In message
, at
05:22:42 on Thu, 31 Dec 2009, John B remarked:
Following the LGA 1963, Surrey County Council has spent the last 45
years failing to deal with the absurdity of having their
administrative centre outside the county.

Does it matter that much, that the administrative centre is a mile
outside[1] the county (rather than a mile inside[2], which would
apparently offend people less)?

[1] 1.1 miles according to Google Maps.

[2] Cheshire (West) County Hall is less than a mile from the Welsh
border.
--
Roland Perry

In article
,
(John B) wrote:

On Dec 31, 12:07*pm, "David A Stocks" wrote:
"John B" wrote in message
...
On Dec 31, 1:09 am, "David A Stocks" wrote:

I think most of Tunbridge Wells has been in Kent for all living
memory - I'm not sure if the boundaries shifted much in 1974.
However, you'll find people in East Grinstead and the surrounding
area who are still disgruntled that they were shifted from East
Sussex to West Sussex in 1974.
TW has been in Kent for all living memory - the shift came in 1888.
But Roland was claiming that that counted as 'recent'.
I'm surprised people in East Grinstead care, though: I'd've expected
allegiances to be to Sussex (in the same way that Yorkshiremen's
allegiances are to Yorkshire, not to N/S/E/W Yorkshire).

The issue was having the administration moving from Lewes to
Chichester. In 1974 EG was on the major route from London to Lewes
(the A22 out of EG to the south is called Lewes Road) so there were/
are quite close links between the two towns. Meanwhile, Chichester is
a about as far away from EG as you can get and still be in Sussex.
Getting from one to the other is a major trek so there's no feeling
that they belong together in any way.

There's some logic there - however, given that Crawley, Horsham,
Worthing and Gatwick are in W Sussex, the issue is more that
Chichester (right on the western border) is a daft place to put the
administration for a region whose population is concentrated in its
east.

Not as daft as putting Surrey County Council in London,
admittedly...

It wasn't exactly put there. It remained where it had been all along in
Kingston when Kingston was given to London.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article
,
(John B) wrote:

Coincidentally I'm sure, SCC is rock-solid Tory and has been almost
without exception since forever.

To be precise since the County Council was first elected, apart from
1993-1997.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

John B wrote:

The issue was having the administration moving from Lewes to Chichester.
In
1974 EG was on the major route from London to Lewes (the A22 out of EG
to
the south is called Lewes Road) so there were/are quite close links
between
the two towns. Meanwhile, Chichester is a about as far away from EG as
you
can get and still be in Sussex. Getting from one to the other is a major
trek so there's no feeling that they belong together in any way.

There's some logic there - however, given that Crawley, Horsham,
Worthing and Gatwick are in W Sussex, the issue is more that
Chichester (right on the western border) is a daft place to put the
administration for a region whose population is concentrated in its
east.

Not as daft as putting Surrey County Council in London, admittedly...

Less daft as it was in Surrey when it was put there; rather the boundaries
moved away. They *should* have relocated the seat of administration but
often these things stir up local rivalries and a neutral location is often
chosen or retained in preference to the logical one. Note that the last
proposal for a move was to Woking rather than Guildford. Personally as one
who grew up in Epsom I'd see Esher or Leatherhead as the natural place to go
rather than being too far to the west.

Furthermore AIUI prior to the 1970s shake-up a lot of county councils met in
county halls located in county boroughs that were outside their
jurisdiction - e.g. Cumberland in Carlisle, Devon in Exeter, Lincolnshire in
Lincoln, Norfolk in Norwich and so forth. So the Surrey situation was not
unique in 1965 and by the time it became so things had settled down.

In article
,
(John B) wrote:

I'm suggesting that only a weigh-the-vote council would be
sufficiently inept that it failed to sort something like this out for
50 years. I'm also making a mildly snide jibe against the Tories,
although realistically I suspect that a weigh-the-vote Labour council
would be nearly as inept.

I suspect the difference is that the latter would have been more
spendthrift in the past (no chance these days) so would have built a
prestige new HQ with more alacrity.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message
,
John B writes

The historic county town of Surrey is Guildford, but for reasons that
aren't entirely clear the county administration was moved to Southwark
in the 1790s.

At that time the main venue for the Surrey Quarterly Sessions was
Kennington and, before the Acts of the late Victorian period, the
Quarterly Sessions were responsible for a number of functions that are
now the responsibility of councils, such as licensing, road repair and
the like.

Much the same happened in Middlesex, where the Quarterly Sessions were
held in Clerkenwell before moving out to Westminster.

Both no doubt due to the fact that the judiciary and legal teams had
little distance to travel from the Inns of Court in Temple and around
Holborn.

After the Local Government Act 1888 moved Southwark into
the County of London, they had to find a new site - bizarrely, given
that it was already becoming suburban London even at this point, they
chose Kingston.

They considered six alternatives: Epsom, Guildford, Kingston, Redhill,
Surbiton and Wimbledon.

I suspect that Kingston appealed to the historically-minded Victorians
because of its association with the coronation of ancient kings - plus
the fact that it had two gaols to support the local judicial work.

With hindsight, we can see that it's absorption into the metropolis was
inevitable, but I doubt that was the case at the time: a lot of the
early intensive housing in outer SW London dates from after 1900.

--
Paul Terry

MIG wrote
[...]
Geographically north of the river indeed. Rivers are geographical.
I
have no problem with that.

If you look carefully at the boundary between Surrey and Middlesex (now
between Elmbridge or Runnymede and Spelthorne) you will see the
boundary is not the river Thames but where the river Thames used to be.
So it's "recent", but more geologically "recent" than geographically
so.

--
Mike D

In message , at 18:56:49 on Thu, 31 Dec
2009, Tim Roll-Pickering remarked:
Furthermore AIUI prior to the 1970s shake-up a lot of county councils met in
county halls located in county boroughs that were outside their
jurisdiction - e.g. Cumberland in Carlisle, Devon in Exeter, Lincolnshire in
Lincoln, Norfolk in Norwich and so forth.

Nottinghamshire County Council has recently narrowly avoided the same
fate. Their main building is on the south bank of the Trent (in
Rushcliffe/West Bridgford), and so didn't end up in the Unitary City of
Nottingham in 1998.
--
Roland Perry

Basil Jet wrote

I don't think Kingston is a good place to have Surrey's admin, but
Surbiton
would be, because it's probably easier to reach from any part of
Surrey than
any place that's actually in Surrey.

Since Surrey HQ is between the two and less than a mile from Surbiton
that is in fact the situation. The SWT rail net radiates from Surbiton
but for the A3 the other (Hook/Tolworth) side would be slightly better.


--
Mike D

In article 01ca8a3d$dc33c960$LocalHost@default, (Michael
R N Dolbear) wrote:

MIG wrote
[...]
Geographically north of the river indeed. Rivers are geographical. I
have no problem with that.

If you look carefully at the boundary between Surrey and Middlesex (now
between Elmbridge or Runnymede and Spelthorne) you will see the
boundary is not the river Thames but where the river Thames used to be.
So it's "recent", but more geologically "recent" than geographically so.

As that anomaly appears to affect what look like inhabited properties I'm
surprised that's not been tidied up in the last 46 years.

--
Colin Rosenstiel