Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Principal council


 * 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. Clear consensus not to delete. Further discussion about whether the page would be better as a disambiguation page or redirect can continue at the appropriate venue. Mojo Hand (talk) 23:04, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Principal council

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Principal council is a term seemingly no longer commonly used in England (at least by the UK Government), but is in Wales by the Welsh Government. The very short article itself simply defines the term by reference to legislation, but the relevant information about principal councils is instead included in the local government articles for England and Wales. Therefore, I think it best deleted. FollowTheTortoise (talk) 18:41, 9 May 2022 (UTC) Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Natg 19 (talk) 01:46, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Local government in Wales: Still relevant, especially historically, so it shouldn't be deleted outright in my opinion. Since it's only still in use in the Welsh government, it makes sense to me to redirect to this article, where the relevant information from the proposed article up for deletion is also listed. Amadeus22  🙋 🔔 18:53, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * That makes perfect sense to me and avoids confusion if the term is looked up but nothing returns! FollowTheTortoise (talk) 18:57, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Convert to disambiguation. Agere the meaning is thoroughly subsumed by the relevant local government articles. I disagree that we can redirect just to Wales, because there is a historic meaning in England that didn't disappear just because it isn't used in legislation anymore. It's also not clear to me how historic the usage is. People do still seem to say it, even in government. For example, here's a 2022 use of the term by a Cabinet Office spokesperson in relation to England. This page should disambiguate to the local government pages for England and Wales.  agt x  19:04, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd be totally okay with disambiguating it too, I hadn't even thought of that to be honest. It'd probably first be wise to check how often this perceived ambiguity actually happens and how often people use Principal council, like pageviews and such before we decide on redirection/disambiguation (if you ask me) Amadeus22  🙋 🔔 19:22, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * As Amadeus1999 says, this is an even better solution to redirecting to the Wales article. We could have two choices: England and Wales. FollowTheTortoise (talk) 20:01, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep:, with the greatest respect, you are mistaken. You have glanced at one gov.uk web page and not found any mention of the term there, but all of the various kinds of council listed on that page either are or are not principal councils, and it is a critical difference. If you were to search Google books, for instance, you would find hundreds of uses. There would be far more links to this page if WP’s coverage of local government and its law were not so poor, but one page which would suffer from losing it is principal area. , this is not in any sense confined to Wales. , it is not historic, in fact a 20th century invention which is still important. Clearly the page is cited only from legislation, and it is a legal concept, but the crunch issue in an AfD is WP:N. If needed, improvement is possible to demonstrate the notability. I am just rather busy in the real world at the moment. Moonraker (talk) 19:25, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment: I'd like to add that I only suggested redirection to the Wales local government article as it was said by nominator to be confined to Wales, I admit I didn't research it myself though. If it is indeed true that the term is still in used in English (or other parts too) then I'll gladly retract/change my !vote. Amadeus22  🙋 🔔 19:28, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, . To give another example of how poor WP’s coverage of this subject is, we have no page for the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 which created political balance and politically restricted posts and also limited the political activities of employees, but all only in principal authorities. When the coverage is better here the page will be needed more, but almost no editors seem to be interested in this subject. Moonraker (talk) 19:50, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for replying, Moonraker! I absolutely agree that the coverage of English local government on Wikipedia is poor. But in any case, the question is whether the article Principal council should be deleted. I'm not sure that it meets WP:N, WP:GNG of which requires there to be significant coverage in reliable (secondary) sources that are independent of the subject. I'm struggling to find these (and it appears that I'm not getting the same results on Google Books as you). As per WP:NOPAGE, because it makes sense to put principal councils in the context of wider English local government and because I'm struggling to find sources, I agree with Agtx and Amadeus1999 that we should convert the article into a disambiguation page, which it would make sense to me to point towards Local government in England and Local government in Wales. I hope this makes sense and sounds fair. FollowTheTortoise (talk) 12:25, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Keep Finding lots of hits on google books for legal/process books that talk about principle councils.
 * 1) Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007: chapter 28, explanatory notes. (2007). United Kingdom: Stationery Office.
 * 2) Spain, E., Smith, R., Glancey, R. (2015). Core Statutes on Public Law & Civil Liberties 2015-16. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.
 * 3) Cordes, M., Caulfield, G., Shackleton, F. (2011). Shackleton on the Law and Practice of Meetings. United Kingdom: Sweet & Maxwell.
 * I recognise it's not easy for editors to verify my claims here so just open a search in google books and type in "Principal council" government to easily find them. CT55555 (talk) 01:59, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep per CT55555's points. Rubbish computer Ping me or leave a message on my talk page 12:37, 17 May 2022 (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.