This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(December 2023) |
County Durham | |
---|---|
Durham | |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Country | England |
Region | North East England |
County | Durham |
Unitary Authority | 1 April 2009 |
Seat | Durham |
Government | |
• Type | Non-metropolitan Unitary authority |
• Local Authority | Durham County Council |
• MPs | Mary Foy (L) Dehenna Davison (C) Paul Howell (C) Grahame Morris (L) Kevan Jones (L) Richard Holden (C) |
Population (2021) | |
• Total | 521,346 (Ranked 10th) |
Ethnicity (2021) | |
• Ethnic groups | |
Religion (2021) | |
• Religion | List
|
Time zone | UTC+0 (Greenwich Mean Time) |
Postcode | |
Dialling code | 0191 |
ISO 3166-2 | GB-DUR |
ONS code | 00EJ (ONS) E06000047 (GSS) |
Website | durham |
County Durham is a local government district in the ceremonial county of County Durham, England. It is governed by Durham County Council, a unitary authority. [2] The district has an area of 2,232.6 km2 (862 sq m), and contains 135 civil parishes. [3] It forms part of the larger ceremonial county of Durham, together with boroughs of Darlington, Hartlepool, and the part of Stockton-on-Tees north of the River Tees.
Between 1974 and 1 April 2009, County Durham was governed as a two-tier non-metropolitan county, with a county council and district councils. The original eight districts were Chester-le-Street, Darlington, Derwentside, Durham (city), Easington, Sedgefield, Teesdale, and Wear Valley. [4] In 1997 Darlington was removed from the non-metropolitan county and became a separate unitary authority. [5] In 2009 the remaining districts were abolished and replaced by a single district covering the non-metropolitan county, with Durham County Council as the sole local authority. [6]
The district has multiple hamlets and villages. Settlements with town status include Consett, Barnard Castle, Peterlee, Seaham, Bishop Auckland, Newton Aycliffe, Middleton-in-Teesdale, Shildon, Chester-le-Street, Crook, Stanley, Willington, Stanhope, Spennymoor, Ferryhill and Sedgefield while Durham is the only city in the district.[ citation needed ]
Local authority | In relation to the district |
---|---|
Northumberland | North |
Gateshead | North east |
City of Sunderland | North east |
Hartlepool | South east |
Stockton-on-Tees | South east |
Darlington | South |
North Yorkshire | South |
Westmorland and Furness | West |
Following the 2021 United Kingdom local elections, the council is now[ when? ] under control of a coalition of the Liberal Democrats, Conservative Party, Independents and North East Party.[ citation needed ]
Durham LEA has a comprehensive school system with 36 state secondary schools (not including sixth form colleges) and five independent schools (four in Durham and one in Barnard Castle). Easington district has the largest school population by year, and Teesdale has the smallest with two schools. Only one school in Easington and Derwentside districts have sixth forms, with about half the schools in the other districts having sixth forms.[ citation needed ]
The counties of England are divisions of England. Counties have been used as administrative areas in England since Anglo-Saxon times. There are two main legal definitions of the counties in modern usage: the 84 counties for the purposes of local government, and the 48 counties for the purposes of lieutenancy, also termed the ceremonial counties.
County Durham, officially simply Durham (/ˈdʌrəm/), is a ceremonial county in North East England. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne and Wear to the north, the North Sea to the east, North Yorkshire to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The largest settlement is Darlington.
The Borough of Stockton-on-Tees is a unitary authority with borough status in the counties of County Durham and North Yorkshire, England. The borough had a population of 196,600 in 2021.
A non-metropolitan county, or colloquially, shire county, is a subdivision of England used for local government.
The Tees Valley is a devolved region in Northern England, around the lower River Tees. The area is not a geographical valley; the local term for the valley is Teesdale. The combined authority covers five council areas: Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland and Stockton-on-Tees.
Sedgefield is a constituency in County Durham represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Paul Howell of the Conservative Party. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.
Bishop Auckland is a constituency in County Durham represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Dehenna Davison, a Conservative.
Durham County Council elections are held every four years. Durham County Council is the local authority for the unitary authority of County Durham. Since becoming a unitary authority, 126 councillors have been elected from 63 wards.
The Borough of Darlington is a local government district with borough status in County Durham, England. Since 1997 Darlington Borough Council has been a unitary authority, with both district-level and county-level functions; it is independent from Durham County Council. It is named after its largest settlement, the town of Darlington, where the council is based. The borough also includes a rural area surrounding the town which contains several villages. The population of the borough at the 2021 census was 107,800, of which over 86% (93,015) lived in the built-up area of Darlington itself.
They had been successive district administration in the County of Durham. The ancient county was formerly structured around the Bishop of Durham with ancient wards and boroughs.
The unitary authorities of England are a type of local authority responsible for all local government services in an area. They combine the functions of a non-metropolitan county council and a non-metropolitan district council, which elsewhere in England provide two tiers of local government.
Cleveland was a non-metropolitan county located in North East England which existed between 1974 and 1996. Cleveland was a two-tier county and had four boroughs: Hartlepool, Stockton-on-Tees, Middlesbrough and Langbaurgh-on-Tees. The county town was Middlesbrough, where Cleveland County Council met. The county was named after the historic area of Cleveland, Yorkshire. Its area is now split between the counties of North Yorkshire and County Durham.
Durham County Council is the local authority which governs the non-metropolitan county of County Durham in North East England. Since 2009 it has been a unitary authority, having taken over district-level functions when the county's districts were abolished. The non-metropolitan county is smaller than the ceremonial county of County Durham, which additionally includes Darlington, Hartlepool and the parts of Stockton-on-Tees north of the River Tees. The county council has its headquarters at County Hall in Durham.
Healthcare in Durham, from 2013 to July 2022, was the responsibility of NHS Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield, and Sunderland and South Tyneside clinical commissioning groups. In July 2019 they proposed to merge into two, one covering Durham, and the other covering Tees Valley and including Darlington.
The county of Durham has returned 7 MPs to the UK Parliament since 1983. Under the Local Government Act 1972, which came into effect on 1 April 1974, the boundaries of the historic/administrative county were significantly altered with the north-east of the county, comprising more than half the electorate, being transferred to the new metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear. In addition, the borough of Hartlepool was included in the new county of Cleveland. These changes were reflected in the following redistribution of parliamentary seats which did not come into effect until the 1983 general election, resulting in a reduction in the county's representation from 16 to 7 MPs.