Liverpool City Council is the governing body for the city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England.

Domain

Liverpool has been a town since 1207, when it was granted its first charter by King John. It has had a town council since before the 19th century, and was granted city status by Victoria.

When local government was introduced in 1888 it was one of the cities to become a county borough, and thus independent of Lancashire. This situation persisted until 1974 when due to urban expansion and the accretion of a large metropolitan area, the city was made a metropolitan district of the metropolitan county of Merseyside.

In 1913 Gateacre was absorbed into the city.

In 1986 the council of Merseyside was abolished and its functions devolved to its districts, but the county still legally exists. It should be noted therefore that Liverpool has never been a district council under Lancashire County Council .

Administration

In the late 1970's the City was run by the Liberal Party under Sir Trevor Jones, as part of there plans a cost cutting excercise was drawn up, to reduce the councils costs by 25%. In 1979 the Tories won a narrow victory in the General Election. Part of the Tories plan was to impose a 25% cut on councils across the country. Liverpool city council successfully negotiated an exception from this, on the grounds that they had already cut 25%, the Tories insisted on this being kept secret, for political reasons. Unfortunately the agreement was made public by the council. The Tories then cancelled it. This led to Liverpool having to bear a 50% cut in funding, in addition to the normal bias in council funding.

During the 1980s, the entryist Militant movement infiltrated the Labour party and took control of several councils including Liverpool, and challenged the national government on several issues. It was felt by the Thatcher administration that the metropolitan counties were too powerful (especially Greater London Council), and so rather than risk more confrontations, she decided to get rid of them.

External link

• Liverpool City Council