e27002 wrote:

You can put "Chessington", "Chessington, Surrey", "Chessington, London",
"Chessington, Greater London", "Chessington, Occupied Surrey",
"Chessington,
Neverneverland" or "Chessington, [Whatever]" on a postal address. Royal
Mail
no longer require counties to be included - they gave up in 1996 around
the
time of technological advancements and yet another round of local
government
reorganisation changing county boundaries.

Understood. And it was a good thing. AFIK, the UK was the only
entity still utilizing counties in mailing addresses. However, until
1996 the mailing address was CHESSINGTON, Surrey. And, many residents
think of themselves as part of Surrey. None-the-less, they pay
Council Tax to the GLA.

This would be well and good if they had voted to become Londoners.
They never did. In 1974 they simply woke up within the GLC.

1965 actually.

Southwark, Putney, Wimbledon, et al, suffered the same fate in 1889.

The London County Council broadly followed the Metropolitan Board of Works
boundary. The metropolis had already reached that far.

No liberals screaming for democracy on this one!

Too late I'm afraid. There wasn't a tradition of local referendums on these
things back then (or even now) but their neighbours in Epsom & Ewell kickd
up enough fuss about the initial proposed boundary to get it revised for
their exclusion (hence on the map Chessington looks like a penis).

During the last GLA count we had hilarity when one ballot came up with a
written message saying it was a disgrace the election was happening because
Chislehurst voted by 95% against the Mayor & Assembly. The world does not
revolve around Chislehurst.
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