Talk:Rutland

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Rutland article.
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The current UK geography collaboration of the month is Rutland.

If you see ways in which this article can be improved please edit it. You may get ideas from the talk page or the WikiProject UK geography.
OpenStreetMap held a mapping party in this area on 14-15 October, 2006 to make a creative commons licensed map that may be used in Wikipedia articles.

Thanks to all those wikipedians that took part.

See http://www.openstreetmap.org for details of other planned mapping parties.


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Contents

[edit] Photo

I have added a self-taken photo of Oakham Castle in response to the image request. I'll leave it to others more expert to add it to the page if/as they see fit. It is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Oakham_Castle.jpg Njjh201 21:07, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Too small

I have removed the assertion that Rutland is "too small to have its own M.P." on the basis that although true, the comment is not very meaningful, because UK electoral boundaries do not tie in with county boundaries in any case. (I think I'm right to say that they are calculated in terms of population and that each parliamentary constituency area is an accumulation of parishes). So although Rutland by itself is too small to form a parliamentary constituency itself, the county is by no means exclusive in its position of not having a 'county MP'. Njjh201 23:11, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nottinghamshire

The source for the assertion that Rutland was originally part of Nottinghamshire is 'Muirs Historical Atlas'. Rutland Weekend Television is personal recollection - though the only detail I can offer is that the station logo was a cow (rather than a conventional globe) whose markings formed a map of the world.Alan Peakall 15:22 Oct 18, 2002 (UTC)

Um, actually I've since learnt that Rutland was chosen as the name of Rutland Weekend Television because the idea of the smallest county having a whole TV station especially for the weekend was rather funny - so the name Rutland was deliberately chosen due to a specific characteristic of the county - I think there is probably enough of a relationship to be worth a mention. 80N 22:40, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)
As far as I know, Rutland Weekend Television has absolutely no connection with the county of Rutland. I suggest this reference be removed. 80N 15:06, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I was about to suggest the same. It doesn't even qualify as misc trivia.--JBellis 16:16, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] By popular demand?

"The four district councils were abolished, and the administrative county was made a non-metropolitan district of Leicestershire in the local government reorganisation of 1974. It was restored to top-level authority status by popular demand on 1 April 1997, as part of the local government reform."

Reading this, one could be forgiven for thinking that the people of Rutland were united in their desire to have Rutland's unitary status restored. It might have been sought by some (such as Rutland's councillors), but I think you will find that a significant number of Rutlanders had little interest in pursuing the matter. And who would have blamed them given the extortionate council tax prices the people of Rutland must pay as a result of this change in status, among the highest in the country.

And for what? Have the people of Rutland been provided with green recycling bins and boxes as residents in neighbouring counties have been? Are the roads kept in a good state of repair? How many years has Oakham waited for a bypass? Is Oakham town centre slowly being killed off by the recent arrival of a certain supermarket who seems to be going out of its way (as usual) to be top dog? Healthy competition is good, but when the supermarket prices undercut the local butchers/green grocers/stationary shop/chemist so substantially, that just isn't fair play (but that's another debate entirely!)

Buffy the Vampire Bat 10:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming

What does possibly derived from being a retreat of the Leicestershire RatCE mean? User:Zoe|(talk) 22:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

This was a direct quote from "Notes & Queries" of 1909 as referenced, but I think it was probably an error introduced by the journal in scanning & OCR of the original paper journal into electronic format. I can't explain it so I have removed that part of the sentance. I hope it stil makes sense & throws some light on the origin of the county name.— Rod talk 23:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:EH icon.png

Image:EH icon.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. BetacommandBot (talk) 05:16, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rutland inaccuracies

I am a little confused as to why you undid some perfectly valid changes I made to the Rutland entry (March 19th) and replaced them with the original, less accurate version. Surely wikipedia is about providing users with correct information, rather than locally biased partial truths? As someone who works with spatial data on a daily basis, I would be very interested to hear your justification!

Just to be clear, Rutland is NOT a county anymore and hasn't been since 1974. I refer you to the 'beginners guide to UK geography' produced by the ONS: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/geography/counties_nonmet_ua.asp

and to the related map:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/geography/downloads/UK_LADUACty.pdf

and to the latest list of UK counties:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/geography/downloads/31_10_01_County_names_and_codes_12_00.xls

I hope this helps with clarification - I would be nice if you could impliment these changes, otherwise I will do it.

Best wishes... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.11.76.215 (talk) 09:49, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

What is a county can be somewhat vague as the term has several meanings; see Counties of England for some discussion. Rutland is a county (traditional, ceremonial and postal) but currently it is not formally an administrative county but a unitary authority (as stated in infobox). I think most people would say Rutland has a stronger claim to be considered a county than Tyne and Wear which appears in that ONS list of counties. Ned de Rotelande 12:52, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I left the following at User talk:MRSC in reply to the above this morning... probably should have put it here. anyway I'm copying and pasting now...
Sorry for butting in, but i noticed this discusssion going on. I checked the legislation that created Rutland a unitary authority: The Leicestershire (City of Leicester and District of Rutland) (Structural Change) Order 1996, and there I found the following:

Constitution of new counties 8.—

(1) Leicester and Rutland shall cease to form part of Leicestershire.

(2) A new county shall be constituted comprising the area of Leicester and shall be named the county of Leicester.

(3) A new county shall be constituted comprising the area of Rutland and shall be named the county of Rutland.

(4) Section 2(1) of the 1972 Act (which provides that every county shall have a council) shall not apply in relation to the counties of Leicester and Rutland.

My understanding is that it is both a non-metropolitan district and a county. This is also the case with Herefordshire (and the order establishing the current district contains similar wording).

Lozleader (talk) 15:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, it's useful to have a discussion about these things. I do, however, contend that my original revision was more or less accurate and did allow for Rutland's historical county status.

Thanks to Lozleader for the link to the 1996 statutory instrument. This is in itself a little ambiguous, as despite it mentioning a 'Rutland County' in the text, in the heading for the entire document it refers to the 'District of Rutland.' If you refer back to my original revision of the Wiki entry (around 19th March I think) you will see that I stated that 'Rutland can accurately be described as a District'.

It is useful to be clear in the wiki text about these ambiguities. ONS, aware of these issues with geography have produced a useful Gazetteer which should clear things up definitively: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/ons_geography/Gazetteer_v3.pdf

On p41, they state that by legal definition all UAs are also Counties, but 'for many purposes UAs are treated as districts'. From this, I see the appropriate hierarchy as being Unitary Authority (first and foremost), then County (as all UAs are officially counties - not the other way around, all Counties are NOT UAs) with 'district' being a term used to refer to all UAs, Met and Non-met Counties, London Boroughs and other Local Authority Districts.

Finally the ONS produce a regularly updated database of standard name codes (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/geography/snac.asp) - Rutland is consistently identified as a UA first and foremost and so I think its Wiki entry should reflect that.

Cheers, Adam —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.86.77.248 (talk) 08:36, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I reverted because, regardless of whether you think Rutland should be described as a county or a unitary authority, it is not appropriate to get into a lengthy discussion near the start of the article. PatGallacher (talk) 13:07, 13 April 2008 (UTC)