| Castlereagh Borough | |
| Geography | |
| Area - Total |
Ranked 24th (of 26) of 26 85 km² |
|---|---|
| Admin HQ | Upper Galwally, Newtownbreda |
| ISO 3166-2 | GB-CSR |
| ONS code | 95Y |
| Demographics | |
| Population - Total (2010) - Density |
Ranked 10th 67,000 787 / km² |
| Community | Catholic: 18.3% Protestant: 76.9% |
| Politics | |
| Control | DUP & UUP[1] |
| MLAs | DUP: 7 Alliance Party: 4 UUP: 4 Sinn Féin: 1 SDLP: 2 |
| MPs | Alasdair McDonnell (SDLP) Naomi Long (Alliance Party) Jim Shannon (DUP) |
| Meeting place | |
| Castlereagh Borough Council Civic and Administrative Offices | |
| Website | |
| http://www.castlereagh.gov.uk | |
Castlereagh ( /ˈkɑːsəlreɪ/ kah-səl-ray) is a local government district with the status of borough in Northern Ireland. It is a largely urban borough bordering Belfast. Unusually, it has no natural borough centre, largely consisting of a series of suburbs of Belfast in the Castlereagh Hills to the south-east of the city with a small rural area to the south of the borough. The main centres of population are Carryduff, 6 miles (9.6 km) south of Belfast city centre and Dundonald, 5 miles (8 km) east of it. The population totals nearly 66,500.
Contents |
The district is one of twenty-six created on 1 October 1973. It was formed by the amalgamation of the following areas of County Down: most of Castlereagh Rural District, the Carryduff and Newtownbreda areas of Hillsborough Rural District and the Moneyreagh area of North Down Rural District.[2][3]
The borough is divided into four electoral areas: Castlereagh Central, South, East and West. In the elections in 2005, 23 members were elected. As of February 2011 the political composition of the council is: 13 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 4 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), 4 Alliance Party and 2 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).[4] 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.[5] The proposed reforms were abandoned in 2010, and the next district council elections will take place in 2011[6]
In 1977 Castlereagh District Council was granted a charter of incorporation constituting the district as a borough, and creating the office of mayor.[7]
The mayor for the civic year 2010-2011 is councillor Vivienne McCoy (DUP) and the Deputy Mayor is councillor David Drysdale (UUP).[8]
Castlereagh and the city of Kent in Washington in the United States signed up as sister cities partners on 1 August 2000.
The borough is divided between the East Belfast constituency (the wards of Ballyhanwood, Carrowreagh, Cregagh, Downshire, Dundonald, Enler, Gilnahirk, Graham’s Bridge, Lisnasharragh, Lower Braniel, Tullycarnet and Upper Braniel), the South Belfast constituency (Beechill, Cairnshill, Carryduff East, Carryduff West, Galwally, Hillfoot, Knockbracken, Minnowburn, Newtownbreda and Wynchurch wards) and the Strangford constituency (Moneyreagh ward) for elections to the Westminster Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly.[9]
These elections saw the political landscape at Castlereagh change dramatically. The DUP lost overall control of the council due to the loss of two council seats, one in Central and one in the East. The UUP also lost their sole representative in the East. The Alliance party gained one in East and Central, while the Green party gained in East also. There were no changes in the West or South areas (there was much speculation that demographic change would deliver a Sinn Fein a seat in South, however these claims turned out to be unfounded, with the SDLP being the sixth placed runner up being narrowly beaten by the UUP for the fifth seat.
|
|
|||||