How would you reform and redraw UK local government?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Practically or ideally? I think the first makes sense for a quick reply. I would dust off the Redcliffe-Maud report, make a few minor changes, and implement it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is there any particular reason the Bristol area is part of the South West rather than the West Midlands when England is regionalized?

Because it is most definitely in the West Country.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well there are linguistic, historical and cultural differences (even landscape ones come to think of it), but the main thing is functional geography. The West Midlands is dominated by a single large conurbation (that in turn is dominated by Birmingham), while in the East Midlands there is no dominant city. Of course the East Midlands is complicated by the fact that a fairly substantial part of it (i.e. Lincolnshire) is not really part of the Midlands but has nowhere else to go.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If York is a separate region rather than part of a monolithic North England, then why couldn't all of Lincolnshire be part of Greater York instead of merely the Humberside?  Or alternatively, why would it be a bad fit to be attached to East Anglia?

Well Yorkshire has one of the strongest regional identities in England. If the county ever became an independent state then we can be sure that its first act would be to invade its neighbours in order to reclaim its lost territories.

Anyway, its really just the south bank of the Humber that has any links with Yorkshire (and even then I suspect the pairing would be resented were there regional governments). The rest of Lincolnshire might not be Midlands, but it does at least have links to it. Pairing Lincolnshire with East Anglia has never been done because East Anglia has often been linked by central government planners with the eastern Home Counties (as is the case with the current East of England region). Were England to get regional government of some kind, a decent case would actually exist for having Lincolnshire (the whole of it) be its own region. It may be just about large enough...