Calderdale

The Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale is a metropolitan borough of the metropolitan county of West Yorkshire, England, through which the upper part of the River Calder flows, and from which it takes its name. Its largest and most populous settlement is Halifax.

The district is mostly rural and covers part of the South Pennines, but there are some industrial towns in the east and some river valleys.

History

The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, by the merger of the county borough of Halifax, the boroughs of Brighouse, Todmorden and the urban districts of Elland, Hebden Royd, Ripponden, Sowerby Bridge, and part of Queensbury and Shelf urban district, and also Hepton Rural District.

Locations

Other places in Calderdale include:

Barkisland, Boothtown, Beechwood, Brighouse
Chiserley, Clifton, Copley, Cornholme, Cragg Vale
Eastwood, Elland
Gauxholme, Greetland
Hebden Bridge, Heptonstall, Hipperholme, Holywell Green
Illingworth
Lightcliffe, Luddenden, Luddendenfoot
Midgley, Mill Bank, Mixenden, Mount Tabor, Mytholm, Mytholmroyd
Northowram
Ogden, Old Town, Ovenden
Pellon, Portsmouth
Rastrick, Ripponden, Rishworth
Savile Park, Shelf, Skircoat Green, Siddal, Sowerby, Sowerby Bridge, Southowram, Sowood, Stainland
Todmorden, Triangle
Wainstalls, Walsden, Warley Town, West Vale, Wholestone Hill

Local government

The borough is divided into 17 wards and each is represented on the borough council by three councillors. Each councillor is normally elected on a first past the post basis for a four-year period which is staggered with the other councillors of that ward so that only one councillor per ward is up for election at any one time. Exceptions to this include by-elections and ward boundary changes.

The table below summarises the results of the 2007 local government election. Each party is ordered by number of votes registered.

The seventeen wards in Calderdale are: Brighouse; Calder; Elland; Greetland and Stainland; Hipperholme and Lightcliffe; Illingworth and Mixenden; Luddendenfoot; Northowram and Shelf; Ovenden; Park; Rastrick; Ryburn; Skircoat; Sowerby Bridge; Todmorden; Town; and Warley

2007 election

The table below summarises the results of the 2007 local government election. Each party is ordered by number of votes registered. 17 of the 51 seats were up for re-election. Summary of the May 2007 Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council election results |- !colspan=2|Parties
!Seats !Gains !Losses !Net
Gain/Loss !Seats % !Votes % !Votes !+/- |- |18||1||1||0||39.2||28.4||14,565||-0.4 |- |11||1||0||+1||19.6||26.3||13,494||+2.8 |- |16||1||1||0||31.4||23.6||12,105||-1.5 |- |1||0||1||-1||3.9||10.8||5,569||-0.1 |- |1||0||0||0||0||3.6||1,840||N/A |- |0||0||0||0||0||2.8||1,459||+0.3 |- |4||0||0||0||5.9||2.3||1,156||-6.8 |- |0||0||0||0||0||2.2||1,147||N/A |- !colspan=2|Total!!51!! !! !! !! !! !!51,335!! |}

2006 election

The table below summarises the results of the 2006 local government election. Each party is ordered by number of votes registered. 17 of the 51 seats were up for re-election. Although these are the results after the election, the number of seats per party changed later that year. Councillor Paul Rogan was returned by the Rastrick ward in this election for four years as a Conservative councillor and is included in the twenty Conservative seats shown below. However, after the 2006 election, he left the party and joined the English Democrats Party. Also this year, Councillor Nicholas Yates, who had been returned by the Brighouse ward in the 2004 election for four years and is included in the twenty Conservative seats shown below, left the party to continue his tenure as an Independent. This left the Conservatives with 18 seats, 1 held by the English Democrats and 4 held by Independents. In December 2006, Illingworth and Mixenden ward Councillor Tom McElroy (Labour) died suddenly, leaving Labour with nine seats. The by-election to succeed him took place on 22 February 2007, with Labour holding the ward. Summary of the May 2006 Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council election results |- !colspan=2|Parties
!Seats !Gains !Losses !Net
Gain/Loss !Seats % !Votes % !Votes !+/- |- |20||1||2||-1||39.2||28.8||15,657|| |- |16||1||0||+1||31.4||25.1||13,661|| |- |10||1||0||+1||19.6||23.5||12,779|| |- |2||0||1||-1||3.9||10.9||5,937|| |- |3||1||1||0||5.9||9.1||4,946|| |- |0||0||0||0||0||2.5||1,351|| |- |0||0||0||0||0||0.2||103|| |- !colspan=2|Total!!51!! !! !! !! !! !!54,434!! |}