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City of Sunderland

City of Sunderland
Shown within England
Geography
Status	Metropolitan borough, City (1992)
Ceremonial county	Tyne and Wear
Historic county	County Durham
Region	North East England
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Area - Total	Ranked 219th 137.46 km²
Admin HQ	Sunderland
ONS code	00CM
Demographics
Population: Total () Density	Ranked / km²
Ethnicity (2001 census)	98.1% White 1.0% S. Asian
Politics
Sunderland City Council http://www.sunderland.gov.uk/
Leadership	Leader & Cabinet
Control
MPs	Bill Etherington Sharon Hodgson Fraser Kemp Chris Mullin

The City of Sunderland is a local government district of Tyne and Wear, in North East England, with the status of a city and metropolitan borough. It is named after its largest settlement, Sunderland, but covers a far larger area which includes the towns of Washington, Houghton-le-Spring, and other smaller settlements.

The district was formed in 1974 as the Metropolitan Borough of Sunderland as part of the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972 and is an amalgamation of four former local government districts from County Durham. It was granted city status in 1992, the 40th anniversary of the Queen's accession. The district had a population of 280,807 at the time of the 2001 census.

History

The metropolitan borough was formed in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 by the merger of several districts of County Durham - Washington Urban District, Houghton-le-Spring Urban District and Hetton Urban District - with the County Borough of Sunderland.

The metropolitan borough was granted city status in 1992, the 40th anniversary of the Queen's accession. At the Queen's Golden Jubilee the city petitioned to be allowed a Lord Mayor, but was unsuccessful. Although the city does not have a Cathedral, as it is located in the diocese of Durham, it does have a Minster.

HMS Ocean, the Royal Navy's biggest warship, is Sunderland's adopted ship. In March 2004 it was granted the freedom of the City. St Benedict Biscop was adopted as the City's Patron Saint in March 2004.

Economy

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Sunderland at current basic prices published (pp.240-253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

Year	Regional Gross Value Added	Agriculture	Industry	Services
1995	2,582	4	1,094	1,483
2000	3,116	4	1,281	1,832
2003	3,769	4	1,328	2,437

includes hunting and forestry includes energy and construction includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured Components may not sum to totals due to rounding

Twinning

Sunderland's twin towns are:

In June 2006, officials from Sunderland and Washington D.C signed a Friendship Agreement, hoping to create cultural and economic ties between the two cities. Both cities share historical links, as the ancestors of the first President of the United States of America, George Washington, lived in Washington Old Hall, which is now within the municipal boundaries of Sunderland.

City government

Boundary review 2004

Like all metropolitan authorities, the city is divided into a number of wards or electoral districts. Each has three councillors elected for a four-year term. One third of councillors face re-election each year, and no city elections are held in the fourth year of the election cycle - this was when each ward's sole metropolitan county councillor was elected, prior to the county council's abolition in 1986.

The City has 25 such wards. When the boundaries of these wards were set in 1982, each ward had a roughly equal population. By 2004 there had been a considerable shift in population. In particular, the east and south east – the old parish of Sunderland and the mining village of Ryhope – had lost population to the "New Town" of Washington. As a result the boundaries were redrawn; Sunderland lost one ward and Washington gained one. Elections for all 75 councillors were held on 10 June 2004.

Functions

The Local Government Act 1972 created two different two-tier systems for local administration, with different division of functions. As a metropolitan authority, Sunderland retained responsibility for waste collection, although disposal of the garbage was a county function, and for education. In 1986, when Tyne and Wear Metropolitan County Council was abolished, most county functions became the responsibility of the constituent districts, whilst new joint boards assumed the co-ordinating roles in the county. Thus control over economic development, of the Museums and Archive Service, of the Tyne and Wear Fire and Civil Defence Authority and of the Passenger Transport Authority is exercised not by committees of directly elected county councillors but by nominees chosen by the elected members of the five district authorities.

Sunderland has not had a separate police force since 1967, when the Borough of Sunderland Police merged with Durham Constabulary. The City is now part of the Northumbria Police Force area. This force was set up in 1974, and covers the whole of Tyne and Wear plus the much larger but much less densely populated county of Northumberland.

The city is unparished, except for Hetton-le-Hole which is a civil parish, and which has a town council.

Political Structure

The City has had a Labour controlled council since 1974, and often before that. After the elections of May 2003 the political structure was 63 Labour, 9 Conservative, and 1 independent. The only Liberal Party councillor sat with the only Liberal Democrat as a "Liberal/Democrat" group. Three Councillors resigned from the Labour Party following disputes over the selection of candidates for the 2004 elections. Two became independent members; one joined the Liberal Democrat party, becoming group leader after the 2004 municipal elections.

The reorganisation of electoral areas saw major changes in all but two wards, but the elections of 10 June 2004, the first fought under the new boundaries, saw little change in the political representation of the City as a whole, with 61 Labour, 12 Conservative, and 2 Liberal Democrat councillors elected.

The Conservative party won all three seats in a new ward whose boundaries spanned several old wards. The Liberal Democrats stronghold ward was abolished entirely, and became part of four new wards, and the Liberal Democrat councillors elected in 2004 were from two very different areas.

Following further disputes within the Labour Party, 3 councillors resigned the whip at the end of 2006 and, joined by one of the liberal democrat members formed an independent group, which is the minority party in opposition.

At the elections of May 2007, the Labour Party continued their decline. Labour lost three seats to the Conservatives, whilst former Labour Mayor Mrs Julianna Heron lost to an independent: the same person who had defeated her husband in 2003 and who was in turn defeated by him in 2004.

The Conservative party made further significant gains in May 2008, gaining five additional seats and strengthening their support in others.

The Council composition for 2008/9 is: 48 Labour members, 22 Conservatives, 4 Independents, and 1 Liberal Democrat.

Parliamentary Constituencies

There are three constituencies wholly within the city, and one constituency partially in Sunderland and partially in Gateshead:

The Boundary Commission for England has proposed reducing the number of MPs in Tyne and Wear by one. It is therefore recommending substantial boundary changes, creating Sunderland Central, Sunderland North & Washington and Sunderland South & Houghton seats. This would concentrate the city's Conservative support into a single Parliamentary seat, Sunderland Central, making it a marginal constituency by some estimates, including that of Sunderland South MP Chris Mullin. Under these changes, all of Washington would be included in the Sunderland North & Washington seat, rather than being shared with Gateshead as the Gateshead East and Washington West constituency.

In the 1992, 1997, 2001 and 2005 General Elections, the Sunderland South constituency was the first to declare the results.

The whole City of Sunderland is within the North East England European Parliamentary constituency.

Education

Sunderland is home to the University of Sunderland.
Further Education (FE) is provided by the City of Sunderland College, which has campuses around the city, as well as three Catholic Sixth Form Colleges: St Robert of Newminster in Washington for boys and girls, and St Anthony's for girls and St Aidan's for boys, both in Sunderland.

Culture

Dialect

The Mackem accent and dialect is often mistaken as geordie to people not from the region as the two tongues share several similarities in pronunciation and diction, however the accent takes a heavier influence from Celtic languages whereas the geordie dialect derives from Old Norse.