Bath and North East Somerset Council is the local council for the district of

Bath and North East Somerset Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES) is a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority district in England. Bath and North East Somerset Council was created on 1 April 1996 following the abolition of the county of Avon. It is part of the Cer ...

in Somerset, England. It is a

unitary authority A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...

, with the powers and functions of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. The council consists of 59

councillor A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries. Canada Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...

s: 28 from Bath, 8 from Midsomer Norton &

Radstock Radstock is a town and civil parish on the northern slope of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, England, about south-west of Bath and north-west of Frome. It is within the area of the unitary authority of Bath and North East Somerset. The Radstoc ...

, 6 from Keynsham, and 17 from other areas.

History

Historically History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

part of the county of

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, Bath was made a

county borough County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control, similar to the unitary authorities created since the 1990s. An equivalent te ...

in 1889 and thus was independent of the newly created

administrative Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an administrative officer, administ ...

Somerset

county council A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries. Ireland The county councils created under British rule in 1899 continue to exist in Irel ...

. The area that would become Bath and North East Somerset became part of Avon when that

non-metropolitan county A non-metropolitan county, or colloquially, shire county, is a county-level entity in England that is not a metropolitan county. The counties typically have populations of 300,000 to 1.8 million. The term ''shire county'' is, however, an unoffi ...

was created in 1974. When Avon was abolished in 1996, its non-metropolitan districts of Wansdyke and Bath were combined into a new unitary authority named Bath and North East Somerset, with its principal offices at Bath. Before the

Reform Act In the United Kingdom, Reform Act is most commonly used for legislation passed in the 19th century and early 20th century to enfranchise new groups of voters and to redistribute seats in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ...

of 1832, Bath elected two members to the

unreformed House of Commons "Unreformed House of Commons" is a name given to the House of Commons of Great Britain and (after 1800 the House of Commons of the United Kingdom) before it was reformed by the Reform Act 1832, the Irish Reform Act 1832, and the Scottish Reform ...

. Bath now has a single

parliamentary constituency An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...

, with a

Liberal Democrat Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties usually follow a liberal democratic ideology. Active parties Former parties See also *Liberal democracy *Lib ...

Wera Hobhouse Wera Benedicta Hobhouse ( von Reden; born 8 February 1960) is a German-British politician. A member of the Liberal Democrats, Hobhouse has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Bath since 2017 and serves as the Liberal Democrat Shadow Leader of th ...

, as Member of Parliament since 2017. The rest of the council's area falls within the North East Somerset constituency. Previously, most of the area was in the Wansdyke constituency. In 1999 the council housing in the area was transferred to the charitable Somer Community Housing Trust, which was later to become

Curo Curo Group is a not-for-profit housing association based in Bath, England. Curo's operating area is the West of England, with the majority of its homes located in Bath and North East Somerset where it is the largest housing provider. History ...

. Following a successful petition, a referendum was held in 2016 proposing a directly elected mayor for the Bath and North East Somerset district.Bristol Post
Referendum to go ahead in Banes to decide on elected mayor (7 September 2015) The proposal was rejected by 78.1% of voters.

Political control

From the creation of the authority in 1995, no political party had overall control of the council until 2015. The Liberal Democrats quickly became the dominant party until the 2007 elections when the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

won 31 seats to become the largest party, though they did not have a majority. In the

2015 elections The following elections were scheduled to occur in the year 2015. Africa * 2015 Beninese parliamentary election 26 April 2015 * 2015 Burkinabé general election 29 November 2015 * 2015 Burundian legislative election 29 June 2015 * 2015 Burun ...

, the Conservatives won 37 seats to gain overall control of the council, then in

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

the Liberal Democrats took control after winning 37 seats. A boundary change in 2018 meant that the number of councillors elected in 2019 was reduced from 65 to 59, and the number of electoral wards from 37 to 33. Most wards had their boundaries adjusted so that the number of electors per councillor is roughly similar. The number of councillors by party was:

Notes and references

Notes References

External links

* {{Authority control Unitary authority councils of England Local authorities in Somerset Bath and North East Somerset Politics of Bath and North East Somerset Local education authorities in England Billing authorities in England Leader and cabinet executives 1996 establishments in England