| Borough of Hartlepool | |
| Settlement Type: | Unitary authority area and borough |
| Coordinates: | 54.6864°N -1.2108°W |
| Subdivision Type: | Sovereign state |
| Subdivision Name: | United Kingdom |
| Subdivision Type1: | Country |
| Subdivision Name1: | England |
| Subdivision Type2: | Region |
| Subdivision Name2: | North East |
| Subdivision Type3: | Ceremonial county |
| Subdivision Name3: | County Durham |
| Subdivision Type4: | City region |
| Subdivision Name4: | Tees Valley |
| Established Title: | Incorporated |
| Established Date: | 1 April 1974 |
| Established Title1: | Unitary authority |
| Established Date1: | 1 April 1996 |
| Named For: | Hartlepool |
| Seat Type: | Administrative HQ |
| Seat: | Hartlepool Civic Centre |
| Government Footnotes: | [1] |
| Government Type: | Unitary authority |
| Governing Body: | Hartlepool Borough Council |
| Leader Title: | Executive |
| Leader Name: | Committee system |
| Leader Title1: | Control |
| Leader Title2: | Leader |
| Leader Name2: | Brenda Harrison (L) |
| Leader Title3: | Mayor |
| Leader Name3: | Shane Moore |
| Leader Title4: | MP |
| Leader Name4: | Jonathan Brash (L) |
| Area Rank: | |
| Population Rank: | |
| Demographics Type1: | Ethnicity (2021) |
| Demographics1 Title1: | Ethnic groups |
| Demographics Type2: | Religion (2021) |
| Demographics2 Title1: | Religion |
| Timezone1: | GMT |
| Utc Offset1: | +0 |
| Timezone1 Dst: | BST |
| Utc Offset1 Dst: | +1 |
| Postal Code Type: | Postcode areas |
| Postal Code: | TS |
| Area Code Type: | Dialling codes |
| Area Code: | 01429 |
| Iso Code: | GB-HPL |
| Blank1 Name: | GSS code |
| Blank1 Info: | E06000001 |
The Borough of Hartlepool is a local government district with borough status in County Durham, England. Since 1996 Hartlepool Borough Council has been a unitary authority, being a district council which also performs the functions of a county council; it is independent from Durham County Council. It is named after its largest settlement, Hartlepool, where the council is based. The borough also includes a rural area to the west of the town. The population of the borough at the 2021 census was 92,571, of which over 95% (87,995) lived in the built-up area of Hartlepool itself.
Since 2016 the council has been a member of the Tees Valley Combined Authority, which has been led by the directly elected Tees Valley Mayor since 2017. The Hartlepool constituency has been coterminous with the borough since 1983.
The neighbouring districts are the County Durham district and Stockton-on-Tees; the borough also adjoins Redcar and Cleveland across the mouth of the River Tees.
The town of Hartlepool was an ancient borough, having been granted a charter by King John in 1200.[2] [3] It was reformed to become a municipal borough in 1850. This borough covered the relatively small area now known as the Headland, where the original town was located.[4]
The new town of West Hartlepool was laid out from the 1840s on land outside Hartlepool's historic borough boundaries, in the neighbouring parish of Stranton. A body of improvement commissioners was established to administer the new town in 1854.[5] The commissioners' district was enlarged in 1883 to include Seaton Carew.[6] The commissioners were superseded in 1887, when West Hartlepool was incorporated as a separate borough.[7] In 1902 West Hartlepool was elevated to become a county borough, making it independent from Durham County Council.[8]
After several unification efforts starting in 1902, the two boroughs of Hartlepool and West Hartlepool merged into a single county borough called Hartlepool in 1967, also absorbing at the same time the neighbouring parish of Seaton (being the residual rural part of the old parish of Seaton Carew) to provide coastal land for industrial development.[9] [10]
The borough was reformed and enlarged on 1 April 1974, by the merger of the previous county borough of Hartlepool, along with the parishes of Brierton, Claxton, Dalton Piercy, Elwick, Elwick Hall, Greatham, Hart and Newton Bewley, from the Stockton Rural District, all of which had been part of the administrative county of Durham. The enlarged borough was transferred at the same time from County Durham to the new non-metropolitan county of Cleveland.[11]
Cleveland was abolished in 1996 following the Banham Review, which gave unitary authority status to its four districts, including Hartlepool. The way this change was implemented was to create a new non-metropolitan county of Hartlepool covering the same area as the existing borough, but with no separate county council; instead the existing borough council took on county functions, making it a unitary authority. The borough was restored to County Durham for ceremonial purposes at the same time, but as a unitary authority it is independent from Durham County Council.[12] Hartlepool continues to share certain local services with the other former Cleveland boroughs, including the Cleveland Police and Cleveland Fire Brigade.
