Talk:Chester (district)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:

[edit] A Possible project (or sub-project) for Cheshire

I hope I haven't trodden on any toes by doing this, but I took as a precedent the project about Cornwall. I've listed a proposed project concerning Cheshire on Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. I think it can easily co-exist with Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography. I would not want to diminish or withdraw from this other project. If you are interested in contributing to this proposed project, please add your name to list at the appropriate place. If you think it might be better placed as a sub-project of the existing UK Geography Project, please say so on that project's talk page, here, and let us discuss it. Many thanks.  DDS  talk 18:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming

Interesting they want to change the district to City of Chester and West Cheshire. City of Chester is the official current form of the name? MRSC • Talk 15:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be. The article was initially set up to read "City of Chester", but I after I started editing Cheshire stuff, I got a some strong criticism from Chester residents on here who told me that it was not "City of Chester", but "Chester City". When I looked at it in greater detail, it seemed they were correct. I think the "City of Chester" stuff cropped up as a means of distinguishing between the central settlement of the district (which, according to the criteria given in wikipedia and elsewhere would seem to be a borough, though they choose not to call themselves that) and the second tier local government district in which is it located. For example, the official website uses "Chester City" as the name, and has done for quite a while. So, I said I would change it, got no comments, and did so. I'm busy slowly removing all the redirects. The new name - who knows. All I know is that in the documentation I could find now from them, they refer to themselves as "Chester City" when they do so at all, though historically, they did sometimes use "City of Chester". I merely took the views of local residents into account, as I understand we should, and used that to guide me in plumping for "Chester City (district)". If I'd have known what they were going to suggest the new name was, then may be I wouldn't have bothered.  DDStretch  (talk) 17:36, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
It should be noted that the formal name used in legislation for the district remains simply "Chester", or "City of Chester", though. I suspect the actual most commonly used name is just "the Chester district". "Chester City (district)" is just plain weird. Pls rename to "Chester (district)" if you really object to the proper long name. 213.107.21.212 19:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
The "(district)" bit is understood not to be part of any "official name", but is used on wikipedia to disambiguate any otherwise identical names. So the name to be understood by the current use is "Chester City". "(district)" is necessary because "Chester City" could also mean the Football Club, which is also known as Chester City F.C.. At the moment Chester City can be seen to go to a disambiguation page. I'll rename it to whatever people generally decide upon if a consensus can be reached, though I still note that "Chester City" is what the local government website gives, and that I did receive critisms of the use of City of Chester as it was for a while. Can you give us details of where the official names are used at all? Doing this would help us build up a list of names from which we may see a better way forward.  DDStretch  (talk) 22:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
The name was specified by the English Non-metropolitan Districts (Names) Order, back in 1972/3. This clearly gives the name of the district as just 'Chester'.
I'd be interested to see evidence of usage by the council of the term "Chester City", outside of its corporate name. If you're basing this just on the fact that it goes by the name "Chester City Council", then you are quite simply misparsing it - "X City Council" doesn't mean "the council of something called X City", it means the City Council of X. See [1] for usage of "City of Chester" in legislation. I can't find any references at site:chester.gov.uk to "Chester City" meaning the district - I can find loads of references to "Chester District", though. 81.187.224.74 14:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
The basic distinction is that the Parliamentary Constituency is City of Chester the district is probably more correctly referred to as Chester City (if referring to the Council area i.e. Chester City Council) or simply Chester. If there is a switch to a unitary authority, Chester will still be a city in it's own right, but there will also be a West Cheshire Council or City of Chester and West Cheshire, and a Chester Town Council - which may then be named City of Chester Council. Thanks for bringing my attention to this DDStretch. Seivad 07:43, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Considering its size, if this happens, it's very unlikely that a parish council would be established for chester, leaving it an unparished area with Charter Trustees. 81.187.224.74 14:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
Are charter trustees not just a temporary measure until an area is parished or another DC is formed?
I would expect that the new unitary authority will be the successor body as implied in the choice of name The City of Chester & West Cheshire - so no need for either a parish council or charter trustees. In this respect it will be similar to what happened in 1973/4 when the current district was formed. (RT) 01:34, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I posted a question about the official name to the local government website, and received a reply just now from an officer of the council. (Details of who this was and his contact details can be obtained from me if required. I haven't posted them here for obvious reasons.) Here is the reply, with headers and closing details removed:

