SIGNS could be put up in Startforth to remind residents and visitors they are within the traditional boundary of Yorkshire.
The village’s parish council has received a letter from the Yorkshire Ridings Society (YRS) inviting members to a future meeting to hear proposals for the installation of historic North Riding signs on roads and Tees river crossing points.
Although Startforth was made part of County Durham during the reorganisation of local government in 1974, the YRS says this was for administrative purposes only. The society says the order which created the new administrative areas included this statement: “The new county boundaries are administrative areas and will not alter the traditional boundaries of counties, nor is it intended that the loyalties of people living in them will change despite the different names adopted by the new administrative counties.”
The society says this was not widely publicised but put paid to the myth that all those affected by the reorganisation had been “moved out of the county” .
Cllr Doreen Thompson said she was “all for it” as far as signs were concerned.
The meeting was told that a date and venue for a YRS meeting had yet to be arranged. Cllr Debbie Herbert queried whether it would be the parish council which would have to foot the bill for North Riding signs.
It was confirmed this would be the case.
Chairman Cllr Pat Estall said if the parish council could support and co-operate with the society it should.
He said when details of the meeting had been firmed up, he would consider attending.
The YRS was formed the year after local government reorganisation and has spent the past four decades ensuring the traditional identity and borders of Yorkshire and its three Ridings is maintained.
