Lancashire County Council | |
|---|---|
 | |
 | |
| Type | |
| Type | |
| Established | 1 April 1889, reformed 1 April 1974 |
| Leadership | |
| Structure | |
| Seats | 84 councillors |
 | |
Political groups |
|
Joint committees | Lancashire Combined County Authority |
Length of term | 4 years[4] |
| Elections | |
| First-past-the-post voting | |
Last election | 1 May 2025 |
Next election | to be Abolished |
| Meeting place | |
 | |
| County Hall, Fishergate,Preston, PR1 8XJ | |
| Website | |
www | |
Lancashire County Council is the upper-tierlocal authority for thenon-metropolitan county ofLancashire, England. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashire is smaller than theceremonial county, which additionally includesBlackburn with Darwen andBlackpool. The council is based inCounty Hall, Preston, and consists of 84 councillors. It is a member of theLancashire Combined County Authority.
Since the2025 local elections the council has been under the majority control ofReform UK; this is the first time since the creation of the current council in 1974 that theConservative Party orLabour Party has not been the largest party. Theleader of the council, Stephen Atkinson, chairs a cabinet of eight councillors. The Chief Executive and Director of Resources is Mark Wynn.
The council is the successor to the county council of theadministrative county of Lancashire, which was created on 1 April 1889. The council was abolished and reconstituted in 1974, whenlocal government in England was reformed and anon-metropolitan county of Lancashire was created, governed by a county council and thirteen district councils. The districts ofBlackpool andBlackburn with Darwen becameunitary authorities in 1998, meaning they are no longer governed by Lancashire County Council.
Elected county councils were created in 1889 under theLocal Government Act 1888, taking over many administrative functions that had previously been performed by unelectedmagistrates at thequarter sessions. Fifteenboroughs were considered large enough for their existing councils to provide county-level services, and so they were madecounty boroughs, independent from the new county council. They were:[5]
The 1888 Act also placed eachurban sanitary district which straddled county boundaries in one county, and so Lancashire gained the parts ofAshton under Lyne,Stalybridge, andWarrington which had been in Cheshire, and the parts ofMossley which had been in Cheshire and Yorkshire. Lancashire ceded its part ofTodmorden to theWest Riding of Yorkshire. Lancashire County Council was elected by and provided services to the parts of the county (as thus adjusted) outside the county boroughs. The county council's area was termed theadministrative county.[6][7]
Three more boroughs were later elevated to become county boroughs:Warrington in 1900,Blackpool in 1904, andSouthport in 1905.[6]
The first elections were held in January 1889 and the county council formally came into being on 1 April 1889. It held its first official meeting on 4 April 1889 atCounty Hall inPreston, the courthouse (completed 1882) which had served as the meeting place for the quarter sessions which preceded the county council.John Tomlinson Hibbert, aLiberal who had previously been the Member of Parliament forOldham, was appointed the first chairman of the council.[8]
In 1974, theLocal Government Act 1972 abolished the administrative county of Lancashire and reconstituted the county as anon-metropolitan county. There were some significant changes to its territory, notably ceding significant areas in the south toGreater Manchester andMerseyside and in the north toCumbria, whilst gaining more modest areas from Yorkshire to the east. Blackburn, Blackpool, Burnley and Preston were also brought into the non-metropolitan county, losing their former independence from the county council. The lower tier of local government was reorganised as part of the same reforms. Previously it had comprised numerous boroughs,urban districts andrural districts; they were reorganised into 14non-metropolitan districts.[9]
In 1998 two of the districts,Blackburn with Darwen andBlackpool, were both madeunitary authorities, making them independent from the county council, leaving 12 districts within the non-metropolitan county.[10]
In 2025, the council became a member of the newLancashire Combined County Authority.[11]
Lancashire County Council providescounty-level services.District-level services are provided by the county's twelve district councils. They are:[12]
Two unitary authorities, which are functionally independent from Lancashire County Council, provide their own county-level services. They are:
Much of the county is also covered bycivil parishes, which form a third tier of local government.[13][14]
The county council has been underReform UK majority control since theMay 2025 election.
Political control of the council since the 1974 reforms has been as follows:[15]
| Party in control | Years | |
|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 1974–1981 | |
| Labour | 1981–1985 | |
| No overall control | 1985–1989 | |
| Labour | 1989–2009 | |
| Conservative | 2009–2013 | |
| No overall control | 2013–2017 | |
| Conservative | 2017–2025 | |
| Reform | 2025-present | |
Theleaders of the council since 1974 have been:
| Councillor | Party | From | To | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leonard Broughton[16][17][18] | Conservative | 1 Apr 1974 | May 1981 | |
| Louise Ellman[18][19] | Labour | May 1981 | Feb 1997 | |
| John West[20][21] | Labour | Feb 1997 | Jun 2001 | |
| Hazel Harding[22][23] | Labour | Jun 2001 | Jun 2009 | |
| Geoff Driver[23][24][25] | Conservative | 25 Jun 2009 | May 2013 | |
| Jennifer Mein[26][27] | Labour | 23 May 2013 | May 2017 | |
| Geoff Driver[28][29] | Conservative | 25 May 2017 | May 2021 | |
| Phillippa Williamson[30][31] | Conservative | 27 May 2021 | May 2025 | |
| Stephen Atkinson[1][32] | Reform | 22 May 2025 | ||
Following the2025 election, and subsequent changes of allegiance up to January 2026, the composition of the council was:[33]
| Party | Councillors | |
|---|---|---|
| Reform | 52 | |
| Conservative | 8 | |
| Labour | 5 | |
| Liberal Democrats | 5 | |
| Green | 3 | |
| Your Party | 3 | |
| Our West Lancashire | 2 | |
| Independent | 6 | |
| Total | 84 | |
Five independent councillors, three Green councillors and three Your Party councillors sit together as the "Progressive Lancashire" group. The next election is due in 2029.[34]
Since the last boundary changes in 2017 the council has comprised 84councillors representing 82electoral divisions. Most divisions elect one councillor, but two divisions elect two councillors each. Elections are held every four years.[35]
There are sixteenparliamentary constituencies in Lancashire. TheLabour Party holds 13, theConservative Party holds one, independent MPAdnan Hussain representsBlackburn, and theSpeaker of the House of Commons,Sir Lindsay Hoyle, representsChorley.
The council is based atCounty Hall on Fishergate inPreston. The original part of the building was a courthouse completed in 1882, which also served as the meeting place for the quarter sessions which preceded the county council. The building became the meeting place for the county council on its creation in 1889 and was significantly extended in 1903 and 1934 to provide additional office space.[36]
Lancashire adopted the Public Libraries Act, 1919, in 1924. Library services were slow to develop as the average ratable value of the area outside the county boroughs and the other local authorities which had already adopted the act was relatively low. In 1938/39 the average expenditure on urban libraries per head was 1s. 9d., but that on county libraries was only 8 1/4d. (about two fifths of the former amount). Another disadvantage was that government of libraries was by a libraries sub-committee of the education committee of the council (the librarian having to report to the education officer who might not have been sympathetic to libraries). The central administration of the county library is at Preston where there are special services, special collections and staff to maintain a union catalogue.[37]
"Biological heritage sites" are, according to Lancashire County Council, "'local wildlife sites' in Lancashire...(that) are identified using a set of published guidelines."[38] The published guidelines dictate the necessary parameters in which a piece of land can be properly considered a "biological heritage site" by the "(Lancashire) County Council, Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside and Natural England."[38][39]
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