Northern England referendums, 2004

A referendum is to be held in the North East region of England on November 4, 2004; on the subject of whether this region should have an elected regional assemblies.

Similar referendums had been planned in North West England and Yorkshire and the Humber. These were postponed on July 22 due to issues with all-postal ballots.

The Government had dubbed the referendums the Great North Vote.

Local government changes

The creation of regional assemblies will be tied to abolition of the existing two-tier structure for local government in these regions; and its replacement with a uniform system of unitary authorities. In areas that currently have two-tier government (Cheshire, County Durham, Cumbria, Lancashire, North Yorkshire, Northumberland), voters will be asked which pattern of unitary government they would like to see.

Two options have been proposed by the Boundary Committee for each county in the review area - generally consisting of a single unitary authority for the entire county, or a breakup into smaller authorities which are larger than the existing districts. It is recommended that ceremonial counties be left untouched in most cases. This recommendation was broadly (with one minor alteration in West Lancashire) affected by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Voting will take place on a per-county council-area basis, except that the Cumbria and Lancashire votes will be run as one — since it would be impossible to have option 1 in one and option 2 in another.

Any changes as a result of the North East referendum would probably come into effect on April 1, 2006 — to give time for preparation, and taking into account April 1 as the traditional day of local government reform in the UK.

In Lancashire and Cumbria the proposals for multiple unitary authorities are very similar to those proposed by the Redcliffe-Maud Report in 1969. This proposed authorities for North Cumbria based in Carlisle, and one for Morecambe Bay covering Barrow-in-Furness and Lancaster for the north of the region. In central Lancashire there were to be divided into four authorities based on Blackpool, Preston, Blackburn and Burnley. The area of West Lancashire was to be given to Merseyside and included with Southport in a district.

The options are as follows

Cheshire

Option 1 Halton Warrington Cheshire Council	Option 2 Halton Warrington Chester and West Cheshire (Chester and Ellesmere Port and Neston) Mid Cheshire (Vale Royal and Crewe and Nantwich) East Cheshire (Congleton and Macclesfield)

County Durham

Option 1 Hartlepool Stockton-on-Tees Darlington Durham Council	Option 2 Hartlepool Stockton-on-Tees Darlington South Durham (Sedgefield, Teesdale and Wear Valley) North Durham (Chester-le-Street and Derwentside) East Durham (Durham and Easington)

Cumbria

Option 1 Cumbria Council	Option 2 North Cumbria (Allerdale, Carlise, Copeland and Eden) Morecambe Bay (Barrow-in-Furness, South Lakeland, and Lancaster from Lancashire)

Lancashire

Option 1 Blackpool with Fleetwood (Blackpool with parts of Wyre) Blackburn with Darwen Lancashire Council

Option 2 Morecambe Bay (Lancaster with South Lakeland and Barrow-in-Furness from Cumbria) Blackpool and the Fylde (Blackpool, Wyre and Fylde) Central Lancashire (Preston, South Ribble and Chorley) East Lancashire (Burnley, Pendle, Ribble Valley and Rossendale) Blackburn with Hyndburn (Blackburn with Darwen and Hyndburn) Sefton and West Lancashire (Sefton from Merseyside, with part of West Lancashire) Wigan (Wigan from Greater Manchester, with part of West Lancashire)

North Yorkshire

Option 1 Stockton-on-Tees Middlesbrough Redcar and Cleveland City of York North Yorkshire Council	Option 2 Stockton-on-Tees Middlesbrough Redcar and Cleveland City of York Craven and Harrogate Hambleton and Richmondshire Ryedale and Scarborough East Riding of Yorkshire (existing East Riding of Yorkshire with Selby)

Northumberland

Option 1 Northumberland Council	Option 2 Rural Northumberland (Alnwick, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Castle Morpeth and Tynedale) South East Northumberland (Blyth Valley and Wansbeck)