Hereford City Council elections are held every four years. The current Hereford City Council was established in 2000 as a parish council, following the abolition in 1998 of the former district council that had also been called Hereford City Council. [1]
Hereford was an ancient borough and had held city status from time immemorial. Hereford City Council had its powers significantly reformed under the Local Government Act 1972, becoming a non-metropolitan district, although retaining the same boundaries. [2] The first elections to the reconstituted city council were held in 1973, initially operating as a shadow authority before coming into its powers on 1 April 1974. From 1974 until the abolition of the district council in 1998, political control of the council was held by the following parties: [3]
Party in control | Years | |
---|---|---|
No overall control | 1973–1980 | |
Liberal | 1980–1981 | |
Alliance | 1981–1988 | |
SLD | 1988–1989 | |
Liberal Democrats | 1989–1998 |
In 1998 the district of Hereford was abolished, with the area becoming part of the new unitary authority of Herefordshire. The Herefordshire councillors who represented the former district of Hereford acted as charter trustees from 1998 until 2000, when a civil parish covering the former district was formed, with its parish council taking the name Hereford City Council. As a parish council rather than a district council, the post-2000 city council has fewer powers and responsibilities than the pre-1998 city council had.
Elections to the non-metropolitan district council which existed from 1974 to 1998 were generally held three years out of every four, with a third of the council elected each time.
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Hereford and Worcester was an English non-metropolitan county created on 1 April 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 from the areas of the former administrative county of Herefordshire, most of Worcestershire and the county borough of Worcester. An aim of the Act was to increase efficiency of local government: the two counties are among England's smaller and less populous counties, particularly after the same Act transferred some of Worcestershire's most urbanised areas to the West Midlands.
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The Local Government Act 1972 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant Acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Government of 1970–74.
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The unitary authorities of England are those local authorities which are responsible for the provision of all local government services within a district. They are constituted under the Local Government Act 1992, which amended the Local Government Act 1972 to allow the existence of counties that do not have multiple districts. They typically allow large towns to have separate local authorities from the less urbanised parts of their counties and originally provided a single authority for small counties where division into districts would be impractical. However, the UK government has more recently created much larger unitary authorities, including a single authority for North Yorkshire, the largest non-metropolitan county in England, previously divided into seven districts.
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