‘West Surrey and South Middlesex Council’?

A long-time sore for county lovers has been the inclusion of the Spelthorne area of Middlesex within the local government “county” of “Surrey”. Surrey County Council and the district councils within its area are to be abolished in May 2027. The Government has just announced they will be replaced by two unitary councils to be known as ‘West Surrey Council‘ and ‘East Surrey Council‘. The map shows the relationship of these new councils compared to the historic counties.

The Association of British Counties (ABC) believes that ‘West Surrey Council‘ should be named ‘West Surrey and South Middlesex Council‘ to properly reflect the historic county identities of this area.

The Association of British Counties wishes to see local government be given a totally distinct identity to that of the historic counties. These local government changes work towards that in that the new unitary councils will just be called ‘council’ and not ‘county council’. The eventual creation of unitary local government throughout England, and with it the replacement of ‘county councils’ with just plain ‘councils’, should be a massive boost to public understanding and appreciation of our historic counties.

However, as new unitary councils are created, these should be named so as not to misuse historic county names. The mistakes of the local government reorganisations of the 1960s and 1970s, when many historic county names were made wholly inappropriate use of for council areas, must not be repeated.

ABC has no major issues with the name ‘East Surrey Council‘, although it might be more accurately named ‘South-East Surrey Council’.

However, ABC objects to the name ‘West Surrey Council‘ being used for an area which includes the Spelthorne area of Middlesex. This new council area will include 20 square miles of Middlesex, including the proud Middlesex towns and villages of Staines, Sunbury, Ashford and Shepperton. The Middlesex identity of this area should be reflected in the council name. The name ‘West Surrey and South Middlesex Council‘ would be more appropriate.

The final say of the new council’s name will lie with the shadow authority once it has been elected in May 2026. We hope that particularly those elected representatives from the Spelthorne area will push for a more appropriate name to be adopted. Our friends and supporters in this part of the country will be working to this end. Watch this space…