Denbighshire

Denbighshire (Welsh: Sir Ddinbych) is a county in north-east Wales. It is named after the historic county of Denbighshire, but has substantially different borders. Denbighshire has the distinction of being the oldest known inhabited part of Wales. Pontnewydd (Bontnewydd-Llanelwy) Palaeolithic site has remains of Neanderthals from 225,000 years ago. There are several castles in the region: Denbigh Castle, Rhuddlan Castle, Ruthin Castle, Castell Dinas Bran and Bodelwyddan Castle. One of Britain's smallest cathedrals is at St Asaph, itself one of the smallest cities.

Formation

The present principal area was formed on 1 April 1996, under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, from various parts of the county of Clwyd. It included the district of Rhuddlan (which was formed in 1974 entirely from Flintshire), the communities of Trefnant and Cefn Meiriadog from the district of Colwyn (which was entirely Denbighshire) and most of the Glyndŵr district. The part of the Glyndŵr district included the entirety of the former Edeyrnion Rural District, which was part of the administrative county of Merionethshire prior to 1974 – which covered the parishes of Betws Gwerfil Goch, Corwen, Gwyddelwern, Llangar, Llandrillo yn Edeirnion and Llansanffraid.

County council

A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries.

United Kingdom

County councils were formed in the late 19th century. In the various constituent countries of the United Kingdom councils had different powers and different memberships. Following local government reforms in the 1970s, county councils no longer exist in Scotland or Northern Ireland. In England they generally form the top level in a two-tier system of administration; in Wales they are unitary authorities.

England

In England county councils were introduced in 1889, and reformed in 1974. Since the mid-1990s a series of local government reorganisations has reduced the number of county councils as unitary authorities have been established in a number of areas. County councils are very large employers with a great variety of functions including education (schools and youth services), social services, highways, fire and rescue services, libraries, waste disposal, consumer services and town and country planning. Until the 1990s they also ran colleges of further education and the careers services. That decade also saw the privatisation of some traditional services, such as highway maintenance, cleaning and school meals.