Manchester City Council
Coat of arms
Corporate logo
Type
Type	Metropolitan borough council ofManchester
Leadership
Lord Mayor	Carmine Grimshaw, Labour since 14 May 2025[1]
Leader	Bev Craig, Labour since 1 December 2021[2]
Chief Executive	Tom Stannard since February 2025[3]
Structure
Seats	96 councillors[4]
Political groups	Administration (87)  Labour (87) Other parties (9)  Liberal Democrats (4)  Green (3)  Workers Party (1)  Independent (1)
Joint committees	Greater Manchester Combined Authority Greater Manchester Police, Fire and Crime Panel
Length of term	4 years
Elections
Last election	2 May 2024
Next election	7 May 2026
Motto
Latin:Concilio Et Labore,lit. 'By Wisdom and Effort'
Meeting place
Town Hall, Albert Square, Manchester, M60 2LA
Website
manchester.gov.uk

Manchester City Council is thelocal authority for thecity ofManchester inGreater Manchester, England. Manchester has had an elected local authority since 1838, which has been reformed several times. Since 1974 the council has been ametropolitan borough council. It provides the majority of local government services in the city. The council has been a member of theGreater Manchester Combined Authority since 2011.

The council has been underLabour majority control since 1971. It is based atManchester Town Hall.

Manchester had been governed as aborough in the 13th and 14th centuries, but its borough status was not supported by a royal charter. An inquiry in 1359 ruled that it was only amarket town, not a borough. It was then governed bymanorial courts and the parishvestry until the 18th century.^[5]

In 1792 a body ofimprovement commissioners known as theManchester Police Commissioners was established to provide services in the rapidly growing town. In 1838 the town was incorporated as amunicipal borough, after which it was governed by a town council body formally called the 'Mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Manchester', but mostly known as theManchester Corporation. The police commissioners were disbanded in 1843 and their functions passed to the corporation.^[6][7]

Manchester was grantedcity status in 1853, only the second such grant since theReformation. After that the corporation was also known as the city council.^[5] When elected county councils were established in 1889, Manchester was considered large enough for its existing council to provide county-level services, and so it became acounty borough, independent from the newLancashire County Council, whilst remaining part of thegeographical county of Lancashire.^[7]

The city boundaries have been enlarged many times. Notable expansions were in 1885 (Bradford, Harpurhey and Rusholme), 1890 (Blackley, Crumpsall, part of Droylsden, Kirkmanshulme, Moston, Newton Heath, Openshaw, and West Gorton), 1903 (Heaton), 1904 (Burnage, Chorlton cum Hardy, Didsbury, and Moss Side), 1909 (Gorton, and Levenshulme), 1931 (Wythenshawe: Baguley, Northenden, and Northen Etchells), and Ringway in 1974. The mayor was granted the title oflord mayor in 1893.^[8]

Henry Price (1867–1944) was appointed as the firstCity Architect of Manchester in 1902.^[9] He was succeeded in 1932 byGeorge Noel Hill (1893–1985).^[10]

The county borough was abolished in 1974 under theLocal Government Act 1972, being replaced by ametropolitan district of Manchester, covering the area of the old county borough plus the parish ofRingway. The new district was one of ten metropolitan districts within the newmetropolitan county of Greater Manchester.^[11] Manchester's borough and city statuses and its lord mayoralty passed to the new district and its council.^[12][13]

In 1980, Manchester was the first council to declare itself anuclear-free zone. In 1984 it formed an equal opportunities unit as part of its opposition toSection 28.^[14]

From 1974 until 1986 the council was a lower-tier authority, with upper-tier functions provided by theGreater Manchester County Council. The county council was abolished in 1986 and its functions passed to Greater Manchester's ten borough councils, including Manchester City Council, with some services provided through joint committees.^[15]

Since 2011 the council has been a member of theGreater Manchester Combined Authority, which has been led by the directly electedMayor of Greater Manchester since 2017. The combined authority provides strategic leadership and co-ordination for certain functions across Greater Manchester, notably regarding transport and town planning, but Manchester City Council continues to be responsible for most local government functions.^[16][17]

In 2025, the council was criticised for misleading parking signs on Collier Street, where an official council sign pointed to an official-looking payment terminal owned by a nearby private car park rather than the correct council-owned one, leading to several motorists being fined.^[18][19][20] After a campaign ran byTikTok creatorZoë Bread, the council refunded all fines given out on the street in the last 12 months.^{[21][22][23][24][25][26]}

Manchester City Council providesmetropolitan borough services. Some strategic functions in the area are provided by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority; the leader of the city council sits on the combined authority as Manchester's representative.^[27] There is onecivil parish in the city at Ringway, with a parish council; the rest of the city isunparished.^[28]

The council has been under Labour majority control since 1971.

