Brighton and Hove

Brighton & Hove City of Brighton and Hove
City and unitary authority
Brighton and Hove shown within East Sussex and England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Constituent country	England
Region	South East England
Historic county	Sussex
Ceremonial county	East Sussex
Administrative seat	Hove
City status	2001
Government
• Type	Unitary authority & City
• Governing body	Brighton and Hove City Council
• Local government form	Committee System
• Control	Labour (council NOC)
• MPs	Simon Kirby (C) (Brighton Kemptown) Peter Kyle (politician) (L) (Hove) Caroline Lucas (G) (Brighton Pavilion)
Area
• City and unitary authority	87.54 km2 (33.80 sq mi)
• Urban	89.4 km2 (34.5 sq mi)
Population (2011)
• City and unitary authority	273,400
• Urban	474,485 (12th)
• Metro	769,000 (15th)
• Ethnicity (2011 Census)	80.5% White British 8.5% Other White 3.7% Mixed Race 3% Black 1.1% Chinese 0.8% Arab 2.1% Other
Time zone	Greenwich Mean Time (UTC+0)
Postcode districts	BN1, BN2, BN3, BN41
ONS code	00ML (ONS) E06000043 (GSS)
ISO 3166-2	GB-BNH

Brighton and Hove (/ˈbraɪtən ən ˈhoʊv/) is a city in East Sussex, in South East England. At the 2011 census, it was England's most populous seaside resort with a population of 273,400.

The towns of Brighton and Hove formed a unitary authority in 1997 and in 2001 were granted city status by Queen Elizabeth II. "Brighton" is often referred to synonymously with the official "Brighton and Hove" although many locals still consider the two to be separate towns.

History

File:Royal Pavilion, Brighton, UK.jpg

Royal Pavilion, Brighton

Brighton and Hove is the result of a number of historic local government reorganisations:

• Brighton was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1854, later becoming a county borough under the Local Government Act 1888; it covered the parish of Brighton and part of Preston;
• Hove became a local board of health in the late 19th century, originally covering the parish of Hove;
• In 1893 the parish of Aldrington was added to Hove local board;
• Hove became incorporated as a municipal borough in 1898;
• Hangleton, Preston Rural and West Blatchington were added to Hove in 1928;
• Ovingdean, Patcham and Rottingdean were added to Brighton in 1928;
• Portslade-by-Sea was added to Hove in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. Both Brighton and Hove became non-metropolitan districts of East Sussex.

On 15 October 2004, Brighton and Hove was granted Fairtrade City status.

City Council

Main article: Brighton and Hove City Council

Political composition

Main article: Brighton and Hove local elections

Elections are held every four years, with the last elections occurring on 7 May 2015.

Party		Councillors
	Labour	23
	Conservative	20
	Green	11
Total		54
Source: Brighton & Hove City Council

Brighton and Hove was the first ever council in the United Kingdom where the Green Party were both the largest group and led the council (from May 2011 to May 2015).

Industrial relations

In 2013 the council was obliged to finalise single status across its workforce, resulting in a strike of its refuse collectors and street cleaners, whose allowances the council reformed to equalise them with other staff at the organisation conducting similar work.

Administration

The Leader of the Council and Labour minority administration since May 2015 is Councillor Warren Morgan (Lab Co-op).

The current mayor of Brighton and Hove is Councillor Lynda Hyde. Geoff Raw is the current chief executive.

DVLA database ban

In 2012 it was revealed that the Brighton and Hove unitary authority has been permanently banned from accessing information from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. This information is normally made available to local authorities for purposes such as enforcing parking fines, but access can be withdrawn if they are found to be misusing the service. The Big Brother Watch organisation, which obtained the information about the ban under a Freedom of Information request, claimed that "the public are right to be worried that their privacy is at risk across a range of government services."

Census

The first census of Brighton was in 1801.

The resident population of Brighton and Hove at the 2011 census was 273,369 persons, 50% male and 50% female.

The 2011 census found the ethnic composition of Brighton and Hove to be 89.08% white (80.48% white British, 1.38% white Irish, 7.21% other white), 4.13% Asian (1.10% Chinese, 1.10% Indian, 0.50% Bangladeshi, 1.43% other Asian), 3.81% mixed race (1.54% mixed black/white, 1.23% mixed white/Asian, 1.05% other mix), 1.53% black and 0.80% Arab.

The 2011 census found the religious composition to be 42.90% Christian, 42.42% nonreligious, 2.23% Muslim, 1.00% Buddhist, 0.98% Jewish. 1.66% were adherents of some other religion, while 8.81% did not state their religion.

In the 2001 census, Brighton and Hove had the highest percentage of citizens indicating their religion as Jedi among all principal areas of England and Wales.

Wording of the Letters Patent

The Letters Patent of 2001 that confers City status is worded thus:

ELIZABETH the SECOND BY THE GRACE OF GOD OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND & OF OUR REALMS & TERRITORIES QUEEN HEAD OF THE COMMON WEALTH DEFENDER OF THE FAITH.

To all to whom these Presents shall come Greeting. Whereas We for divers good causes and considerations Us thereunto moving are graciously pleased to confer on the Towns of Brighton and Hove the status of a city Now Therefore Know Ye that We of Our especial grace and favour and mere motion do by these Presents ordain declare and direct that the TOWNS OF BRIGHTON AND HOVE shall henceforth have the status of a CITY and shall have all such rank liberties privileges and immunities as are incident to a City. In witness whereof We have caused Our Letters to be made Patent Witness Ourself at Westminster the thirty first day of January in the forty ninth year of our reign.

By Warrant under The Queens Sign Manual.

Economy and demography

Main article: Brighton § Economy

As mentioned in the Brighton article, the economy of the city is service-based with a strong emphasis on creative, digital and electronic technologies compared to the national average economic sectors. Universities (of Brighton and Sussex) and other educational institutions are present here compensating for the absence of such large scale institutions in the surrounding upper tier authorities, with a larger population overall, of East Sussex and West Sussex but with such population spread over a much larger area. Tourism and entertainment are important sectors for the City including hotels, amusements, Brighton Pier and Shoreham/Portslade Harbour.

In the demography of the neighbouring county the most clearly deprived claimant count, people claiming benefits for very low income or worklessness, varied from district to district but stood overall for that county at 3.6%, as at August 2012, reaching 6.7% as to the Borough of Hastings. As to England the average figure was 4.5%. For Brighton and Hove, containing approximately one two-hundredth of England's population (0.467%) as at the United Kingdom Census 2011 this data is:

Population at latest censuses. Claimants of JSA or Income Support (DWP).

Population (April 2011)	Population (April 2001)
273,369	247,817
JSA or Inc. Supp. claimants (August 2012)	JSA or Income Support claimants (August 2001)
12,250	24,920
% of 2011 resident population	% of 2001 resident population
4.5%	10.1%

See also

Healthcare in Sussex