Talk:Somerset County Council

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to perform the merger leaving behind a single article Somerset Council and a redirect to that article from Somerset County Council (via some crafty page moves post-merger) . 10mmsocket (talk) 21:34, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

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I recently made a BOLD edit to this article which merged it with Somerset County Council. It has since been reverted (which is fine, that's the process!), with the reason given being 'Somerset County Council is not Somerset Council'. I do understand why it might seem that this is the case, but the two councils are the same corporate body.

Part 2 of the Somerset (Structural Changes) Order 2022 is the relevant legislation in this case. It abolished the four district councils of the non-metropolitan county of Somerset, but the county council was not abolished and instead became the 'sole principal authority', which is legislation-speak for 'became a unitary authority.' The explanatory memorandum to the order also helps explain things:

This Order provides for the creation of a single tier of local government for Somerset with effect from 1 April 2023. The existing four district areas are to be abolished as local government areas (district of Mendip, district of Sedgemoor, district of Somerset West and Taunton, district of South Somerset) and replaced by a single district area co-terminous with the county. All four district councils in Somerset (Mendip, Sedgemoor, Somerset West and Taunton and South Somerset) are to be wound up and dissolved. Somerset County Council will become the sole principal authority for Somerset from 1 April 2023, being known as Somerset Council. There are to be appropriate arrangements for preparing to transition to the new council.

The council is 'new' in the sense of being newly-unitary, but legally it's a continuation of the existing council. This actually contrasts with 1974, when the 1889 administrative county council was abolished and a new non-metropolitan county council with the same name (but a different jurisdiction) was established — see s.1 (1)(x) of the Local Government Act 1972. We don't have separate articles for the pre-1974 and post-1974 county council, so I wouldn't say we need one for the pre-2023 and post-2023 council. If nothing else, keeping the whole thing together makes it easier to explain the reforms.

(pinging User:10mmsocket, who made the revert) A.D.Hope (talk) 21:06, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the swift post. I'll give that some consideration. Let's see what others have to think too. 10mmsocket (talk) 21:10, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Was discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography#Unitary county councils: separate articles or not?. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:08, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support a merge Somerset Council is effectively a renamed county council with more powers. I don't see any benefit for readers to have two separate articles. Cheers, Number 57 11:43, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
• Support As others have merged, then this should too. ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 13:13, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

I should point out that the merges at Cornwall Council, Isle of Wight Council, North Yorkshire Council, Shropshire Council, and Wiltshire Council were bold edits undertaken recently by me and the consensus for them derives soley from the small discussion at UK Geography linked above. Hopefully this discussion will lead to a wider consensus, one way or the other. A.D.Hope (talk) 14:10, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

@A.D.Hope: Have you thought about merging the Dorset Council's too? ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 15:49, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure about Dorset. When the ceremonial county was reorganised in 2019 the non-metropolitan county of Dorset and its county council were abolished, so Dorset County Council and Dorset Council are separate legal entities. My approach has been to merge articles where the 'new' unitary authority is a legal continuation of the two-tier council, but I can see the argument for mergers where two legally distinct councils cover very similar areas and have similar functions. A.D.Hope (talk) 16:01, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Okay. ValenciaThunderbolt (talk) 16:04, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support per previous discussion. Dorset may be different as both the order abolished rather than renamed the council but more importantly there was a boundary change namely the loss of Christchurch district. Buckinghamshire should also probably be done since while the order abolished rather than renamed it (according to the order) I can't see any difference in how the changes took effect and the boundaries were exact. Herefordshire should probably also be done if the boundaries were the same. Crouch, Swale (talk) 16:30, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support having read the other contributions I have no objections. I assume that Somerset Council will then become the primary topic with Somerset County Council being a redirect? 10mmsocket (talk) 06:05, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

  It would be the other way around, as the SCC article was created in 2006 and so contains the majority of the history. This discussion should be in the talk page there, I know, but it began here and it didn't seem worth moving it. A.D.Hope (talk) 08:53, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

  But Somerset Council is now the main topic. What it was called in history can be covered in the article. Somerset Council is extant, Somerset County Council is defunct. 10mmsocket (talk) 09:33, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

  I mean the page history — SCC is a much older page, so it makes sense to preserve it as the main article. A.D.Hope (talk) 09:39, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

  ..as with Cornwall Council, Wiltshire Council, Shropshire Council, etc. No reason why this should be different. Whichever way the merge happens doesn't really matter as long as the copy/paste is properly attributed. Then it's just a case of handling the article name changes and redirects. 10mmsocket (talk) 09:38, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

  In the case of Cornwall and Shropshire their unitary council articles were older, and the two for Wiltshire were essentially the same age so I prioritised 'Wiltshire Council'. In this case 'Somerset Council' was only created in January 2022 and 'Somerset County Council' goes back to 2009, so it makes sense to retain the latter as the main article. The names will be swapped so that the main article is 'Somerset Council' and this article becomes 'Somerset County Council', a redirect. A.D.Hope (talk) 09:49, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

  I don't honestly care which way the merge takes place - history will be preserved and due credit will be given to previous contributions. If I read it correctly, the end state will be a single article Somerset Council, with a redirect to it contained within Somerset County Council. That's the situation we need to end up with, so it's all good. 10mmsocket (talk) 15:11, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

  You read it correctly and we're in agreement, so that is, as you say, all good. A.D.Hope (talk) 15:56, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

• Weak support since the merger is technically accurate but the present split does no harm. In the distant future, after the next reorg or two, I foresee a re-split into a 'History of local government in Somerset' article. Wire723 (talk) 07:43, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
• I've re preformed the merge since the user who objected to it now supports it and there was enough discussion at the main project anyway. I've now requested the page titles to be swapped. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:25, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.