| Hartlepool Borough Council | |
| Logo Pic: | Hartlepool_Borough_Council_logo.JPG |
| Logo Res: | 150px |
| House Type: | Unitary authority |
| Leader1 Type: | Mayor |
| Leader1: | Carole Thompson |
| Party1: | Labour |
| Election1: | 21 May 2024 |
| Leader2 Type: | Leader |
| Leader2: | Brenda Harrison |
| Party2: | Labour |
| Election2: | 21 May 2024[13] |
| Leader3 Type: | Managing Director |
| Leader3: | Denise McGuckin |
| Election3: | 7 September 2020[14] |
| Seats: | 36 councillors |
| Structure1: | Hartlepool Borough Council 2024.svg |
| Structure1 Res: | 250px |
| Political Groups1: |
|
| Joint Committees: | Tees Valley Combined Authority |
| Voting System1: | First-past-the-post |
| Last Election1: | 2 May 2024 |
| Next Election1: | 7 May 2026 |
| Session Room: | File:War Memorial, Hartlepool - geograph.org.uk - 3226751.jpg |
| Meeting Place: | Civic Centre, Victoria Road, Hartlepool, TS248AY |
Hartlepool Borough Council provides both county-level and district-level services. There are also nine civil parishes in the borough, which form a second tier of local government for their areas; the rest of the borough is an unparished area.[16]
Since 2016 the council has been a member of the Tees Valley Combined Authority.[17]
In May 2021, the four parish councils of Elwick, Hart, Dalton Piercy and Greatham all issued individual votes of no confidence in Hartlepool Borough Council, and expressed their desire to re-join County Durham. Subsequently, quarterly parish liaison meetings were set up between the parish and borough councils, and a new Parish Charter was adopted.[18]
The council has been under Labour majority control since the May 2024 local elections.
Political control of the council since the 1974 reforms has been as follows:[19] [20]
Non-metropolitan district
| Party in control | Years | |
|---|---|---|
| 1974–1976 | ||
| 1976–1979 | ||
| 1979–1996 | ||
Unitary authority
| Party in control | Years | |
|---|---|---|
| 1996–2000 | ||
| 2000–2004 | ||
| 2004–2008 | ||
| 2008–2010 | ||
| 2010–2019 | ||
| 2019–2024 | ||
| 2024–present | ||
See also: Mayor of Hartlepool. Since 2013 the role of mayor has been largely ceremonial in Hartlepool. Political leadership is instead provided by the leader of the council.
Between 2002 and 2013, Hartlepool was one of a small number of councils in the United Kingdom to have a directly elected mayor. This followed a referendum held in the borough in October 2001.[21] The first mayoral election was held in May 2002, and became famous for being won by the mascot of Hartlepool United F.C., 'H'Angus the Monkey',[22] with a majority of approximately 500 over the second-placed Labour Party candidate. The man inside the monkey costume, Stuart Drummond, served as mayor as an independent, being re-elected in 2005 with a majority of over 10,000[23] and again in 2009 with a second round majority of 844.
