Heseltine: Historic counties overhaul was not far enough

LORD HESELTINE has said his decision to rip up England’s county map 50 years ago today did not go far enough.

As local government minister in the early 1970s, he redrew historic boundaries and abolished several counties from the municipal map.

On April 1 1974, county councils such as Westmorland and Cumberland and East Riding of Yorkshire were scrapped and replaced with new entities such as Cumbria and Humberside.

Lancashire was shrunk in size, with parts given to the new counties of Greater Manchester and Merseyside, while Yorkshire also lost part of its territory to Lancashire.

Lord Heseltine told The Telegraph he had no regrets about the changes and revealed he wanted to go further by scrapping the two-tier system of county and district councils and replacing them with unitary authorities.

But Conservative councillors who would have lost their seats vetoed this idea – and district councils remained.

Last night, historic county campaigners urged the Government to end the “county chaos” and make it clear that the old boundaries still exist.

Although the Government says the historic counties still exist, most people use the new counties for addresses. Peter Boyce, chairman of the Association of British Counties, said: “The historic counties formed the standard general purpose geography of Great Britain for centuries, one rooted in history and commonly held notions of community and identity.

“In 1974, this was swept away and replaced by a new geography based on a set of transient local government areas.”

Lord Heseltine said he stood by the 1974 reforms because local government was hopelessly outdated.

He said: “The historic structure of local government in this country had 1,300 authorities, which was sensible in a time when the relationship between central and local government was developed by means of communication by foot or horse.

“The centres of executive responsibility had to be close to communities.

“But by the 1960s we had telephones, cars, trains and planes – and a review under Labour came to the conclusion that what England needed was 60 unitary authorities, which was absolutely right.”

Lord Heseltine added: “What is missing in the two-tier county structure is any serious input from local authorities on what they need to regenerate their authorities.”