Dear Dr Stretch Thank you for your comments. The official name of the council is Chester City Council as per the logo on the home page of the council's website. Please visit www.chester.gov.uk A map of the district can be found at http://www.chester.gov.uk/main.asp?page=226 There are two tiers of local government within the administrative boundary of Cheshire, the county council and six district councils, of which Chester City Council is one. Chester is therefore often correctly referred to as a district council. The administrative area of Chester City Council extends from the Welsh border with Flintshire to outlying rural areas particularly south to Shropshire. In Cheshire it borders Ellesmere Port & Neston Borough Council (north), Vale Royal Borough Council (north east) and Crewe & Nantwich Borough Council (south east). As I am sure you are aware Chester is a historic city with a vibrant tourist and visitor economy. In communications therefore, from other agencies as well as ourselves, the actual city itself is often referred to as the 'City of Chester' to differentiate it from the rural and sub-urban areas of the district. I hope this clarifies the points you raised. If I may be of further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me. Regards

What I take from this is that the original name for the district as given on wikipedia ("City of Chester" is definitely incorrect. "City of Chester" is often used by other agencies as well as the local council to refer to "the actual city itself" in order to "differentiate it from the rural and sub-urban areas of the district." So, if anything were to have a redirect pointed to it from "City of Chester", it ought to be the central city itself, not the wider local government area.

That leaves the name of the council area to be sorted out. On this matter, the letter is not so clear, but this bit: "There are two tiers of local government within the administrative boundary of Cheshire, the county council and six district councils, of which Chester City Council is one. Chester is therefore often correctly referred to as a district council.", would seem to suggest that, as 81.187.224.74 suggested, my change of name was mistaken, and it would have been better to have had it become "Chester (district)", where the parenthetical bit is there as part of wikipedia's means of disambiguating it from other places known as "Chester", and is understood not to be part of the actual name itself.

Now, do people agree with my interpretation of the letter and its implications? If so, there does seem to be a course of action appearing that we might do for these articles:

Does anyone object to that at al;? Do we need more clarification at all?  DDStretch  (talk) 14:36, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm in favour. Seivad 18:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Ok. Given the that it is now a few weeks since there were any comments, and none objecting, I am going ahead with the changes as I suggested.  DDStretch  (talk) 11:49, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
The page move has now gone ahead. We need to check that redirects are correct and there are no double redirects.  DDStretch  (talk) 16:37, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok. As far as I can tell, I have now altered all redirects to "City of Chester" in article texts to now point to "Chester (district)", which is the renamed page. I have also had to correct some links to the old "City of Chester" page that should have gone to "City of Chester (UK Parliament constituency)". Finally, I have changed the redirection on "City of Chester" so that it now points to "Chester" rather than "Chester (district)". These are in accordance with the discussions above and are now correct in describing the actual state of affairs. I have left unaltered links to "City of Chester" on most discussion pages, as I'm not convinced I would leave the discussions in a sensible state if I did change them. DDStretch  (talk) 10:32, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

(addendum) Some further page-renames associated with templates may need to be done to bring the names in line with the now correct names being used for the district, etc. I'll propose these soon, and I think they will be unlikely to be contraversial.  DDStretch  (talk) 10:35, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
There's a problem with "City of Chester" redirecting to "Chester (district)" which you may have overlooked. It's quite possible that someone looking for details of the City of Chester parliamentary constituency will end up in the wrong place. At the moment you would have to search for City of Chester (UK Parliament constituency) to avoid this. We probably need a diambiguation page. (RT) 01:45, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
You are right. At the moment, we are in a kind of transition period, and unfortunately I am away for two weeks starting from today. What we need is to change all the residual references to City of Chester which should point to the district. (I think I may have done many if not most of these already). Then, we need to set up City of Chester as a disambiguation page, and the two entries should be just Chester (the city) and City of Chester (UK Parliament constituency). I think that would sort this out, but may be in my haste to type this, I've omitted something.  DDStretch  (talk) 10:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Right, I've done a bit of tidying up and used an existing disambig page to redirect "City of Chester" to. I hope this helps sort out this problem. Look at it, and see what you think. If it doesn't sort the problems out, then feel free to edit further.  DDStretch  (talk) 10:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Burton

I was sorting out places on the Wirral and thought that I had discovered from this article that Burton was a parish in Chester City. (See box containing list of parishes. I therefore moved the article for Burton, Ellesmere Port and Neston to Burton, Chester. I am now having doubts and so need confirmation that Burton really is in Chester City as the parish before I make more erroneous changes. JMcC 11:24, 6 June 2007 (UTC)