In November 2012 Hartlepool voted in a referendum to abolish the directly elected mayor and return to having a leader of the council, as it had done prior to 2002, being the leadership model used by most English councils.[24] 7,366 voted against the directly elected mayor system, while 5,177 voted to retain it, on a turnout of 18%.[24]
The leaders from 1999 to 2002 were:
| Councillor | Party | From | To | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ray Waller[25] | 1999 | |||
| Russell Hart[26] | 1999 | 2000 | ||
| Arthur Preece[27] | 2000 | 5 May 2002 | ||
The directly elected mayor was:
The leaders since 2013 have been:[28]
| Councillor | Party | From | To | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Christopher Akers-Belcher | 2 May 2013 | May 2019 | ||
| Shane Moore | 23 May 2019 | 12 Sep 2019 | ||
| [29] | 12 Sep 2019 | 31 Jan 2020 | ||
| [30] | 31 Jan 2020 | 16 May 2023 | ||
| Mike Young | 16 May 2023 | 21 May 2024 | ||
| Brenda Harrison | 21 May 2024 | |||
Following the 2024 election the composition of the council was:[15]
| Party | Councillors | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 24 | |||
| 6 | |||
| 5 | |||
| 1 | |||
| Total | 36 | ||
See also: Hartlepool Borough Council elections. Since the last boundary changes in 2020 the council has comprised 36 councillors representing 12 wards, with each ward electing three councillors. Elections are held three years out of every four, with a third of the council (one councillor for each ward) elected each time for a four-year term of office.[31]
The council is based at the Civic Centre on Victoria Road, which was built in the 1970s.[32] Prior to that it was based at the Municipal Buildings on Church Square, which had been built in 1889 for the old West Hartlepool Borough Council. Before the 1967 merger the old Hartlepool Borough Council had been based at Hartlepool Borough Hall on Middlegate.
See also: List of civil parishes in County Durham. Settlements in the borough include:
See main article: Demographics of Tees Valley.
| Ethnic Group | Year | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991[33] | 2001[34] | 2011[35] | 2021[36] | ||||||
| Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | ||
| White Total | 89,765 | 99.3% | 87,569 | 98.8% | 89,899 | 97.7% | 89,068 | 96.4% | |
| White: British | – | – | 86,874 | 98% | 88,924 | 96.6% | 87,761 | 95.0% | |
| White: Irish | – | – | 235 | 193 | 170 | 0.2% | |||
| White: Gypsy or Irish Traveller | – | – | – | – | 40 | 37 | 0.0% | ||
| White: Roma | 19 | 0.0% | |||||||
| White: Other | – | – | 460 | 742 | 1,081 | 1.2% | |||
| Asian or Asian British Total | 486 | 0.5% | 602 | 0.7% | 1,304 | 1.4% | 1,600 | 1.7% | |
| Asian or Asian British: Indian | 160 | 187 | 266 | 335 | 0.4% | ||||
| Asian or Asian British: Pakistani | 106 | 204 | 291 | 297 | 0.3% | ||||
| Asian or Asian British: Bangladeshi | 73 | 73 | 214 | 278 | 0.3% | ||||
| Asian or Asian British: Chinese | 94 | 110 | 229 | 217 | 0.2% | ||||
| Asian or Asian British: Other Asian | 53 | 28 | 304 | 473 | 0.5% | ||||
| Black or Black British Total | 78 | – | 70 | – | 170 | 0.2% | 445 | 0.6% | |
| Black or Black British: African | 31 | – | 36 | – | 36 | 327 | 0.4% | ||
| Black or Black British: Caribbean | 21 | – | 16 | – | 129 | 57 | 0.1% | ||
| Black or Black British: Other Black | 26 | – | 18 | – | 5 | 61 | 0.1% | ||
| Mixed or British Mixed Total | – | – | 311 | 0.4% | 550 | 0.6% | 671 | 0.8% | |
| Mixed: White and Black Caribbean | – | – | 85 | – | 180 | 143 | 0.2% | ||
| Mixed: White and Black African | – | – | 34 | – | 54 | 115 | 0.1% | ||
| Mixed: White and Asian | – | – | 94 | – | 173 | 240 | 0.3% | ||
| Mixed: Other Mixed | – | – | 98 | – | 143 | 173 | 0.2% | ||
| Other: Total | 80 | – | 59 | – | 105 | 0.1% | 554 | 0.6% | |
| Other: Arab | – | – | – | – | 57 | 270 | 0.3% | ||
| Other: Any other ethnic group | 80 | – | 59 | – | 48 | 284 | 0.3% | ||
| Total | 90,409 | 100% | 88,611 | 100% | 92,028 | 100% | 92,338 | 100% | |