local government pedantry

Hi.

Your article at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18004439

asserts that "Parish councils were abolished in 1963 after the London County Council was replaced with the Greater London Council", and furthermore that "The power for London boroughs to establish parish councils was re-established by a 2007 law."

This is incorrect. There were no parish councils in London in 1963 (which should read 1965, anyway, as that's when the Act came into force), either in the old County of London (which had not had them since 1900), or in the other areas which joined with it to form Greater London. As far as I can make out the last parish councils in what is now Greater London survived until 1934 in Hendon Rural District, which became the parish council-less Harrow Urban District.

The second sentence is also wrong, in that it implies that there have ever been parish councils in London boroughs. There simply hasn't.

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