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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To ask why county boundaries change?

54 replies

AutisticLegoLover · 27/11/2022 20:51

It happens to countries too.
I've just been reading the Manchester Evening News and there was an article on a village that used to be in one county and then it's in another. The MEN is atrocious as far as its journalism goes but I'll link it anyway.

It got me thinking about how my mum and nana used to classify themselves and a conversation with my much older sister back in the 80s. My sister considered herself a Mancunian. She was living in Fallowfield at the time but had grown up between Yorkshire and Greater Manchester/Cheshire. Mum disagreed and said she was a Lancasarian (or similar, I was young and can't remember exactly). My sister was born in Yorkshire so I was totally baffled by this as we were living in the midlands at the time. Mum said I too was from Lancashire. My Nana was from Lancashire as was my Grandad and my mum was born in a lam ashore town that's now part of one of the areas of greater Manchester but not referred to as Lancashire now.
Over the years I've wondered about this because Greater Manchester incorporates several counties. I have never considered myself Mancunian and was brought up and now live in a small town in Cheshire on the edge of Derbyshire or also known as High Peak. The nearest big town is not one I identify with either and find myself a bit lost really when it comes to my regional identity.
It's bloody confusing! We were mostly born within 10 miles of each other except for the Yorkshire born siblings. My dad was born in Lincolnshire i think and lived mostly in Yorkshire as a child and young adult but he was definitely a Yorkshireman and I feel quite an affinity with God's own county.

I suspect that if I looked at Greater London history my mind would be blown. To me it's a fairly far off mystery place that is bloody massive and I don't know where London begins or ends. It has zones according to what I've read here.

Inside the Yorkshire that town that woke up in Lancashire 50 years ago www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/inside-yorkshire-town-woke-up-25616384?utm_source=app

So basically what are they messing about with changing boundaries and if you are from somewhere that has had its boundaries messed with over the years how the hell do you know how to identify yourself?

OP posts:

MimiSunshine · 29/11/2022 10:35

JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon · 28/11/2022 21:17

There was, maybe still is a village near East Midlands Airport that had something like a Nottingham dialing code, a Derbyshire postcode but was in Leicestershire. In fact the airport might have been the same.

You’re right. East Mids airport is Castle Donington which is in Leicestershire but is thought of as Derbyshire as it has a DE postcode.
and for a couple years they tried out a rename of the airport to Nottingham East Midlands Airport as it was felt that connection would give it more of a profile but no one agreed so it’s back to EMA

eddiemairswife · 29/11/2022 10:48

I moved from South Staffs to Wolverhampton without changing house. A lot of people were upset, for snobbish reasons; they already used Wolverhampton shops, libraries and Adult Education Services.

BeetleManiac · 29/11/2022 13:32

TheLazyDays · 29/11/2022 10:31

It was designed as a punishment for the countries that were on the losing side if the war; huge parts of their countries chopped off and given to their winning side neighbours. Little thought to the people who actually live there and the impact that would have, and is still having now.

I think it's also one of the reasons (among many!) that Romania can't join the EU. There is a basic right to self-determination that they are denying. A bit like with Turkey still occupying half of Cyprus. Economic tests aside, you can't really join if you're occupying part of another country or denying self-determination rights. Mind you, Croatia was allowed to join when their treatment of the majority Hungarian population around Split - which used to be the Hungarian coast - is not that dissimilar.

There are issues like this in other countries in the EU also, many of them a result of that same treaty which was a huge mistake in bow it was designed and to this day causes so many tensions, separating many people from their homelands. All very sad indeed.

I guess administrative county lines within a country moving is inconvenient rather than a disruption on that level, which will persist indefinitely. In the UK because our natural borders are so clearly defined by the sea, we aren't so aware of these types of issues as on the continent where borders of whole countries have moved over time. I have family who live on the French/ German border and had similar issues going back in history. But I suppose this "carve off" by treaty of huge swathes of a country in one go into a fairly alien culture where they don't fit at all was much more damaging, especially when 100 years later still nobody is listening to them!

Your original post had a strong pro-Hungarian bias. No borders can satisfy everyone, and there were huge numbers of ethnic minorities within Austria-Hungary who didn't have self-determination before. You'd get a very different perspective from Czechs, Slovaks, Croats etc who were previously under Hungarian rule.

As for Romania being unable to join the EU... maybe check your facts there. It's been a member for the past 15 years.

Goldpaw · 29/11/2022 15:04

TheCumbrian · 28/11/2022 21:57

Come April 2023 the county council of Cumbria is going to be reorganised into two new administrative councils that will be called....

Cumberland

Westmorland and Furness

For the poster above who said historical county boundaries haven't changed, they absolutely have. What is now the county Cumbria mostly used to be two counties called Westmorland and Cumberland. In the boundary changes in the 1970s those two counties combined along with a few stray bits of Lancashire (Barrow in Furness) and a tiny bit of Yorkshire. These weren't administrative changes but actual boundary changes and renaming of counties.

Show quote history

Westmorland County Council only came into being in 1889 through local authority changes, and it ceased to exist in 1974. So it lasted less than a hundred years. (Cumbria County Council has lasted half as long.)

The historic county of Westmorland came into being in the thirteenth century and hasn't gone anywhere.

With next year's changes Westmorland and Furness Council will be the administrative area comprising Westmorland and bits of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumberland. These are all local authority changes.

The historic county of Westmorland will remain as it was prior to the first local authority in 1889.

And the parts of other counties that will become part of WFC unitary authority administrative area will still be in their historic counties, no matter how they are split geographically into various other areas.

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