough can be shown to be somehow technically different as a matter of administrative law from the town it encompasses, that distinction does not matter to the reader. These administrative aspects can and should be covered in the article about the town. We don't, for example, have separate articles about New York City and Municipality of New York City.  Sandstein   20:40, 3 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.