As we recently reported, Cheshire East Council, Cheshire West & Chester Council and Warrington Council have submitted a bid to the Government to have a new ‘Strategic Authority’ set up to provide devolved government across their combined area. Whilst ABC has no view about the structure or areas of devolved government, we believe that none of the new Strategic Authorities should take on a ‘county’ identity or misuse a historic county name. We were alarmed, then, to hear that the unqualified name ‘Cheshire’ was being mooted for this particular proposed Strategic Authority.
As our map makes clear, the Strategic Authority area includes only about three-quarters of the real Cheshire and only around half of its population. The town of Warrington is, of course, in Lancashire.
It is, therefore, with a small degree of relief that we see the BBC reporting that the councils involved have now agreed on the name of ‘Cheshire and Warrington’ for the proposed new Strategic Authority.
The name ‘Cheshire and Warrington’ is still not ideal since huge parts of Cheshire are not in this area, including the Wirral, Runcorn, Stockport, Sale and Altrincham. At least, though, it acknowledges that Warrington is not part of Cheshire. The dumping of Warrington into the 1974 local government ‘county’ of ‘Cheshire’ has unquestionably undermined its Lancashire identity. This could only have been compounded if the new Strategic Authority had just been called ‘Cheshire’.
In general, the more obviously contrived administrative areas names are, then the more obvious is their entirely administrative nature to the media and the public. The inclusion of an ‘and’ in any administrative area name always helps in this regard.
Whilst something like ‘Central Cheshire and Warrington’ or ‘Warrington and the Cheshire Plain’ would be a more accurate description of this Strategic Authority area, the practice of most councils to choose a name which offers them the greatest aggrandisement makes such a name unlikely.
One thought on “Proposed new Strategic Authority to be named ‘Cheshire and Warrington’”
Still not good enough..Sadly it is 51 years now since the 1974 boundary debacle..Most people born in the 60s and after know nothing about our historic counties.