(Revised 01/12/2019 to include late replies from Councils)
We marked Yorkshire Day 2019 by launching a campaign to gauge the intent of councils to follow Government Guidance for greater recognition and protection of the heritage, identity and true boundaries of Yorkshire. Please see our news item, YDM Launch “Yorkshire Boundaries Campaign“, for full details of the campaign and of the Government Guidance involved. We have now received initial replies from all the Local Authorities in Phase One of that campaign so are able to report what their replies were and how we have responded to them.
Phase One involves the relevant ‘County’ Councils, Unitary Councils and District Councils whereas Phase Two, which is now also underway, involves the Town and Parish Councils within the administrative areas of the Phase One councils. We shall report further on Phase Two in due course. The replies from Phase One have varied from fully supportive to denial of Yorkshire’s true boundaries, as the following charts show.
Link: Phase One Report
If you live in one of Yorkshire’s border territories and are not happy with the response your council gave, we would encourage you to write to your MP to tell them that they should be doing more to ensure that your Council implements the Government Guidance for Local Authorities in respect of Traditional Counties and to push the Government to make the marking of Traditional County boundaries mandatory rather than discretionary. We would also encourage you to write to your Council to tell them that they should be doing more for the recognition and protection of Yorkshire’s true boundaries and for the more than one thousand years of Yorkshire heritage and identity; YOUR HERITAGE & IDENTITY!
I was born in saltburn in the north riding of Yorkshire I am 52 years old who on here can suddenly tell me I am not a yorkshireman The boundary is the river tees and always will be
Certainly no-one from YDM would tell anyone from Saltburn that he or she is not a Yorkshireman or Yorkshirewoman. Quite the contrary! You are absolutely right; anywhere between the Tees and the Humber is part of Yorkshire and has been for almost one-and-a-half millennia. We’re in your corner, on that Tim!
YDM Admin
Hi Tim Gray, Thanks for your comments. I FULLY agree with you that the Tees is the Yorkshire boundary and always will be. I’m SICK of all the new Yorkshire divisions being used for everything, which started in 1974, pushed by ‘them,’ Edward Heath’s ‘agents’ sent all over the country to FORCE ordinary people to give up their traditional counties inherited from their ancestors and used for everything up till then, and have government-created counties instead. They said ‘We’re not having traditional counties anymore so you’ve got to give them up and have new counties. Now off you go and live in these new places that we’ve created for you, and no argument!’ And they made quite sure that everyone obeyed by ‘shouting’ the new name each time the place was refered to, never mentioning any previous counties, keeping an eye on us for 20 years to make quite sure that we didn’t sneak back to the old counties, as no one wanted the change, stopped us using the old counties at all, and later told the young that the new 1974-created counties had always existed throughout history! It was dreadful! Do you remember it, or know any over 70s that can confirm what I say? Thousands of letters of objection were ignored unopened till a researcher found them. As for Monmouthshire being moved to another country sneakily late at night by Parliament with only one MP objecting, without the people’s consent, that was worse! Owain Vaughn the leader of the Monmouth Association, can tell of that. And Gerald Morgan often writes about that.
So people today only know about the new counties and of course accept them, as 1974 and the forced change is never mentioned ever. As I lived through all this, living in Lincolnshire, that was forced against the people’s wishes into Humberside, later because of objections, especially in Hull, we got rid of it, I find it particularly upsetting even after 48 years! Everyone round here hoped for Lincolnshire back, but the council didn’t want us back, despite the voter putting them where they are. So our MP Austin Mitchell, suggested North East Lincs, but was careful not to mention the fact that the council didn’t want us in Lincs.
So today only NEL is promoted, so losing our identity, culture history, how we evolved from early people, etc, the same as the rest of the county! Very upsetting. And why, when history in general is pushed, stately homes, museums, etc? So to fight it I launched a petition with 2,000 names on, but I want 2 million so the subject HAS to be debated in Parliament.
We have 28 supporting MPs including Henry Smith of Crawley who just before Christmas set up a Historic Counties All Parties Parliamentary Group to try to undo the damage created by the 1972 Local Government Act.
Andrew Rosendell MP Denton and Redish leads it.
We need more MPs involved, so can you push yours and get others to as well? Also sign the petition http://www.bit.do/BCCpetition and get others to sign. Also visit britishcounties.org campaign@britishcounties.org fb.me/BritishCounties @UKCounties
I wanted Monmouthshire’s fate included in a 5 min video as it was so unfair, but Gerard who I rely on so much for help with the campaign and is so kind to me, doesn’t want it. I want EVERYONE to know about how Parliament so unfairly destroyed our county history completely against public will, by BULLYING ordinary people, so people in there millions will demand them back to benefit everyone, especially future generations. Can you help? Pam Moorhouse.
Will there ever be a Yorkshire signpost leading into Middlesbrough on the Newport Bridge?. As it is now it feels like Middlesbrough has been in no mans land for decades.
Hi Anne,
Middlesbrough has never been in no-man’s-land as far as we are concerned; Middlesbrough has always been in Yorkshire!
Regarding a Yorkshire boundary sign at Newport Bridge, we are delighted to say that we are working collaboratively with the Yorkshire Ridings Society right now to have signs installed at all the bridges crossing the Tees into Yorkshire.
Thank you for your interest in YDM.