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Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council
Coat of arms
Corporate logo
Type
Type	Metropolitan borough council
Leadership
Mayor	Debbie Parkinson, Labour since 22 May 2024
Leader	David Molyneux, Labour since 23 May 2018
Chief Executive	Alison McKenzie-Folan since 6 March 2019
Structure
Seats	75 councillors
Political groups	Administration (64)   Labour (64) Other parties (11)   Independent (10)   Conservative (1)
Joint committees	Greater Manchester Combined Authority Greater Manchester Police, Fire and Crime Panel
Elections
Voting system	First-past-the-post
Last election	2 May 2024
Next election	7 May 2026
Motto
Progress with Unity
Meeting place
Town Hall, Library Street, Wigan, WN1 1YN
Website
wigan.gov.uk

Wigan Council, or Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council, is the local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester, England. It is a metropolitan borough council and provides the majority of local government services in the borough. The council has been a member of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority since 2011.

The council has been under Labour majority control since the metropolitan borough was created in 1974. It meets at Wigan Town Hall and has its main offices at the adjoining Wigan Life Centre.

History

The town of Wigan was an ancient borough, having been granted a charter in 1246. From around 1350 the borough was led by a mayor. The borough was reformed to become a municipal borough under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, which standardised how most boroughs operated across the country. It was then governed by a body formally called the 'mayor, aldermen and burgesses of the borough of Wigan', generally known as the corporation, town council or borough council.

When elected county councils were established in 1889, Wigan was considered large enough to provide its own county-level services, and so it became a county borough, independent from the new Lancashire County Council, whilst remaining part of the geographical county of Lancashire.

The larger Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and its council were created in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 as one of ten metropolitan districts within the new metropolitan county of Greater Manchester. The first election was held in 1973. For its first year the council acted as a shadow authority alongside the area's fourteen outgoing authorities, being the borough councils of Wigan and Leigh, the urban district councils of Abram, Ashton-in-Makerfield, Aspull, Atherton, Billinge and Winstanley, Golborne, Hindley, Ince-in-Makerfield, Orrell, Standish-with-Langtree, and Tyldesley, and the Wigan Rural District Council. The new metropolitan district and its council formally came into being on 1 April 1974, at which point the old districts and their councils were abolished.

The metropolitan district was awarded borough status from its creation, allowing the chair of the council to take the title of mayor, continuing Wigan's series of mayors dating back to the 14th century. The council styles itself Wigan Council rather than its full formal name of Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council.

From 1974 until 1986 the council was a lower-tier authority, with upper-tier functions provided by the Greater Manchester County Council. The county council was abolished in 1986 and its functions passed to Greater Manchester's ten borough councils, including Wigan, with some services provided through joint committees.

Since 2011 the council has been a member of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which has been led by the directly elected Mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017. The combined authority provides strategic leadership and co-ordination for certain functions across Greater Manchester, notably regarding transport and town planning, but Wigan Council continues to be responsible for most local government functions.

Governance

Wigan Council provides metropolitan borough services. Some strategic functions in the area are provided by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority; the leader of Wigan Council sits on the combined authority as Wigan's representative. There are three civil parishes in the borough at Haigh, Shevington and Worthington which form an additional tier of local government for their areas; the rest of the borough is unparished.

Political control

The council has been under Labour majority control since the 1974 reforms.

Leadership

The role of Mayor of Wigan is largely ceremonial. Political leadership is instead provided by the leader of the council. The leaders since 1991 have been:

Composition

Following the 2024 election, the composition of the council was:

Four of the independent councillors are supported by the Independent Network and sit together as a group, another four form the 'Independent Together' group and the remaining two do not form part of a group. The next routine election is due in May 2026.

Elections

Since the last boundary changes in 2023, the council has comprised 75 councillors representing 25 wards, with each ward electing three councillors. Elections are held three years out of every four, with a third of the council (one councillor for each ward) elected each time for a four-year term of office.

Wards and councillors

The councillors as at December 2024 were:

Premises

The council meets at Wigan Town Hall on Library Street, which had been built in 1903 as the Wigan Mining and Technical College. After the college moved to new premises, the building was converted into a town hall in 1990 to replace the Old Town Hall on King Street.

The council's main offices are at the Wigan Life Centre on The Wiend, a modern building completed in 2012 behind the retained façade of the former Municipal Buildings facing Hewlett Street and Library Street. The building also incorporates the town's library.

The old Wigan Borough Council had held its meetings at the Old Town Hall on King Street, which had been built as a courthouse in 1867 and had become the council's headquarters in 1882. By the 1950s the council had moved its main offices to the Municipal Buildings, being a converted row of shops and offices at the corner of Hewlett Street and Library Street, which had been built in 1900. Meetings continued to be held at the Old Town Hall until the new Town Hall opened in 1990. The offices were supplemented by the construction of the Civic Centre on Millgate in 1970. After the council consolidated its offices at the Wigan Life Centre and Town Hall, the Civic Centre closed in 2018.

References

1. Jackson, Nick (21 May 2024). "All change: meet Wigan's new mayor". Wigan Today. Retrieved 4 June 2024.
2. A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 4. London: Victoria County History. 1911. pp. 68–78. Retrieved 4 June 2024.
3. "Wigan Municipal Borough / County Borough". A Vision of Britain through Time. GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth. Retrieved 4 June 2024.
4. "Local Government Act 1972: Schedule 1", legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives, 1972 c. 70 (sch. 1), retrieved 30 May 2024
5. "District Councils and Boroughs". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). 28 March 1974. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
6. "Find your local council". gov.uk. Retrieved 4 June 2024.
7. "Local Government Act 1985", legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives, 1985 c. 51, retrieved 5 April 2024
8. "The Greater Manchester Combined Authority Order 2011", legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives, SI 2011/908, retrieved 30 May 2024
9. "Understand how your council works". gov.uk. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
10. "GMCA Members". Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
11. "Election Maps". Ordnance Survey. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
12. "Compositions calculator". The Elections Centre. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
13. "Wigan". BBC News Online. 19 April 2008. Retrieved 14 March 2010.
14. "Council minutes". Wigan Council. Retrieved 30 August 2022.
15. "Local elections 2024: full mayoral and council results for England". The Guardian. 4 May 2024. Retrieved 21 May 2024.
16. "Your councillors by political grouping". Wigan Council. Retrieved 4 June 2024.
17. "The Wigan (Electoral Changes) Order 2022", legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives, SI 2019/1372, retrieved 4 June 2024
18. "Your Councillors by Ward". Wigan Council. Retrieved 4 June 2024.
19. Historic England. "Town Hall (formerly Wigan and District Mining and Technical College) and railings (Grade II) (1384483)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
20. "Mayors Handbook". Wigan Council. Archived from the original on 6 June 2007. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
21. "Wigan Life Centre". Wigan Council. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
22. "Morgan Sindall completes £50m Wigan Life Centre". The Business Desk. 27 January 2012. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
23. Historic England. "Municipal Buildings, Hewlett Street (Grade II) (1384469)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
24. Dunton, Jim (8 February 2024). "Shedkm cleared to turn brutalist former council HQ into start-up space". Building Design. Retrieved 5 June 2024.

External links

• Official website

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