Middlesbrough (borough)

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

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.

Areas of the borough

The borough contains the following areas:

Structure

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. There are also two statutory parish councils for "Nunthorpe" and "Stainton and Thornton". 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.

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.

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.

Mayor

The first mayor of Middlesbrough was the German-born Henry Bolckow in 1853. 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.

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 and then in 2011. Mallon chose not to stand for a fourth term in 2015 and his deputy mayor, Dave Budd (Labour) was elected to succeed him. 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.

Demography

Borough

The borough of Middlesbrough's total resident population was , by the 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.

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.
In the borough of Middlesbrough, 14.0% of the population were non-white British.

Economy

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Middlesbrough at current basic price
published
(pp. 240–253) by ''Office for National Statistics'' with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

includes hunting and forestry

includes energy and construction

includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured

Components may not sum to totals due to rounding

Freedom of the Borough

The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the Borough of Middlesbrough.

Individuals

* Joseph Calvert: 7 November 1919.
* L. Taylor – 30 March 1967 (deceased 23 May 1983)
* Monsignor Canon M O'Sullivan – 26 March 1968 (deceased 6 May 1978)
* Mary A. Daniel – 16 October 1974 (deceased 23 December 1983)
* Ethel A. Gaunt – 16 October 1974 (deceased 10 June 1990)
* Lord Bottomley of Middlesbrough in the County of Cleveland – 21 December 1976 (deceased 3 November 1995)
* E. A. Dickinson – 8 May 1981 (deceased 2001)
* Rose M. Haston – 9 May 1986 (deceased 22 January 1991)
* Arthur Pearson – 9 May 1986 (deceased 23 February 1997)
* Robert I. Smith – 9 May 1986 (deceased 23 February 1993)
* W. Ferrier – 16 June 1992 (deceased 4 March 2015)
* G. Popple – 16 June 1992 (deceased 10 May 2003)
* Len Poole – 16 June 1992 (deceased 15 May 2011)
* John Robert Foster – 8 March 1996 (deceased 12 May 2022)
* Alma Collin – 15 March 2000 (deceased 2014)
* Hazel Pearson – 3 December 2003 (deceased 5 February 2016)
* Steve Gibson – 18 March 2004
* Jack Hatfield – 30 June 2009 (deceased January 2014)
* Mackenzie Thorpe – 11 April 2019
* Gareth Southgate - 28 July 2021.

Military units

* The Green Howards: 13 May 1944, transferred to the Yorkshire Regiment: 25 October 2006.
* The 34th (Northern) Signal Regiment (Volunteers): 29 April 1972.
* , RN: 15 March 2000.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Middlesbrough, Borough of

Unitary authority districts of England
Places in the Tees Valley
Non-metropolitan districts of North Yorkshire
Boroughs in England