The Borough of Middlesbrough is a district in the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England. It is part of the Tees Valley region, along with the boroughs of Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar and Cleveland, Hartlepool and Darlington. The district covers the town of Middlesbrough, Nunthorpe civil parish and Stainton and Thornton civil parish. Since its creation in 1974, it has had borough status and the governing Middlesbrough Council became a unitary authority in 1996.
History
[edit]
See also: Middlesbrough Rural District and Old Town Hall, Middlesbrough
The borough was preceded by the County Borough of Teesside in the North Riding of Yorkshire, having previously been an independent municipal borough from 1856 to 1968. The current borough boundaries were formed on 1 April 1974, by the creation of a new non-metropolitan district of the new county of Cleveland by the Local Government Act 1972, covering the previous borough of Middlesbrough along with nearly all of Middlesbrough Rural District. It was reconstituted as a unitary authority, alongside the abolition of Cleveland, on 1 April 1997. For ceremonial purposes it is part of North Yorkshire, though certain local services are still aligned to 1974 boundaries, including Cleveland Fire Brigade and Police. It is included within the Tees Valley combined authority area for devolved transport and economic governance.
County
Borough/ district
Name
Type
Dependent
Type
From
Until
Notes
Yorkshire
Historic
Y
Municipal borough
1856
1889
North Riding of Yorkshire
Administrative
N
County borough
1889
1974
Merged into Teesside CB in 1968
Cleveland (county town)
Non-metropolitan
Y
Non-metropolitan district
1974
1996
North Yorkshire
Ceremonial
N
Unitary authority
1996
Areas of the borough
[edit]
The borough contains the following areas:
Acklam
Ayresome
Berwick Hills
Brambles Farm
Coulby Newham
Easterside
Grove Hill
Hemlington
Linthorpe
Middlehaven
Nunthorpe
Ormesby
Pallister
Stainton
Saltersgill
Thornton
Thorntree
Tollesby
Whinney Banks
Structure
[edit]
The borough is made up of 19 council wards (formerly 21 as Gresham ward merged with Newport ward between the 2011 and 2021 censuses) within the borough of Middlesbrough. Each ward has a non-statutory community committee.[5] There are also two statutory parish councils for "Nunthorpe" and "Stainton and Thornton".[6] East, north and west Middlesbrough as well as parts of Park End-and-Beckfield, Berwick-Hils-and-Pallister and Ladgate are covered by the Middlesbrough parliamentary constituency. South Middlesbrough as well as the other parts of the wards are covered by the Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland parliamentary constituency.
Skyline of Middlesbrough
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
1
Acklam (W)
2
Aryesome (W)
3
Longlands and Beechwood (N)
4
Berwick Hills and Pallister (E)
5
Brambles and Thorntree (E)
6
Central (N)
7
Kader (W)
8
Ladgate (W)
9
Linthorpe (N)
10
Newport (N)
11
North Ormesby (E)
12
Park (N)
13
Park End and Beckfield (E)
14
Trimdon (W)
15
Coulby Newham (S)
16
Hemlington (S)
17
Marton East (S)
18
Marton West (S)
19
Nunthorpe (S)
20
Stainton and Thornton (S)
The council operates a with directly elected Mayor of Middlesbrough. The political composition of the council, as of the May 2019 local election, is Independent 23, Labour 20; and Conservative 3.
Political party make-up of Middlesbrough Borough Council
Teesside International Airport (formerly known as Durham Tees Valley Airport), is joint owned by the borough and the other four Tees Valley councils The council also owns multiple buildings in the borough.
The first directly elected mayors of Middlesbrough[10]
Years
Name of Mayor
2002–2015
Ray Mallon
2015–2019
Dave Budd
2019–2023
Andy Preston
2023–
Chris Cooke
The first mayor of Middlesbrough was the German-born Henry Bolckow in 1853.[11][12] In the 20th century, encompassing introduction of universal suffrage in 1918 and changes in local government in the United Kingdom, the role of mayor changed and became largely ceremonial.
In 2001, as part of a wider programme of devolution, voters in Middlesbrough were offered a referendum to decide between a directly elected mayor or the cabinet system then in operation, with the traditional civic and ceremonial functions of the Mayors being transferred to the Chair of Middlesbrough Council, which they did so by a large margin.[13]
In 2002, Ray Mallon (Independent), formerly a senior officer in Cleveland Police, became Middlesbrough's first directly elected mayor. He was re-elected in 2007[14] and then in 2011.[15] Mallon chose not to stand for a fourth term in 2015 and his deputy mayor, Dave Budd (Labour) was elected to succeed him.[16][17] Budd decided not to stand for a second term and in the May 2019 mayoral election, local businessman Andy Preston (independent) won with 59% of the vote.[18]
Demography
[edit]
Main article: Demographics of Tees Valley
Borough
[edit]
The borough of Middlesbrough's total resident population was 148,285, by the 2022 The population of Middlesbrough as a county borough peaked at almost 165,000 in the late 1960s, however this has declined since the early 1980s before starting to recover in the 2010s.[19]
Women in the former Middlehaven ward (absorbed into the central ward) had the second lowest life expectancy at birth, 74 years, of any ward in England and Wales in 2016.[20]
In the borough of Middlesbrough, 14.0% of the population were non-white British.
This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Middlesbrough at current basic prices published (pp. 240–253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.
^"Bolckow, Henry". Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events. Vol. 18. 1886. p. 650. William Ferdinand, a British manufacturer, born in Germany in 1806, died 18 June 1878. ... He was the first Mayor of Middlesbrough, a place which owes much of its prosperity to his energy and enterprise
^Up The Boro!. 2011. p. 9. This was followed in 1868 by Middlesbrough's first Parliamentary Elections, in which Henry Bolckow (1806–1878) of the firm Bolckow & Vaughan wanted to stand for election, however this was initially blocked by the fact that he was a foreigner ...