Merseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million.
It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the
Mersey Estuary, and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral,
and the city of Liverpool. Merseyside, which was created on 1 April 1974 as a result of
the Local Government Act 1972, takes its name from the River Mersey.
Merseyside spans 249 square miles of land which border Lancashire, Greater Manchester,
and Cheshire; the Irish Sea is to the west. North Wales is across the Dee Estuary. There
is a mix of high density urban areas, suburbs, semi-rural and rural locations in Merseyside,
but overwhelmingly the land use is urban. It has a focused central business district,
formed by Liverpool City Centre, but Merseyside is also a polycentric county with five metropolitan
districts, each of which has at least one major town centre and outlying suburbs. The
Liverpool Urban Area is the fifth most populous conurbation in England, and dominates the
geographic centre of the county, while the smaller Birkenhead Urban Area dominates the
Wirral Peninsula in the south. For the 12 years following 1974 the county
had a two-tier system of local government; district councils shared power with the Merseyside
County Council. The county council was abolished in 1986, and so its districts are now effectively
unitary authority areas. However, the metropolitan county continues to exist in law and as a
geographic frame of reference, and several county-wide services are co-ordinated by authorities
and joint-boards, such as Merseytravel, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service and the Merseyside
Police; as a ceremonial county, Merseyside has a Lord Lieutenant and a High Sheriff.
Merseyside is joined by the neighbouring borough of Halton to form the Liverpool City Region,
which utilises The Mersey Partnership as a development agency.
Merseyside is an amalgamation of 22 former local government districts from the former
administrative counties of Lancashire, Cheshire and six autonomous county boroughs centred
on Birkenhead, Bootle, Liverpool, Southport, St Helens, and Wallasey.
History
Merseyside was designated as a "Special Review" area in the Local Government Act 1958, and
the Local Government Commission for England started a review of this area in 1962, based
around the core county boroughs of LiverpoolBirkenhead/Wallasey. Further areas, including Widnes and Runcorn,
were added to the Special Review Area by Order in 1965. Draft proposals were published in
1965, but the commission never completed its final proposals as it was abolished in 1966.
Instead, a Royal Commission was set up to review English local government entirely,
and its report proposed a much wider Merseyside metropolitan area covering southwest Lancashire
and northwest Cheshire, extending as far south as Chester and as far north as the River Ribble.
This would have included four districts: Southport/Crosby, Liverpool/Bootle, St Helens/Widnes and Wirral/Chester.
In 1970 the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive was set up, covering Liverpool,
Sefton, Wirral and Knowsley, but excluding Southport and St. Helens.
The Redcliffe-Maud Report was rejected by the incoming Conservative Party government,
but the concept of a two-tier metropolitan area based on the Mersey area was retained.
A White Paper was published in 1971. The Local Government Bill presented to Parliament involved
a substantial trimming from the White Paper, excluding the northern and southern fringes
of the area, excluding Chester, Ellesmere Port. Further alterations took place in Parliament,
with Skelmersdale being removed from the area, and a proposed district including St Helens
and Huyton being subdivided into what are now the metropolitan boroughs of St Helens
and Knowsley. Merseyside was created on 1 April 1974 from
areas previously parts of the administrative counties of Lancashire and Cheshire, along
with the county boroughs of Birkenhead, Wallasey, Liverpool, Bootle, and St Helens. Following
the creation of Merseyside, Merseytravel expanded to take in St Helens and Southport.
Between 1974 and 1986 the county had a two-tier system of local government with the five boroughs
sharing power with the Merseyside County Council. However in 1986 the government of Margaret
Thatcher abolished the county council along with all other metropolitan county councils,
and so its boroughs are now effectively unitary authorities.
Geography
Merseyside is divided into two parts by the Mersey Estuary, the Wirral is located on the
west side of the estuary, upon the Wirral Peninsula and the rest of the county is located
on the east side of the estuary. The eastern part of Merseyside borders onto Lancashire
to the north, Greater Manchester to the east, with both parts of the county bordering Cheshire
to the south. The territory comprising the county of Merseyside previously formed part
of the administrative counties of Lancashire and Cheshire.
The two parts are linked by the two Mersey Tunnels, the Mersey Railway, and the Mersey
Ferry. Identity
To express location within the Merseyside area by the preposition on – thus "on Merseyside"
as opposed to "in Merseyside" – was traditionally the more usual. However, the logic of suggestions
in support of this from some quarters falls down; since it is, in fact, entirely possible
to be situated [both] "in" or "on" [either] “side” of the River Mersey and area(s)
thus designated. Therefore, more recent usage tends to draw distinctions between the geographical
"Merseyside" – for which "on" is considered appropriate – and the Metropolitan county
of "Merseyside", for which "in" is used. Ipsos MORI polls in the boroughs of Sefton
and Wirral in the 2000s showed that in general, residents of these boroughs identified slightly
more strongly to Merseyside than to Lancashire or Cheshire respectively, but their affinity
to Merseyside was more likely to be "fairly strong" than "very strong".
Local government
Metropolitan boroughs Merseyside contains the metropolitan boroughs
of Liverpool, Knowsley, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral.
County level functions Despite the abolition of the county council
some local services are still run on a county-wide basis, now administered by joint-boards of
the five metropolitan boroughs; these include the:
Merseyside Police Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service
Merseytravel Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority
Merseyside Pension Scheme, administered by Wirral Borough Council, with offices in Liverpool
Economy This is a chart of trend of regional gross
value added of Merseyside at current basic prices published by Office for National Statistics
with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.
Greater Merseyside Other nearby towns are not part of Merseyside,
such as Skelmersdale, Ormskirk, Warrington, Runcorn, Widnes and Ellesmere Port, but the
designation "Greater Merseyside" has sometimes been adopted for Merseyside and these six
towns unofficially. This also has a semi-official usage by some local authorities and organisations
and is used by Geographers' A-Z Map Company for their Merseyside Street Atlas. However,
a separate 'City region', comprising Merseyside and Halton, has some official recognition
as being Greater Merseyside, although it has also been referred to as Liverpool City Region.
Halton also forms part of the Merseyside NUTS region.
Places of interest See also
List of Lord Lieutenants of Merseyside List of High Sheriffs of Merseyside
1911 Liverpool general transport strike List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest
in Merseyside References
External links Merseyside at DMOZ
Merseytravel website Merseyside.com local guide, A-Z, street index
Merseyside Today - regional guide Mersey Reporter History - Merseyside History
Merseyside Businesses online Mersey Life - Community