| Metropolitan county | |
|---|---|
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| Category | Counties |
| Location | England |
| Found in | Regions |
| Created by | Local Government Act 1972 |
| Created |
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| Number | 6 |
| Additional status | |
| Populations | 1.2–2.8 million |
| Subdivisions | |
| This article is part ofa series within the Politics of the United Kingdom on the |
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UK General Elections in England |
Metropolitan counties are asubdivision of England which were originally used forlocal government. There are six metropolitan counties:Greater Manchester,Merseyside,South Yorkshire,Tyne and Wear,West Midlands andWest Yorkshire.
The metropolitan counties were created in 1974 as part of areform of local government in England and Wales. They were the top tier of a two-tier system of counties andmetropolitan boroughs, and were created to govern large urban areas. In 1986 their county councils were abolished, and since then the metropolitan counties have had no local government role. The local government functions were largely taken over by the metropolitan boroughs, with joint boards created to co-ordinate some county-wide services.[1] The metropolitan counties are allceremonial counties which share their borders.
All of the metropolitan boroughs belong tocombined authorities, which arestatutory bodies introduced in 2011 that allow local authorities to voluntarily pool responsibilities and collaborate. The combined authorities for Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, West Midlands and West Yorkshire cover the same areas as the metropolitan counties; the boroughs of Merseyside are part of theLiverpool City Region, and those of Tyne and Wear are part of theNorth East Combined Authority.[2]
The six metropolitan counties and their metropolitan districts are:
| Metropolitan county | Population (2021) | Constituent metropolitan boroughs |
|---|---|---|
| West Midlands | 2,919,600 | Birmingham,Coventry,Dudley,Sandwell,Solihull,Walsall,Wolverhampton |
| Greater Manchester | 2,867,800 | Bolton,Bury,Manchester,Oldham,Rochdale,Salford,Stockport,Tameside,Trafford,Wigan |
| West Yorkshire | 2,351,600 | Bradford,Calderdale,Kirklees,Leeds,Wakefield |
| Merseyside | 1,423,300 | Knowsley,Liverpool,Sefton,St Helens,Wirral |
| South Yorkshire | 1,375,100 | Barnsley,Doncaster,Rotherham,Sheffield |
| Tyne and Wear | 1,127,200 | Gateshead,Newcastle-upon-Tyne,North Tyneside,South Tyneside,Sunderland |
The idea of creating administrative areas based upon the largeconurbations outsideLondon, modelled on theCounty of London orGreater London, was mooted several times in the 20th century. In 1948, theLocal Government Boundary Commission proposed several new counties, including 'South East Lancashire North East Cheshire' ("Selnec"), and 'South West Lancashire North West Cheshire'. In the 1960s theLocal Government Commission for England proposed such an arrangement forTyneside and draft proposals considered it for Selnec. For theWest Midlands conurbation, the commission proposed instead a group of contiguouscounty boroughs with no overall metropolitan authority.
TheRedcliffe-Maud Report of 1969 proposed the creation of three large "metropolitan areas" based upon the conurbations surroundingManchester,Liverpool andBirmingham (Selnec,Merseyside, andWest Midlands), which were to have both metropolitan councils covering the entire areas, and district councils covering parts.Harold Wilson's government published awhite paper broadly accepting these recommendations, and addingSouth Yorkshire andWest Yorkshire as metropolitan areas.[3]
The proposals were radically altered whenEdward Heath'sConservative government came to power in 1970. The Conservatives' local government white paper was published in February 1971, naming the metropolitan areas "metropolitan counties", and giving them as "Merseyside, south-east Lancashire and north-east Cheshire, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, and theTyne and Wear area".[4][5]
The proposed counties were also far smaller than in the original proposals; they were trimmed at each successive stage. The Redcliffe-Maud Report had includedChester in Merseyside andRedditch andStafford in West Midlands. The Conservative policy favoured retaining historic boundaries as far as was practicable,[3] and the new white paper proposals generally reduced the metropolitan counties to the continuously built up area. Many areas on the edges were excluded from the metropolitan counties when the bill was passed:Easington,Harrogate,Knaresborough,Ellesmere Port,Neston,New Mills,Whaley Bridge andGlossop; other areas were excluded during the bill's passage, such asSeaham,Skelmersdale and Holland,Poynton andWilmslow. One area, the county borough ofSouthport, was added to Merseyside in the bill, at the local council's request.
Several other proposals for metropolitan counties were made during the bill's passage, including a revival of the proposal forHampshire (either the southern part or all of it)[6] andcentral Lancashire. A Thamesside metropolitan county, covering areas of northKent and southEssex on theThames Estuary (and now considered part of theThames Gateway) was also proposed.[7]
The metropolitan counties were created by theLocal Government Act 1972. The county councils were first elected in 1973, and were formally established in April 1974.
The metropolitan counties were first created with a two-tier structure of local government. Local government functions were divided between themetropolitan district councils as lower tier authorities and metropolitan county councils as the upper tier.
