county

[micko1962]

is it true than AVON is no longer a county in its own right ???   and that it is now a part of Warwickshire ?

[Dom Tuk]

Avon as a county ceased to exist atleast 7 years ago if not more. It has been divided into Bath and North east Somerset, and some others which i cant remember.

[spudqueen]

Avon never was a REAL county, it was made up in the early 1970's when the Government in its infinite wisdom decided to play around with counties when everyone was happy living where they lived.

[flaming]

How right spudqueen is.  This is the game the authorities play.  Change for change sake, then everyone who remembers old loyalties grows old and shuffles off....   The Boundary Commission who are forever tinkering with Borough boundaries are today's bugbear but there have probably been quangos of the sort going right back to William the Conqueror, who started jotting everything down so that he could give it away.   Who remembers the pride engendered by London Borough names, before the 1968 reshuffling and renaming? Thank goodness the Geordies said no to a Regional AREA in their recent referendum, else we'd all have had yet another tier of bureaucracy  to contend with, paving the way to regions of the EU.

[Artemis]

I think you will find that The Boundaries Commission only tinker where the population has grown or shrunk. Basically it's for electoral purposes.

[acw]

CONSTITUENCY boundaries change for election purposes.  And they don't just change when the population size does.  I got moved from Cheltenham into Tewkes for no apparent reason.  Turned out that our type of house was more likely to vote Tory!!

 

Authority boundaries change for different purposes (like the Avon situation).  Take crime figures for example.  If you move Bath (only an example, it may well be v. low crime) from Avon to Somerset, when Somerset's crime figures go up, they blame it on gaining Bath.  They then keep quite when it gets moved BACK to Avon, but then Avon blames the gain of Bath for the increased figures.  It makes it darn near impossible to compare anything year on year.  Clever trick - and they can do it! :-p

[flaming]

Last year there was public outcry against the equalising of electoral numbers between two London Boroughs; people in the part to be given away were just that - 'given away'.   However, the year before (I think it was) a piece of our Borough was given away to another, just so the map could be 'tidied up' ,as we'd  had a jagged bit poking into another Borough (as left by the previous alteration). There's no logic in leaving a lot of the  remainder either, as some of  our Borough runs into Hertfordshire (it was called that last week!).  Whatever the purpose it is not wanted by people who are suddenly shoved - in name -  to somewhere else by faceless mandarins.  There is the Council Tax area charge, school  and hospital catchments, all a Borough's services (e.g.  libraries, education courses for adults, to name but two) being changed for  whichever residents who are 'moved'. People are reduced to the status of pawns in a government game.  Is it not the case that the  salaries of the higher echelons of local governments are determined by headcount?  (As is our Government with regard to its power in the EU, which might be another reason why 'they' panic when the UK headcount falls.)

[snoteater]

Avon is now: Bath and North East Somerset, South Gloucestershire, North Somerset, and Bristol. Collectively they are sometimes refered to as CUBA -Counties that Used to Be Avon.

[acw]

But Gloucestershire existed LONG before Avon (I was living in it for starters!) was created then disbanded.  And not all of Gloucestershire USED to be Avon.  We go as far north as nearly Evesham (which is on the Worcs side of the county border) which is nowhere NEAR Bath or Bristol.  South Gloucestershire is a Unitary Authority - not a county.  My Dad works for them, so I do know what I'm talking about.  CUBA might be used - but it's not technically accurate!

[brionon]

I've become quite schitzophrenic since they  divided Sussex into East and West.

[littleoldme]

Crumbs, brionon - 116 years is an awfully long time to be schizophrenic :-)

I think it was 1994 when they had their last big county reshuffle, with Avon, Cleveland and possibly one or two others disappearing just 20 years after being created. The most confusing one is probably Berkshire - as far as I know (and anyone from there is welcome to correct me) it still exists geographically and as part of postal addresses, but for administration purposes there's no such place and no such thing as Berkshire County Council - it's just a collection of districts..

[snoteater]

acw - quite right, it should have read Councils that Used to be Avon.

[flaming]

 I read that Slough, which had previously been in Buckinghamshire, went over to Berkshire.  According to the info. Littleoldme gives Slough is in a non-county!  Where did this business of sub-county names come from anyway?  North this and east that - a county used to be a county, plain and simple.  As far as I am concerned Bath is a town in Somerset and Bristol is a town in Gloucestershire. I remember Avon being announced but I never really understood why.  What the heck is a Unitary Authority  and now that Avon, has gone, does that mean Unitary Authorities have, or do they just administer other areas/names? (By the way, useless info. dept. :Avon means 'river' in old English) 

[brionon]

little ol' me, Is it really so long ago ? 'Bought time I took a bath.

[littleoldme]

brionon - yep, while most of the county shenanigans happened in either 1974 or 1994 (or both), there have been two Sussexes (Sussi? Sussices? How the bejabers do you pluralise Sussex?) since 1889.

[jno]

if there can be two sexes I suppose there can be two Sussexes. Orchestral joke: Definition of a cor anglais: anglo-saxophone.

[brionon]

Li'l oldme,  ''An' you can push, An you can shove, But a Sussex pig, 'E won't be druv.'' Not a lot of people know that !!!

[Wurzul]

Avon was purely an administative council, never a real county, although it did have a geographical boundary.  After being disbanded it was split up into Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Bristol (Yes, Bristol is a city AND county), and the rest went back into Wiltshire.  Most people hated being in this 'new' county of Avon when it was first created, and when it was split up, a fair number wanted to keep it.  There ain't no pleasing some people...........