Regional definitions

Indeed it did!

Before that YTV did cover just Yorkshire (albeit northern Derbys). Belmont was siwtched over to YTV (1971?) after YTV failed to get Bilsdale. AIUI the ITA at the time decided Bilsdale penetrated too much into the NE of ENgland.

It was felt that most of Belmont's viewers would indentify more with Yorkshire, especially since the historic East Riding was well within Belmont's catchment area. So Belmont was turned over to YTV. I think that's right anyway!

I take your point, and kind of agree to an extent. It all depends on how you define things really. If you drive out of the City Of York's boundary, you will come across 'Welcome to North Yorkshire' signs implying you were previously not there... but that's councils for you.

It's the same situation as with Hull and the East Riding.

I see what you mean, but bear in mind that it is the councils who put these signs up. As far as North Yorkshire County Council are concerned, the City of York is not in the NYCC area, so it isn't in North Yorkshire!

Think about this way: What county is York in, if it's not in North Yorkshire? The ceremonial counties of England, are the true geographical counties. Although the City of York has the same powers as a county council, it isn't a county! For a county to be a county in England, it has to have a Lord Lieutenant.

The City of York's Lord Lieu is the same as North Yorkshire, because York devolved from North Yorkshire in terms of local authorities.

As you rightly point out, Kingston-Upon-Hull is similar. KUH City council is a UA, separate from the East Riding of Yorkshire UA. So as far as EROY Council is concerned, it is not part of the EROY. Hence its signs on the borders of Hull.

Again this is grossly misleading, because Hull shares the same Lord Lieu as the rest of EROY, therefore is in the geographic county of EROY.

I know it's Wikipedia, but these were the only maps I could find at the moment to demonstrate my point. Look halfway down the page on the right in each case:
North Yorkshire
East Riding

It is also the same case with Nottingham, Derby and Leceister too. You can hardly say they're not in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leceistershire can you? Confer South Gloucestershire/ Gloucestershire or North Lincolnshire/NE Lincolnshire/Lincolnshire or North Somerset/BANES/Somerset

Presumably signs put up by councils relate to " administrative counties" (if you see what I mean) rather than geographic ones?

Hull may well be geographically in EROY, but if it doesn't come under the administration of EROY County Council (or whatever EROY's council is called), then the signage is perfectly acceptable.

Where I live:

I live in a town in northern/north-eastern Warwickshire called Bedworth. There are two levels of council-ness - the local council in the first instance ( Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council ), and the county council above that ( Warwickshire County Council ).

The neighbouring city of Coventry (south Bedworth borders north Coventry), has just the local council ( Coventry City Council ) and that's it. It is not administratively under any county council. Coventry is in the West Midlands County, which doesn't have a county council.

As far as I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong), all of the new "metropolitan counties" that were created in the 1970s (e.g. West Midlands, Humberside, etc) were sans-County Councils. So, administratively, they were never "counties" in the hitherto usual sense.

The legacy of the 1970s "new counties" is nothing but mess. Presumably the only reason why we have such expressions as "Unitary Authority", and towns/cities that are "ceremonially" in a particular county whilst administratively not in it, is because of the way that many of the utterly artificial 1970s counties have ultimately broke-up. If it wasn't for politicall insanity back then, we wouldn't have the confusion now.

Councils put up signs relating to the administrative councils; because administrative counties and UAs are defined by the council areas

Each UA belongs to a geographic/ceremonial county, except for the five UAs that are counties in their own right: Rutland, Herefordshire, Isle of Wight, Bristol and City of London.

Bizarrely the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees is uniquely split between two counties; north of the Tees Co Durham, south of the Tees North Yorks. Why not use the boundary between the boroughs of Stockon-on-T and Middlesbrough?

I think some of the 1974 counties weren't all that artificial. Cumbria (Cumberland and Westmorland had long been collectively referred to as that) and Isle of Wight (part of Hampshire before 1974) were obvious choices. The metropolitan counties were a sensible idea too I feel, consider how much some conurbations had swelled after WWII.

However the 1974 counties of Avon and Humberside were completely artificial, the latter only being created for the funding of a certain bridge Cleveland seemed sensible to me, but it was obviously unpopular as the last two I mentioned, hence its scrapping in 1996 too!

Metropolitan counties did have county councils until 1986. Margaret Thatcher decided that met county councils were getting to powerful, and contained too many socialist subversives

So for most intents and purposes, powers transferred to the constiuent met boroughs in that year. However somethings are still decided at county-level in met counties: Transport, fire/police cover and civil planning.

So in a sense the met counties still exist administratively and legally. These met county commitees are made up of representative councillors from each met borough. And of course each met county has a Lord Lieutenant, so they are ceremonial and geographic counties too.

The latest idea from the Government is to get rid of district/borough councils in England's two-tier (or "shire") counties. I think the aim is to make all the English county councils unitary authorities eventually, and any city/borough/district councils with large populations that are not UAs will become so. Met counties will be again unaffected.

County councils under consideration for this treatment are: Cumbria, Co Durham, Northumberland, Cheshire, Befordshire, Wiltshire, Nottinghamshire and North Yorkshire. Probably more will follow. I should think.

Bearing in mind that all of Wales's and Scotland's local authorities are exclusively UAs and seem to work well, this might a wise move for England's inefficient local government set-up.

If you go by the signage, the area between York and the Derwent would apprear to be in no mans land. When you leave Stamford Bridge on the A166 NYCC have taken down the sign and the City of York sign is 3 miles further on. The same applies to the A1079 at Kexby the East riding is signed but again there is a blank sign board and nothing for 3 miles on the outskirts of York.

If North Yorkshire gets unitary status, the boundary commission are considering leaving Filey & everthing between the Wolds and the Derwent in North Yorkshire but are considering bringing Selby & district into the East Riding.

The present arrangements with the so called regional news from the BBC were supposed to be augmented by the roll out of local news for which the East Riding, Hull, North & South Lincolnshire would get a more appropriate news mix. All this is very unlikely to happen as the BBC is quietly dropping the local news scheme since a lot of the licence fee was ring fenced for the Manchester production base.

We would appear to be stuck with his Leviness live from Hull - though I understand that Open centres are not the flavour of the month they were. Anyone want to buy some garish yellow and orange sofa's

Thanks for that, all very fascinating information

I imagine the City of York sign is still at its original boundary, considering that the City of York expanded it boundaries in 1996 when it became a UA; taking in parts of Ryedale, Harrogate and Selby Districts. Between 1974-1996, the city's boundaries were roughly the "ring-road" (the A64 and A1237).

So I imagine that the City of York sign of which you talk, is still near the older boundary of CoY. Maybe we could leave this issue to Levy?

"So Councillor X from the City of York-- it's not good enough is it? You haven't moved those signs-- it's been 11 years! Are we going to get an apology? No? What do you mean you're from East Riding council not York and it's not your responsiblity? Strong words. Now a nice arty picture of Goole Docks. Thanks for being there"