Borough Corporation^{[citation needed]}

Metropolitan Borough

Since the 1974 reforms,Labour has always held a majority of the seats on the council.^[33]

The role ofLord Mayor of Manchester is largely ceremonial. Political leadership is instead provided by theleader of the council. The leaders since 1930 have been:

County Borough

Metropolitan Borough

Following the2024 election,^[55] and subsequent changes of allegiance up to July 2025, the composition of the council was:^[56]

The next election is due in May 2026.^[56]

Since the last boundary changes in 2018, the council has comprised 96councillors representing 32wards, with each ward electing three councillors. Elections are held three years out of every four, with a third of the council (one councillor for each ward) elected each time for a four-year term of office.^[57]

The council wards are listed under theirparliamentary constituency below:

Each ward is represented by three councillors.^[58]

^a Elected as Labour but resigned from the party in the wake of the Labour leadership's stance on theIsraeli invasion of Gaza.^[59]

^b Elected during the2024 election to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of James Wilson, who was elected in2023.

The council is based atManchester Town Hall onAlbert Square, completed in 1877,^[60] and the adjoiningTown Hall Extension on the opposite side of Lloyd Street, which was completed in 1938 and is linked to the older building by first floor bridges.^[61] The main Town Hall has been under refurbishment since 2020, due to reopen in 2026. The council continues to operate from the Town Hall Extension.^[62][63]

A coat of arms was granted to the Manchester Corporation in 1842, passing on to Manchester City Council when the borough of Manchester was granted the title of city in 1853.^[64]

• TheShield: red (Gules) with three gold (Or) bands drawn diagonally across to the right-hand side.
• TheChief (the white (Argent) top segment): shows a ship at sea in full sail. This is a reference to the city's trading base.
• TheCrest: On a multicoloured wreath stands a terrestrial globe, signifying Manchester's world trade, and covered by a swarm of flying bees. The bee was adopted in the 19th century as a symbol of industrial Manchester being the birthplace of theIndustrial Revolution.
• TheSupporters: On the left, a heraldic antelope with a chain attached to a gold (Or) collar, representing engineering industries, and hanging at the shoulder, the red rose of Lancashire, reflecting Manchester's historic position in Lancashire. On the right, a golden lion stands guardant (facing us), crowned with a red (Gules) castle (a reference to the Roman fort at Castlefield from which the city originated). The lion also wears theRed Rose of Lancashire.
• Motto:Concilio et Labore, loosely translated "By wisdom and effort" (or "By counsel and hard work").

In 1954, Manchester Corporation successfully took the Manchester Palace of Varieties to court for improperly using the corporation's arms in its internal decoration and its company seal. The case ofManchester Corporation v Manchester Palace of Varieties Ltd;^[65] was the first sitting of theCourt of Chivalry for two hundred years, and it has not sat since.^[66]

In April 2013, Manchester City Council threatened to take legal action againstThe Manchester Gazette, for its use of the city's coat of arms on their website. The News Outlet claimed it already gained permission and continued to use it for a further 8 months in spite of the warnings. Withington MPJohn Leech described the council's latest move as a "massive over-reaction and waste of money", adding: "Have the council's legal department got nothing better to do?".^[67][68]

• McKechnie, H. M. (ed.) (1915)Manchester in Nineteen Hundred and Fifteen. Manchester U. P.; "Undertakings of the City Council; Social Amelioration in Manchester; Elementary Education in Manchester; Secondary Schools in Manchester; The Evening School System of Manchester", by E. D. Simon, et al.
• Manchester City Council."Concilio et Labore" Series. No. 1-11. (Each pamphlet describes part of the council's work, e.g. no. 4: the City Treasurer.
• Redford, Arthur (1939)The History of City Government in Manchester; Vol. 2 & 3: Borough and City; The Last Half Century.
• Simon, Ernest D. (1926)A City Council from Within. London: Longmans, Green
• Simon, Shena D. (1938)A Century of City Government: Manchester 1838–1938. London: G. Allen & Unwin
• Tomlinson, H. E. (1943) "The Heraldry of Manchester" in:Bulletin of the John Rylands Library; vol. XXVIII, pp. 207–27

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