Northern England referendums, 2004

The three northern regions.

A referendum was held in the North East region of England, in the United Kingdom, on 4th November 2004. In it, the voters overwhelmingly rejected the proposal that this region should have an elected regional assembly.

The Government had dubbed the referendums the Great North Vote.

Options put to vote

The counties and unitary authorities of England, if "yes" and option 2 is chosen in all referendums.

The creation of regional assemblies was to be tied to abolition of the existing two-tier structure for local government in these regions; and its replacement with a uniform system of unitary authorities. In areas that currently have two-tier government (Cheshire, County Durham, Cumbria, Lancashire, North Yorkshire, Northumberland), voters were to be asked which pattern of unitary government they would like to see.

Two options were proposed by the Boundary Committee for each county in the review area - generally consisting of a single unitary authority for the entire county, or a breakup into smaller authorities which are larger than the existing districts. It was recommended that ceremonial counties be left untouched in most cases. This recommendation was broadly (with one minor alteration in West Lancashire) accepted by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Voting was to take place on a per-county council-area basis, except that the Cumbria and Lancashire votes will be run as one — since it would be impossible to have option 1 in one and option 2 in another.

Any changes as a result of the North East referendum would probably have come into effect on 1st April 2006 — to give time for preparation, and taking into account 1st April as the traditional day of local government reform in the UK. Those readers with an eye for wry humour will note that this is April Fool's day in the United Kingdom! Most of the unelected regional assemblies were created by legislation that came into force on April Fool's day, some years before, too.

In Lancashire and Cumbria the proposals for multiple unitary authorities were very similar to those proposed by the Redcliffe-Maud Report in 1969. This proposed authorities for North Cumbria based in Carlisle, and one for Morecambe Bay covering Barrow-in-Furness and Lancaster for the north of the region. In central Lancashire there were to be divided into four authorities based on Blackpool, Preston, Blackburn and Burnley. The area of West Lancashire was to be given to Merseyside and included with Southport in a district.

The options were as follows

Cheshire

Cheshire_Option1.png	Cheshire_Option2.png
Option 1#Halton#Warrington#Cheshire Council	Option 2#Halton#Warrington#Chester and West Cheshire (Chester and Ellesmere Port and Neston)#Mid Cheshire (Vale Royal and Crewe and Nantwich)#East Cheshire (Congleton and Macclesfield)

County Durham

Durham_Option1.png	Durham_Option2.png
Option 1#Hartlepool#Stockton-on-Tees#Darlington#Durham Council	Option 2#Hartlepool#Stockton-on-Tees#Darlington#South Durham (Sedgefield, Teesdale and Wear Valley)#North Durham (Chester-le-Street and Derwentside)#East Durham (Durham and Easington)

Cumbria

Cumbria_Option1.png	Cumbria_Option2.png
Option 1#Cumbria Council	Option 2#North Cumbria (Allerdale, Carlisle, Copeland and Eden)#Morecambe Bay (Barrow-in-Furness, South Lakeland, and Lancaster from Lancashire)

Lancashire

Lancashire_Option1.png

Lancashire_Option2_mod.png

Option 1#Blackpool with Fleetwood (Blackpool with parts of Wyre)#Blackburn with Darwen#Lancashire Council

Option 2#Morecambe Bay (Lancaster with South Lakeland and Barrow-in-Furness from Cumbria)#Blackpool and the Fylde (Blackpool, Wyre and Fylde)#Central Lancashire (Preston, South Ribble and Chorley)#East Lancashire (Burnley, Pendle, Ribble Valley and Rossendale)#Blackburn with Hyndburn (Blackburn with Darwen and Hyndburn)#Sefton and West Lancashire (Sefton from Merseyside, with part of West Lancashire)#Wigan (Wigan from Greater Manchester, with part of West Lancashire)

North Yorkshire

North_Yorkshire_Option1.png	North_Yorkshire_Option2.png
Option 1#Stockton-on-Tees#Middlesbrough#Redcar and Cleveland#City of York#North Yorkshire Council	Option 2#Stockton-on-Tees#Middlesbrough#Redcar and Cleveland#City of York#Craven and Harrogate#Hambleton and Richmondshire#Ryedale and Scarborough#East Riding of Yorkshire (existing East Riding of Yorkshire with Selby)

Northumberland

Northumberland_Option1.png	Northumberland_Option2.png
Option 1#Northumberland Council	Option 2#Rural Northumberland (Alnwick, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Castle Morpeth and Tynedale)#South East Northumberland (Blyth Valley and Wansbeck)

The result

On 4 November 2004, in a turnout of almost 48% using a postal ballot, voters in the North East decisively rejected the proposed regional assembly.

     Yes:      197,310 (22.1%)
     No:       696,519 (77.9%)

Rejected: 12,538

Local authority Yes No Turnout*

 Alnwick              2,771  11,666  57.4% 
 Berwick-upon-Tweed   2,250   8,597  52.3% 
 Blyth Valley         7,523  21,178  45.5% 
 Castle Morpeth       4,776  16,952  57.2% 
 Chester-le-Street    5,487  15,610  49.5% 
 Darlington           4,784  32,282  49.0% 
 Derwentside          9,718  22,888  49.1% 
 Durham               9,791  24,106  48.3% 
 Easington            8,065  21,520  42.5% 
 Gateshead           17,011  52,459  49.3% 
 Hartlepool           4,887  24,240  42.9% 
 Middlesbrough        7,977  33,543  42.1% 
 Newcastle upon Tyne 19,984  61,477  46.4% 
 North Tyneside      15,203  55,121  50.7% 
 Redcar & Cleveland   8,493  43,250  50.6% 
 Sedgefield           9,040  23,583  48.3% 
 South Tyneside      11,329  41,029  46.3% 
 Stockton-on-Tees    11,050  52,040  48.3% 
 Sunderland          17,927  71,893  43.4% 
 Teesdale             2,020   8,972  56.9% 
 Tynedale             5,146  20,975  55.4% 
 Wansbeck             5,947  15,503  46.6% 
 Wear Valley          6,131  17,635  49.9% 
 Totals             197,310 696,519  47.7% 

*Valid and rejected votes divided by electorate.

The related votes in Northumberland and County Durham on local government changes became moot.

Future

Similar referenda had been planned in North West England and Yorkshire and the Humber. These were postponed on 22nd July due to issues with all-postal ballots - there were many allegations of fraud and procedural irregularities. Following the rejection of the proposal in the north east of England Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott ruled out holding further referenda in other regions for the foreseeable future.

The government is unlikely to perform piecemeal unitary authority creation, unassociated with the introduction of elected regional assemblies. This is shown by the refusal to 'un-tie' these proposals from such assemblies, by allowing voters to reject the assembly, but still have the unitary reform.

The government has, however, continued to push its regionalisation agenda, and the unelected Regional Assemblies are still in operation, including in the north east of England where the government's proposal was resoundingly rejected. Calls for the Assemblies to be discontinued have been ignored.

External links

*Announcement of the date
*Campaign for the English regions
*Campaign for a YES vote in the North East (Website no longer online)
*Campaign for a NO vote in the North East (Website no longer online)