Talk:Hythe, Hampshire

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[edit] Town or village?

I'm confused. On some websites i read that this is a village and on others a town. Which is it? Simply south 23:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

There's some debate about the definition of the difference, but the rules of thumb we use on Wikipedia are around the naming of the local government structures:

• If the borough/district in which the settlement sits is named after the settlement (such as the Borough of Eastleigh being named after Eastleigh), the settlement is likely to be a town. There are exceptions to this, such as the borough of Basingstoke and Deane which was named after the largest and smallest settlements in the borough (nobody thinks Deane is a town!). In Hythe's case, the borough/district council is the New Forest District Council, so Hythe isn't a town by that criterion.
• If the parish council refers to itself as a town council, the settlement is a town. In Hythe's case, the parish council is Hythe and Dibden Parish Council, so again Hythe isn't a town by that criterion.

So in summary, using the definition laid out in Town#United_Kingdom, Hythe is a village (a large one, but a village nonetheless) not a town. But that article also says, quite correctly, "Not all settlements which are commonly described as towns have a 'Town Council' or 'Borough Council'" so the question is how commonly is Hythe described as a town? As you say, there's a mixture of opinion. Because there's no overriding consensus, it's probably safest to fall back on the two criteria above and refer to Hythe as a village. Hope this helps, Waggers 07:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The settlement website identifies Hythe as a village and yet the county council identifies Hythe as a town. Simply south 12:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)