The structure differed from thenon-metropolitan counties in the allocation of powers between the county and district councils. The metropolitan districts had more powers thannon-metropolitan districts, in that they were additionally responsible for education and social services, responsibilities allocated to county councils elsewhere.
The metropolitan county councils were intended to be strategic authorities that ran regional services such as main roads, public transport, emergency services, civil protection, waste disposal, andstrategic town and country planning. The metropolitan county councils functioned between 1974 and 1986.
Just a decade after they were established, the mostlyLabour-controlled metropolitan county councils (MCCs) and theGreater London Council (GLC) had several high-profile clashes with the Conservative government ofMargaret Thatcher about overspending and highrates. Government policy on the issue was considered throughout 1982, and the Conservative Party put a "promise to scrap the metropolitan county councils", and the GLC, in their manifesto for the1983 general election.[8][9][10]
The exact details of the reform caused problems.[11] In October 1983, Thatcher's government published a white paper entitledStreamlining the cities[12] which set out detailed plans for the abolition of the MCCs, together with the abolition of the GLC.[13][14]
The bill was announced in theQueen's Speech[15] and was introduced intoParliament soon afterwards.[when?] It became theLocal Government Act 1985;[16] the MCCs and the GLC were abolished at midnight on 31 March 1986.
The last elections to the councils were held in May 1981; elections that would have been held in 1985 were abandoned under theLocal Government (Interim Provisions) Act 1984;[17] the original plan had been for councillors' terms to expire in April 1985, and for councillors to be replaced by nominees from borough councils until 1986.[13]
While the abolition of the GLC was highly controversial, the abolition of the MCCs was much less so. TheLiberal Party leaderDavid Steel had supported abolition of the MCCs in his 1981 conference speech.[citation needed] The government's stated reasons for the abolition of the MCCs were based on efficiency and their overspending.
However the fact that all of the county councils were controlled by the Labour Party led to accusations that their abolition was motivated by party politics:[18] the general secretary of theNational and Local Government Officers' Association described it as a "completely cynical manoeuvre".[19][failed verification][20] Merseyside in particular put up a struggle against abolition. Most of the functions of the MCCs passed either to the metropolitan borough councils, or to joint boards. Some assets were given to residuary bodies for disposal. The split of functions from the metropolitan county councils was as follows:[21][page needed]
| Special joint arrangements | Grants to voluntary bodies, roads and traffic management, waste disposal, airports |
|---|---|
| Joint boards | Fire, police, public transport |
| Quangos | Arts, pensions and debt, sport |
| District councils | Arts, civil defence, planning, trading standards, parks, tourism, archives, industrial assistance, highways |
 | This article needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(March 2017) |
The metropolitan counties are sometimes referred to as "former metropolitan counties",[22][23] although this description is not entirely correct. The county councils were abolished, but under the Local Government Act 1972, the counties themselves remain in existence,[24][25] although they no longer exist inISO 3166-2:GB as extant administrative subdivisions.
By virtue of theLieutenancies Act 1997 they remain asceremonial counties (sometimes called 'geographic counties') which have an appointedLord Lieutenant. They are also used in certain government statistics, although they no longer appear onOrdnance Survey maps, which show the individual metropolitan boroughs.
Some local services are still run on a metropolitan county-wide basis, administered by statutoryjoint boards[26] and special joint arrangements; these includepolicing (by jointpolice authorities),fire services,public transport (bypassenger transport executives) andwaste disposal (in Merseyside and Greater Manchester). These joint boards are made up of councillors appointed by the boroughs. Since 2000, the metropolitan counties have been used as the areas of jointlocal transport plans.[27][28][29]
In 1999, following a successful referendum, the Labour government underTony Blair legislated to create a strategic authority for London (theGreater London Authority). Despite some talk of doing so, no bodies were established to replace the MCCs. The Blair government instead pursued the idea of electedregional assemblies, although after an unsuccessful referendum in the most positive[clarification needed] region, the North East, this idea now has few proponents. The idea ofcity regions has been proposed subsequently, although the 2006 local government white paper had no firm proposals for formal recognition of this concept. This changed in 2010 when the Government accepted a proposal from theAssociation of Greater Manchester Authorities to establish aGreater Manchester Combined Authority as an indirectly elected, top tier, strategic authority forGreater Manchester.[30] In 2014 similar indirectly electedcombined authorities were established for the metropolitan counties of South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, and two combined authorities were established which each covered a metropolitan county and adjacent non-metropolitan districts: theLiverpool City Region Combined Authority for Merseyside and theBorough of Halton unitary authority, and theNorth East Combined Authority for Tyne and Wear and the unitary authorities ofCounty Durham andNorthumberland. In 2017 theWest Midlands Combined Authority was established for the West Midlands county. Many of these new combined authorities have elected or are in the process of electing authority-wide regional mayors.
Since 1995, the cities of Birmingham,Bristol,Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester,Newcastle,Nottingham andSheffield have assembled together in theCore Cities Group. This organisation accords no distinct legal status on these councils over any other city council in England but appears to be organically moving towards some kind of recognition of their role as regional capitals outside London.
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