| Ballymena Borough | |
| Geography | |
| Area - Total |
Ranked 8th (of 26) of 26 632 km² |
|---|---|
| Admin HQ | Ballymena |
| ISO 3166-2 | GB-BLA |
| ONS code | 95G |
| Demographics | |
| Population - Total (2010) - Density |
Ranked 11th 63,500 100 / km² |
| Community | Catholic: 21.0% Protestant: 76.3% |
| Politics | |
| Control | No overall control DUP: 12 UUP: 4 Sinn Féin: 2 SDLP: 2 TUV: 2 Alliance Party: 1 Independent: 1 |
| MLAs | North Antrim DUP: 3 Sinn Féin: 1 TUV: 1 UUP: 1 |
| MPs | Ian Paisley, Jr. (DUP) |
| Meeting place | |
| Ballymena Borough Council Headquarters | |
| Website | |
| http://www.ballymena.gov.uk | |
Ballymena is a local government district with borough status in Northern Ireland. It is one of twenty-six districts created on 1 October 1973 and covers the town of Ballymena and the surrounding area which includes small towns including Broughshane, Cullybackey, Galgorm, Ahoghill and Portglenone. The borough has an area of 200 square miles (520 km2) and a population of nearly 78,000. The borough has a central location within Northern Ireland and is served by the M2 motorway and with a station on the Belfast-Derry railway line. Belfast International Airport itself is only 18 miles (29 km) away and the Belfast City Airport is 30 miles (48 km) from Ballymena. It is also accessible to the seaports of Larne and Belfast, 20 and 27 miles (43 km) away respectively.
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The present borough of Ballymena was created in 1973 from the merging of the former municipal borough of Ballymena with most of the surrounding Ballymena Rural District. The new council inherited the 1937 charter of incorporation of the municipal borough, continuing the borough status and mayoralty.[1]
The borough is divided into four electoral areas: Ballymena North, Ballymena South, Bannside, and Braid, from which 24 members are elected. The entire council is elected every four years by proportional representation. The next election was due to take place in May 2009, but on April 25, 2008, Shaun Woodward, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland announced that the scheduled 2009 district council elections were to be postponed until the introduction of the eleven new councils in 2011.[2] The proposed reforms were abandoned in 2010, and the next district council elections will take place in 2011[3] As of February 2011, the political composition of the council was:
Together with the neighbouring Borough of Ballymoney and part of the District of Moyle, it forms the North Antrim constituency for elections to the Westminster Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly.[5]
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