Derry City Council will go out of existence at midnight tonight when the newly-formed Derry City and Strabane District Council comes into effect.

The local authority can trace its origins back to the early 1600s.

In 1613, the city was given a charter, a mayor, and significantly, this year also saw the formation of the Londonderry Corporation.

From the 1850s onwards, the city’s boundary ran from the Letterkenny Road up to Creggan Heights, down Rosemount to the Pennyburn Chapel and also included the urban Waterside area.

Lands situated outside the city boundary were administered by the Londonderry Rural District Council.

The Corporation area was divided into three wards – the North Ward, South Ward and the Waterside Ward.

The North and South Wards elected eight members each, while the Waterside Ward had four members.

The last general election for seats on the Londonderry Corporation took place in May 1967, and the results were as follows: North Ward – eight unionists, South Ward – eight nationalists and the Waterside Ward – four unionists. 

Two of the nationalist councillors elected for the first time were James Redmond Doherty of Ramore Gardens, Creggan and Mary Harrigan of Greenwalk, also in Creggan.

The last Mayor of the old Corporation was William Beattie.

However, the uneven distribution of seats in relation to the number of people in each the wards, known as ‘gerrymandering’ give rise to controversy at the time, as the South Ward had 11,287 voters in comparison to 6,476 in the South Ward, yet the same number of seats were elected from each area.

In addition, many of those living in the city were angry at the housing shortage, and the government’s decision to give priority to the development of the Craigavon area.

And, of course, an issue which stills reverberates today, the decision to locate a university in Coleraine and not Derry.

1968 saw the formation of the Civil Rights Association demanding one vote for one man, and on October 5 of that year, the world witnessed marchers who had departed from Duke Street being beaten and baton-charged by police, who then used water cannons to disperse the marchers, which in turn led to widespread unrest in the city.

The British Ggovernment soon after abolished both the Londonderry Corporation and the Londonderry Rural District Council, replacing them with the Londonderry Development Commission.
Nine prominent business figures, including the chair, Brian Morton and the vice chair, Stephen McGonagle, then took up positions on the commission, who then embarked on a substantial house building and road reconstruction programmes, and set about attracting investment to the city.

At the same time, the Northern Ireland Government appointed Patrick MacCrory to undertake a review into the local government structures in Northern Ireland.

A report in 1970 recommended that the existing councils in Northern Ireland be abolished and replaced by 26 district councils.

These councils would have restricted powers, while areas such as planning, roads, water and sewerage would transfer to government departments.

Health, education and libraries would now be managed by five boards throughout the north, and housing would fall under the responsibility of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE).

The councils areas were created under the Local Government Act (NI) 1972, which set out that local government elections would be held every four years, and be conducted in accordance with the  with the principle of proportional representation, with each elector having one transferable vote.

The elections were not held until 1973, which saw 526 councillors elected to serve on the 26 district councils throughout the north.

One of the most significant changes in the local council occurred in January 1984 when Chris Patton agreed to a request for the council to change its name to Derry City Council.

A review undertaken in 1992 saw the make-up of council wards changed to the following: Rural – six wards, Waterside – seven wards, Cityside – five wards, Northland – seven wards and Shantallow, five wards.

Each area was known as a District Electoral Area (DEA). 

The rural DEA comprised the wards of Banagher, Claudy, Eglinton, Enagh, Hollymount and Newbuildings while the Waterside DEA was made up of the wards of Altnagelvin, Caw, Clondermott, Ebrington, Kilfennan, Lisnagelvin and Victoria.

The Cityside DEA was made up of Beechwood, Brandywell, Creggan Central, Creggan South and Westland.

The Northland DEA meanwhile was made up of Creevagh, Foyle Springs, Pennyburn, Rosemount, Springtown, Strand and the Diamond.

Finally, the Shantallow DEA wards were Ballynashallog, Carnhill, Culmore, Shantallow East and Shantallow Eat.

Although there were council members elected for each of the wards, they did not represent individual wards but the DEA for which they were elected.

In regards to the councillors themselves, their roles and powers fell into three groups.

They were a ‘direct’ role in which the council is responsible for certain services within its own area, and a ‘representative’ role where council nominees sit as representatives on various bodies.

They also had a ‘consultative’ role, where councillors are expected to reflect the views of the community of the operation of certain services.

However, under the recommendations in the Review of Public Administration (RPA), the number of councils was reduced in the north was reduced from 26 to 11, which resulted in the merger of Derry City and Strabane District Council, which comes into effect on April 1, with 40 elected members, with Sinn Fein as the majority party.

In addition, a number of powers will now be transferred from central government to the local council, with the new council set to take over control of Derry and Strabane’s off-street car parks, and tasked with setting the charges the public will pay to park at the 30 sites.
Councillors will also be responsible for the majority of planning decisions, previously overseen by the Department of the Environment (DoE).

The practice has already been rolled out in many local councils across England and Wales, which has led to representatives from those areas warning local councillors that they will come under closer scrutiny from the public once the changes take effect.

If you have a story or want to send a photo or video to us please contact the Derry Now editorial team on 028 7129 6600 for Derry City stories Or 028 7774 3970 for County Derry stories. Or you can email gareth@derrynews.net at any time.