"Richard J." wrote in message
...
Martin Underwood wrote:
Mind you, county / unitary authority
boundaries seem to be perverse as well: in what used to be called
Berkshire (and which most people, unitary authority notwithstanding,
still *do* call Berkshire!) there's a boundary that runs through the
middle of Reading such that Tilehurst (really a suburb of Reading) is
part of the UA of West Berkshire (administered in Newbury) whereas
the most of the rest of the conurbation of Reading is part of the UA
of Reading. You'd think that common sense would route the boundary in
the un-built-up area outside Reading - and would keep moving that
boundary as Reading expands so that the whole of the conurbation (as
it exists at any time) is always administered from the same place.

Unfortunately, common sense got defeated by politics. Labour in Reading
were worried that widening their boundaries might cause them to lose
control
of the council, and the majority parties outside Reading were worried that
one or more of their boroughs might disappear if Reading was enlarged.
The
result is that the 19th century boundaries are still in place!

Berkshire still exists by the way. It has a Fire and Rescue Service for
example.

I know Berkshire still exists: even the road signs on the A34 going south
from Oxford to Newbury say something like "Welcome to the Royal County of
Berkshire / West Berkshire". In common parlance, "Berkshire" is the name
that refers to the area of land bounded by Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire,
Surrey etc - which is currently sub-divided into artificial Unitary
Authorities called West Berkshire, Reading, Bracknell Forest, Windsor and
Maidenhead, Wokingham. Ask a resident which county they live in and they'll
say "Berkshire" not "Windsor and Maidenhead" or "Bracknell Forest".
According to Simon Gardner who regularly posts in uk.local.thames-valley,
the strictly correct, hair-splitting answer to the question would be "I
don't" - because Bracknell Forest etc aren't even counties - they are
Unitary Authorities.

As a former resident of Berkshire, I can assure you that I didn't vote for
the change of status - for the simple reason that I (like all the other
residents) wasn't consulted about it. Isn't democracy wonderful? The change
led to all sorts of absurd situations. For example, if you borrowed a
library book at Bracknell library, you weren't able to return it to
Wokingham or Reading library as you had been able to do in the past. If I'd
had to call an ambulance, I'd have been taken to Wexham Park Hospital on the
far side of Slough rather than to the much closer and more accessible Royal
Berks Hospital.