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History: Alterations of local Areas

The only other powers and duties of a county council arising under the Local Government Act itself which it is necessary to notice are those relating to alterations of local areas. It may be convenient here to state that certain alterations of areas can only be effected through the medium of the Local Government Board after local inquiry. These cases include the alteration of the boundary of any county or borough, the union of a county borough with a county, the union of any counties or boroughs or the division of any county, the making of a borough into a county borough. In these cases the order of the Local Government Board is provisional only, and must be confirmed by parliament. The powers of a county council to make orders for the alteration of local areas are as follows: When a county council is satisfied that a prima facie case is made out as respects any county district not a borough, or as respects any parish, for a proposal for all or any of the things hereafter mentioned, they may hold a local inquiry after giving such notice in the locality and to such public departments as may be prescribed from time to time by the orders of the Local Government Board. The things referred to include the alteration of the boundary of the district or parish; the division or union thereof with any other district or districts, parish or parishes; the conversion of a rural district or part thereof into an urban district or vice versa.

In these cases, after the local inquiry above referred to has been held, the county council, being satisfied that the proposal is desirable, may make an order for the same accordingly. The order has to be submitted to the Local Government Board, and that board must hold a local inquiry in order to determine whether the order should be confirmed or not, if the council of any district affected by it, or one-sixth of the total number of electors in the district or parish to which it relates, petition against it. The Local Government Board have power to modify the terms of the order whether it is petitioned against or not, but if there is no petition, they are bound to confirm, subject only to such modifications. Very large powers are conferred upon county councils for the purpose of giving full effect to orders made by them under these provisions.

A considerable extension of the same powers was made by the Local Government Act 1894, which practically required every council to take into consideration the areas of sanitary districts and parishes within the entire administrative county, and to see that a parish did not extend into more than one sanitary district; to provide for the division of a district which did extend into more than one district into separate parishes, so that for the future the parish should not be in more than one county district; and to provide for every parish and rural sanitary district being within one county. An enormous number of orders under the act of 1894 was made by county councils, and, speaking generally, it will now be found that no parish extends into more than one county or county district. Other powers and duties of the county council under the act of 1894 will be noticed hereafter.(1)

Resources

Notes and References

  1. Encyclopedia Britannica (11th Edition)

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