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Post by londonseal80 on Nov 9, 2021 16:28:38 GMT
Perhaps this should be a thread of it’s own, but I would propose that London could five large boroughs like New York with the M25 as natural boundary for the city.
1. City of Westminster, City of London, the London boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, Brent (Willesden part), Camden, Islington, Hackney, Tower Hamlets
Administration centre?: Westminster or City of London
2. The London Boroughs of Haringey, Enfield, Barnet, Brent (Wembley part), Harrow, Hillingdon, Ealing, Hounslow, part of Richmond (which lies North of River Thames), the parts of ceremonial counties of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire (which lie within the M25 motorway and the part of Surrey (which lies North of River Thames and within the M25 motorway)
Administration Centre?: Wembley, Uxbridge, Ealing, Watford
3. The London Boroughs of Newham, Barking and Dagenham, Walthamstow, Redbridge, Havering and the parts of the cermonial county of Essex (which lies within the M25 motorway)
Adminstration Centre?: Stratford, Ilford, Romford
4. The London Boroughs of Southwark, Lambeth, Wandsworth, Merton, the part of Richmond (which lies South of the Thames), Kingston upon Thames, Sutton and the parts of cerominial county of Surrey (which lie within the M25 motorway and south of the River Thames)
Administration Centre?: Southwark, Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Epsom.
5. The London Boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich, Bexley, Bromley and the parts of the ceremonial county of Kent (which lie wthin the M25 motorway)
Administration Centre?: Greenwich, Bromley
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ilerda
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Post by ilerda on Nov 9, 2021 16:35:23 GMT
You could call them London, Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, and Kent respectively...
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Post by timrollpickering on Nov 9, 2021 16:39:03 GMT
Richmond-upon-Thames, since no London Borough should have ever crossed the River Thames. Place Richmond itself with Kingston-upon-Thames (which is small by London Borough standards) and place Twickenham et al. (which was part of Middlesex, not Surrey, prior to 1965) with Hounslow with which it has much better connections, at least in transport terms. I can't help but wonder if going the other way would be better. Perhaps if Barnes and Hammersmith were in the same borough then Hammersmith Bridge might have been sorted out sooner. And I don't think there's ever been a time when no borough in London crosses the Thames. Before Richmond there was Woolwich. |
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Post by timrollpickering on Nov 9, 2021 16:46:57 GMT
Perhaps this should be a thread of it’s own, but I would propose that London could five large boroughs like New York with the M25 as natural boundary for the city. Good luck selling that in Watford. Down in Surrey I spent six years at a prep school literally next to the M25 and never once got the idea that we were somehow at the very edge of London or that it was a momentous thing to cross the boundary twice a day simply because in those days right turning into the school was prohibited and so you had to drive over the motorway to turn round at the roundabout. |
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sirbenjamin
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Post by sirbenjamin on Nov 9, 2021 18:03:35 GMT
I think we could lose Brent, and divide it up amongst its neighbours.
Similarly Haringey and Waltham Forest seem to lack a bit of cohesion and centredness, but if we lose all three of those, North London boroughs would be quite a lot bigger than the Southern ones.
In some ways Merton is the Southern equivalent of Brent, but it feels much more justified and identifiable to me - although this is undoubtedly exaggerated by my having spent time there growing up, whereas I only go to Brent to watch Cup finals.
As suggested above, we could get rid of Richmond, and put the Northern bit into Hounslow and the section south of the river into an expanded Kingston.
In generally I favour expanding London slightly, aligning the border with the M25, which would have the potential to create a few new boroughs bringing the number back up to 32.
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Post by 🏴☠️ Neath West 🏴☠️ on Nov 9, 2021 20:22:10 GMT
Westminster. Just partition it between the City and Kensington and Chelsea along Watling Street. Probably some other bits of extreme Inner London should go into the City too. The Worshipful Company of Eoldormen is more relevant to the economic success of the heart of the Wen than RMT officials and other ne'er-do-wells with life-long votes by virtue of social tenancy.
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peterl
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Post by peterl on Nov 9, 2021 21:44:30 GMT
Again not strictly "boroughs", but I think the time has come to remove local authority status from Inner and Middle Temples.
