Talk:Huntingdonshire

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I've been looking into why Huntingdonshire wasn't given unitary authority status in the 1990s round of reform. It's all a bit odd. John Major was apparently very keen on the idea. Huntingdonshire was in the list of districts referred to the Local Government Commission for 're-consideration'.

And they recommend out of this list, Rutland, with a far smaller population. One theory could be that Rutland simply has a much stronger local identity. The administrative county of Rutland was scheduled to be incorporated into Leicestershire in the mid 1960s, at the same time as the creation of Huntingdon and Peterborough. But Rutland fought this off, and delayed it till 1974. And it was able to get unitary status in 1996, despite its tininess (one of the smallest (by population) _districts_ in England - let alone counties!)

Another factor may have been that unitary status would have left the Cambridgeshire County Council covering too few people to be viable in itself... Morwen - Talk 17:17, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

And I believe (though I'm not sure about this) that the district's inhabitants were polled and by a considerable margin responded that they wished to remain in Cambridgeshire.--Chris Jefferies 11:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is a county or was a county?[edit]

There is a problem with the use of 'is a county in its own right', whether the word 'historically' is included or not. Especially in the introduction where there is no room to explain in detail, such wording strongly suggests that Huntingdonshire remains a county today. Even if this is not the intention, a proportion of readers are likely to take the present tense to imply what it usually implies in everyday English.

I would greatly prefer 'was'. --Chris Jefferies (talk) 01:34, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. However, as I pointed out in the edit summary, WP:PLACE (a formal naming convention) dictates:

We do not take the minority position that the historic counties still exist with the former boundaries.

— WP:PLACE
It therefore was a county. --Jza84 |  Talk  02:03, 27 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that that "minority position" is actually the correct one. No legislation has ever attempted to abolish the traditional, or historic counties, if you wish to call them such, nor to change their boundaries. All that the various acts did, including the Local Government Act 1972, was to establish new ADMINISTRATIVE areas for local government purposes. Confusion has arisen because the legislation provided for these purely administrative areas to be called "counties" as well, but it's clear in the acts that the scope of this was never intended to extend beyond local government administration uses. A statement from the government of the day in April 1974 confirmed as much, and similar statements have been repeated by the government on a number of occasions since.
So Huntingdonshire still exists today, Slough is still in Buckinghamshire, and Bournemouth is still in Hampshire. It's just ADMINISTRATIVE boundaries which have been changed (multiple times since 1974). One of the problems contributing to the confusion is that of local authorities incorrectly erecting signs saying things like "Welcome to Cambridgeshire" or "Welcome to Berkshire" at the boundaries of THEIR administrative areas, instead of at the actual county boudaries of Cambridgeshire, Berkshire, etc.
The Association of British Counties has a much more detailed explanation: http://abcounties.co.uk/counties/countyconfusion 84.93.165.235 (talk) 15:12, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Assorted quotes from the government, as mentioned above:
"The new county boundaries are administrative areas, and will not alter the traditional boundaries of counties {.....}" - Govt. statement published in The Times in April 1974.
"I can confirm that the Government still stand by this statement, that the local authority areas and boundaries introduced in April 1974 do not alter the traditional boundaries of counties." - Michael Portillo, Minister of State for Local Government, 11th July 1990
"The Local Government Act 1972 did not abolish traditional counties, only administrative ones. Although for local government purposes some of the historic counties have ceased to be administrative areas, they continue to exist for other purposes, organisations and local groups." - Statement from Dept. of Environment, 1990
"I can confirm that these Acts (1933, 1972) did not specifically abolish traditional counties, so traditional counties still exist but no longer for the purposes of the administration of local Government...." - Statement issued by Dept. for Communities & Local Govt., August 2006

84.93.165.235 (talk) 13:39, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Section for elections and current representation?[edit]

I think we need a new section here! Some other counties have one for election and even a visual representation in the info box of the different parties, can we see that this is done?Sheffno1gunner (talk) 03:25, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Content of articles for places within Huntingdonshire.[edit]

Whether or not Huntingdonshire is a county today, it is unfortunate that most of the content for each of Wikipedia's places within what was Huntingdonshire is devoted to describing that place in relation to its political position in Cambridgeshire today. Most of these entries appear to be templates, repeating the same information again and again. The only historic facts contained in these pages refer to information from the Domesday Book. Surely something happened somewhere in Huntingdonshire between 1086 and 1974? I recommend consulting the Victoria County History for Huntingdonshire online (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/search/series/vch--hunts) and seeing what might be found there. --Oldontarian (talk) 07:24, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

By all means do so, and act on what you find. Bmcln1 (talk) 13:45, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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