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Wiltshire Council
Wiltshire Council
	The coat of arms of the council
	Council logo
Type
Type	Unitary authority
History
Founded	1 April 1889
Leadership
Chairman	Bridget Wayman, ; Conservative ; since 21 May 2024
Leader	Richard Clewer, ; Conservative ; since 18 May 2021
Chief Executive	Terence Herbert ; since 1 July 2020
Structure
Seats	98 councillors
Political groups	Administration (59) Conservative (59) Other parties (39) Liberal Democrats (29) Independent (7) Labour (3)
Length of term	4 years
Elections
Voting system	First past the post
Last election	6 May 2021
Next election	1 May 2025
Meeting place
	County Hall, Bythesea Road, Trowbridge, BA14 8JN
Website
	www.wiltshire.gov.uk

Wiltshire Council, known between 1889 and 2009 as Wiltshire County Council, is the local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Wiltshire in South West England. Since 2009 it has been a unitary authority, being a county council which also performs the functions of a district council. The non-metropolitan county is smaller than the ceremonial county, the latter additionally including Swindon. Wiltshire Council has been controlled by the Conservative Party since 2000, and has its headquarters at County Hall in Trowbridge.

History

Elected county councils were established in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888, taking over administrative functions previously carried out by unelected magistrates at the quarter sessions.^[4] The first elections to the new county council were held on 23 January 1889; the council had sixty seats, but in twenty-eight the candidate ran unopposed.^[5] The first provisional meeting of the council was held at Devizes Assize Court on 31 January 1889.^[6] The council formally came into its powers on 1 April 1889, on which day it held its first official meeting at Salisbury Guildhall. The first chairman was John Thynne, 4th Marquess of Bath.^[7]

The council was granted a coat of arms in 1937.^[8]

Until 1974 the lower tier of local government comprised numerous boroughs, urban districts and rural districts. In 1974 the lower tier was reorganised and Wiltshire was left with five districts: Kennet, North Wiltshire, Salisbury, Thamesdown and West Wiltshire.^[9] In 1997, Thamesdown was renamed 'Swindon' and converted into a unitary authority, removing it from the non-metropolitan county (the area controlled by Wiltshire County Council).^[10] This reduced the population of the non-metropolitan county by almost a third. Swindon remains part of the wider ceremonial county of Wiltshire.^[11]

As part of the 2009 structural changes to local government, Wiltshire's four remaining districts were abolished and their functions were taken over by Wiltshire County Council as from 1 April 2009. The way the changes were implemented was to create a single non-metropolitan district of Wiltshire matching the non-metropolitan county, but with no separate district council. Instead, the existing county council also took on the functions that legislation assigns to district councils, making it a unitary authority.^[12] The county council was given the option of omitting the word 'county' from its name as part of the reforms, which it took, becoming 'Wiltshire Council'.^[13]

Governance

Since 2009, Wiltshire Council has provided both county-level and district-level services. The whole county is also covered by civil parishes, which form a lower tier of local government.^[14]

Most executive decisions are taken by the authority's cabinet, each member of which has a particular area of responsibility. Development control is undertaken by five planning committees, the powers of which cannot be exercised by the cabinet. Members of the authority are appointed to a wide range of outside bodies, providing them with some element of democratic accountability, such as the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust, the Wiltshire Victoria County History, and the Wiltshire Historic Buildings Trust.

Political control

The county council has been under Conservative majority control since 2000.

Political control of the council since the 1974 reforms has been as follows:^[15]

Upper-tier authority

Party in control		Years
	No overall control	1974–1977
	Conservative	1977–1985
	No overall control	1985–1997
	Liberal Democrats	1997–1997
	No overall control	1997–2000
	Conservative	2000–2009

Unitary authority

Party in control		Years
	Conservative	2009–present

Leadership

The leaders of the council since 1998 have been:

Councillor		From	To
Peter Chalke^[16]	Conservative	1998	15 Jul 2003
Jane Scott^[16]^[17]	Conservative	15 Jul 2003	9 Jul 2019
Philip Whitehead^[18]^[19]	Conservative	9 Jul 2019	May 2021
Richard Clewer^[20]	Conservative	18 May 2021

Composition

Following the 2021 election and by-elections and changes of allegiance up to April 2024, the composition of the council was:^[21]^[22]^[23]^[24]

Party		Councillors
	Conservative	59
	Liberal Democrats	29
	Independent	7
	Labour	3
Total:		98

Six of the independent councillors sit together as a group. The next election is due in 2025.^[25]

Elections

Since the last full review of boundaries in 2021 the county has been divided into 98 electoral divisions, each electing one councillor. Elections are held every four years.^[26]

Premises

The council is based at County Hall, Trowbridge, which was purpose-built for the council and was completed in 1940.^[27] It also has offices in Chippenham, Devizes and Salisbury.^[28]

At the council's first official meeting in 1889 there was a debate about where the council should meet in future. The quarter sessions which preceded the county council had met in rotation at Devizes, Marlborough, Salisbury and Warminster, and some advocated that the council should similarly travel around. Others made the case that the rapidly growing town of Swindon should be one of the meeting places. It was decided that Trowbridge should be the meeting place; although not central to the county geographically, it had the best railway connections to other parts of the county, and there was also a large new Town Hall already under construction there which could serve as a meeting place.^[7]

As it happened, the council did continue to hold meetings in other towns for the first few years, but gradually consolidated its offices and meeting place in Trowbridge.^[29] In 1896, the council acquired Arlington House at 72 Fore Street in Trowbridge to act as its offices. The building was extended in 1900 to include a dedicated council chamber, and was extended again in 1913.^[30]^[29]

In 1930, the council decided to build a new county hall in Devizes, which is nearer the geographical centre of Wiltshire, but construction was delayed and in 1933 the decision was reversed.^[31] Instead a new County Hall was subsequently built on the former Trowbridge Town Football Club site on Bythesea Road in Trowbridge. The new building opened in 1940.^[27]

In 2012 County Hall was renovated and expanded at a cost of about £24 million.^[32] Services provided to the public in the building include the Trowbridge library,^[32] and the main office of the council's Registration Service.^[33]