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Post by Penddu on Nov 10, 2021 3:30:01 GMT
You could call them London, Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, and Kent respectively... Central London North Middlesex West Middlesex Metro Kent Metro Essex Metro Surrey |
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Post by hullenedge on Nov 10, 2021 8:02:53 GMT
The Economist scheme, from 1986, for five 'super boroughs':-  |
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Post by John Chanin on Nov 10, 2021 8:19:54 GMT
More seriously the London boroughs are on the small side for unitaries under the current government policy of seeking units of 400,000 - 500,000. Even someone like me with a preference for smaller units of c250,000 which are big enough to provide comprehensive services efficiently without being impossibly remote, can see that some boroughs, particularly in SW London, are too small.
But grandiose proposals to reduce London to 4 or 5 authorities are fairly ridiculous. The city has a population of c 9 million. Even at the government’s favoured 500,000 that’s 18 councils.
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Post by londonseal80 on Nov 10, 2021 9:56:34 GMT
I think we could lose Brent, and divide it up amongst its neighbours. Similarly Haringey and Waltham Forest seem to lack a bit of cohesion and centredness, but if we lose all three of those, North London boroughs would be quite a lot bigger than the Southern ones. In some ways Merton is the Southern equivalent of Brent, but it feels much more justified and identifiable to me - although this is undoubtedly exaggerated by my having spent time there growing up, whereas I only go to Brent to watch Cup finals. As suggested above, we could get rid of Richmond, and put the Northern bit into Hounslow and the section south of the river into an expanded Kingston. In generally I favour expanding London slightly, aligning the border with the M25, which would have the potential to create a few new boroughs bringing the number back up to 32. Merton is a borough of three quite different districts - Wimbledon being the south of the river version of Hampstead, Mitcham being the equivalent of Edmonton, Morden (or Merton & Morden) being the equivalent of Greenford/Sudbury/Alperton. |
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Georg Ebner
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Post by Georg Ebner on Nov 10, 2021 13:46:45 GMT
The Economist scheme, from 1986, for five 'super boroughs':- Why then not the old shires? At least they should have used "normal" names like N, NE, (S)E, SW, W. |
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Georg Ebner
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Post by Georg Ebner on Nov 10, 2021 13:51:51 GMT
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Post by hullenedge on Nov 10, 2021 13:56:08 GMT
The Economist scheme, from 1986, for five 'super boroughs':- Why then not the old shires? At least they should have used "normal" names like N, NE, (S)E, SW, W. Whittington, Chaucer and Betjeman are admirable names but those boundaries are not. The scheme tried to create boroughs that no one party could dominate. |
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Post by heslingtonian on Nov 10, 2021 20:17:13 GMT
A few ideas:
Havering - wants to be in Essex
Bromley - wants to be in Kent
Lewisham - could easily be merged with Greenwich
Hackney - could easily be merged with Islington
Brent - could easily be merged with Ealing
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Post by greenhert on Nov 10, 2021 21:24:18 GMT
A few ideas: Havering - wants to be in Essex Bromley - wants to be in Kent Lewisham - could easily be merged with Greenwich Hackney - could easily be merged with Islington Brent - could easily be merged with Ealing The Crystal Palace area is more attached to London than Orpington ever will be, in terms of Bromley. As for Havering, this does not really apply to the Hornchurch part. Splitting up Brent (particularly since neither Wembley nor Willesden particularly welcomed the merger that created Brent) between Harrow (for the Wembley part) and Camden (for the Willesden part) makes much more sense than merging it with Ealing, with which it does not have good links. |
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Post by londonseal80 on Nov 11, 2021 21:12:13 GMT
You could call them London, Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, and Kent respectively... It kind of was the idea of them to have some historic ties with the old county boundaries, Another advantage of my hypothetical proposals is that local areas (such as Kilburn, Herne Hill, Kenton, Worcester Park, St Helier, Blackheath to name a few) are unified in one of the five boroughs and are no longer split between different boroughs or in the case of Worcester Park split between Greater London and the County of Surrey. Crystal Palace however would still be a mess, but the split would be between two rather than five boroughs. |
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