Park ( cy, Y Parc) is a

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, ...

and electoral ward of the

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 ...

of Merthyr Tydfil, in

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

Community

The community covers an area north of Merthyr Tydfil town centre, including Cyfarthfa Park and the residential areas of Abermorlais, Georgetown, Williamstown and The Quar. At the 2001 census, it had a population of 4307, increasing to 4,326 at the 2011 census. Park has several notable landmarks, but its most notable is Cyfarthfa Castle, which dominates the community.

Electoral ward

Prior to April 1974 Park was an electoral ward to the pre-1974 Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council. In May 1972

Plaid Cymru Plaid Cymru ( ; ; officially Plaid Cymru – the Party of Wales, often referred to simply as Plaid) is a centre-left to left-wing, Welsh nationalist political party in Wales, committed to Welsh independence from the United Kingdom. Plaid wa ...

Dafydd Wigley Dafydd Wynne Wigley, Baron Wigley, (born David Wigley; 1 April 1943) is a Welsh politician. He served as Plaid Cymru Member of Parliament (MP) for Caernarfon from 1974 until 2001 and as Assembly Member for Caernarfon from 1999 until 2003. He w ...

achieved a shock win in the ward, pushing the sitting Labour councillor into third place. From 1973 to 1996 Park was a ward to Merthyr Tydfil District Council. From 1989 till 1996 Park was an electoral ward to

Mid Glamorgan County Council Mid Glamorgan County Council () was the upper-tier authority for the Welsh county of Mid Glamorgan between its creation in 1974 and its abolition in 1996. History Local government in England and Wales was reorganised in 1974 under the Local Gover ...

, electing one county councillor. It also included neighbouring Vaynor. Subsequently the Park county ward has been coterminous with the Park community and had elected three councillors to

Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council ( cy, Cyngor bwrdeistref Sirol Merthyr Tudful) is the governing body for Merthyr Tydfil County Borough, one of the Principal Areas of Wales. History The parish of Merthyr Tydfil was governed by a local boar ...

. At the May 2017 elections the council leader and Labour Party representative, Brendan Toomey, who had represented Park for 18 years, lost his seat to an

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

candidate, Tanya Skinner. The other two seats were retained by Labour's Chris Barry and Clive Jones, in what Toomey described as a safe Labour ward. Labour had previously held all three seats in the ward since 1995.Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council Election Results 1995-2012
The Election Centre. Retrieved 2 November 2018.

References

{{Merthyr Tydfil Communities in Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Merthyr Tydfil Wards of Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Mid Glamorgan electoral wards