Cookstown District Council

Coordinates: 54°38′46″N 6°44′42″W / 54.646°N 6.745°W / 54.646; -6.745

Cookstown District
Area  622 km2 (240 sq mi) 
Ranked 9th of 26
District HQCookstown
Catholic59.3%
Protestant37.8%
CountryNorthern Ireland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
EU Parliament Northern Ireland
CouncillorsMLAs
Mid Ulster
Sinn Féin: 3
DUP: 1
SDLP: 1
UUP: 1
MPs
Martin McGuinness (Sinn Féin)
Websitewww.cookstown.gov.uk
List of places
UK
Northern Ireland

Cookstown District Council (Irish: Comhairle Cheantar na Coirre Críochaí; Ulster Scots: Districk Cooncil o Cookestoun)[1] is a district council covering an area largely in County Tyrone and partly in County Londonderry. It is set to merge with Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council and Magherafelt District Council in May 2015 under local government reorganisation in Northern Ireland to become Mid-Ulster District Council.

Council headquarters are in Cookstown. Small towns in the council area include Pomeroy, Moneymore, Coagh and Stewartstown and in the east the area is bounded by Lough Neagh. It covers an area of 235 square miles (610 km2) and has a current population of over 37,000.

The council has 16 elected representatives. Local elections are held every four years using the single transferable vote system. The chairman and vice-chairman of the council are elected at the annual general meeting each June. The last 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 most recent district council elections took place in 2011[3]

The Cookstown District Council area consists of 3 electoral areas: Drum Manor, Ballinderry and Cookstown Central. At the last elections in 2011, members were elected from the following political parties: 6 Sinn Féin, 4 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), 3 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and 3 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). In 2013/14, the council chairman is Councillor Pearse McAleer of Sinn Féin and the vice-chairman is Councillor Robert Kelly of the UUP. Both councillors represent the Ballinderry District Electoral Area.

Councillor Wilbert Buchanan of the Democratic Unionist Party is chairman in 2014/15.

In elections for the Westminster Parliament it is part of Mid Ulster.

Population

The area covered by the Cookstown District Council has a population of 37,013 residents according to the 2011 Northern Ireland census.[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Cookstown District Council
  2. ↑ Northern Ireland elections are postponed, BBC News, April 25, 2008, accessed April 27, 2008
  3. ↑ "The executive fails to agree a deal on council reform". BBC News. 15 June 2010. Retrieved 8 July 2010.
  4. ↑ "NI Census 2011 - Key Statistics Summary Report, September 2014" (PDF). NI Statistics and Research Agency. Retrieved 28 September 2014.
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