Association of British Counties

The Association of British Counties is a pressure group in the United Kingdom dedicated to preserving the traditional counties of Britain. It publishes a bi-annual journal, and despite its name is an association of people, not counties. Its president is the popular astrologer Russell Grant, who owns the title Lord of the Manor of Ashford in Middlesex. The Chairman of the Association is Michael Bradford.

It believes that the traditional counties are an important part of Britain's cultural heritage and should be preserved and promoted. To this end it has produced a postal directory putting British place names in what it considers to be the correct historic county, in addition to cross-referencing this with various other administrative areas, noting alternatives where the correct county is debatable and providing detailed discussion of these instances where they occur.

It also seeks to bring about an official change in government terminology to bring it in line with the 1888 Local Government Act - the original piece of legislation which created the modern administrative counties of England, though there have since been several further changes. This act specifically called them "administrative counties", and the ABC wishes to see this terminology consistently used to describe them. Also it wishes to see the term "county" stripped from the unitary authorities that currently use it.

It says it wishes this to happen because it will remove what it sees as the confusion that has resulted over the status of various entities termed counties since 1889. In particular, it uses scare quotes around the word 'county' when not referring to the traditional counties in order to emphasise clarify the meaning of the entity in question.

The historic Counties of Great Britain are fundamental to our culture. Older than cathedrals, more historic than stately homes, Counties like Lincolnshire, Cornwall, Middlesex, Anglesey and Fife are basic to our life. Their names belong to the ground we tread. They are an indelible part of our history. They are important cultural entities.

Other policies include

• Compelling the Ordnance Survey to mark traditional county borders on their maps
• Making the ceremonial counties match the historic ones, and thus re-abolishing the centuries-old office of Lord-Lieutenant of Bristol, whilst restoring many other centuries-old offices.
• That the English regions should be tweaked in to order ensure that historic counties 'be brought wholly within one region or another'

The latter point would mean various local authorities would need to be changed. Currently the border between the London region and the South-East and East regions straddles numerous traditional borders - so these regions would probably need to be merged. Some areas not part of Yorkshire and the Humber would be moved to a different local authority in order that they could be part of this region, as region boundaries never split authorities. Also North East Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire would become part of the East Midlands Region, where the administrative county of Lincolnshire is located. This policy is mainly designed to safegaurd the local attachment to and identification with the historic counties should England be split in regional assemblies. Otherwise, the ABC fears, having a single historic county falling with more than one region could have an adverse effect on people's cultural ties the home county.

However, it also states on its FAQ

Q. Does ABC seek further local government reorganisation ?

A. No, but we do wish to see reforms to certain parts of local government terminology.

External link

• ABC web site (http://www.abcounties.co.uk/)