Derry City Council

Categories: Districts of Northern Ireland | Derry | County Londonderry

Derry City Council (Londonderry County Borough Council until 1984) is a district council in County Londonderry in Northern Ireland. The headquarters of the council is in the city of Derry on Lough Foyle. The Council employs about 550 people providing services to a population of about 105,000.

Council elections, since 1973 conducted by a system of Single Transferable Vote, are held every four years. Each year, in June, at the Council's Annual Meeting, the Councillors elect a Mayor and a Deputy Mayor.

The Derry City Council area consists of 5 electoral areas: Cityside, Northland, Rural, Shantallow and Waterside. In 2005, the voters of Derry elected 30 members as follows: 14 Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), 10 Sinn Féin, 5 Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), 1 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). The current Mayor is Councillor Gearóid Ó hEára (Sinn Féin) and the Deputy Mayor is Alderman Joe Miller (DUP).

Local politics

Prior to 1973, elections to the borough council were based on block voting. The electoral wards had been drawn and redrawn to ensure a unionist majority on the council even though more voters supported nationalist and republican parties. With local government reorganisation in Northern Ireland in 1973, a system of STV was introduced which has resulted in a majority of councillors from nationalist and republican parties being elected, with the SDLP consistently being the largest party.Curiously, in 1973, though not in later years, this was despite the fact that unionists, loyalists and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland won a majority of votes between them.

The Derry/Londonderry name dispute affected the council, notably in 1984 when it decided to rename itself from Londonderry County Borough Council to Derry City Council; this was purely a name change and its powers remained that of a district council. At the same time it changed the name of the municipally owned airport to City of Derry Airport. At that time it did not seek to change the name of the city from Londonderry in its charter.

In order to avoid controversy, the parliamentary constituency for the district (which currently has coterminous boundaries, though this has not always been the case) is called Foyle. The MP is current SDLP Leader Mark Durkan. In 2003, the constituency's voters elected 1 DUP, 3 SDLP and 2 Sinn Fein members of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Proposed boundary changes for future parliamentary/assembly elections would transfer two rural wards from Foyle to the East Londonderry constituency, where the current MP is the DUP's Gregory Campbell. However the proposed revisions will be subject to review and many are likely to argue that having co-terminous boundaries for the districts and parliamentary/assembly seats is a desirable and achievable aim. It remains to be seen if these changes will be enacted.

See also

• Local Councils in Northern Ireland

External links

• Derry City Council
• Local government election results