Stoke-on-Trent's city status to be protected as councils prepare for shake-up

Stoke-on-Trent will not lose its city status when local government reorganisation sweeps away the current council structure, the city council has confirmed.

In a statement issued this week, a Stoke-on-Trent City Council spokesperson said:

"Stoke-on-Trent will not lose city status as a result of Local Government Reorganisation. Plans have been in place for a long time to safeguard the city's status, using a statutory order."

Why city status was ever in doubt

Stoke-on-Trent has held city status since 1925, when it was granted by Letters Patent from King George V. The city marked its centenary only last year. But that status is legally tied to the council the letters patent were served on, and under local government reorganisation, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, along with every other district, borough and county council in Staffordshire, is set to be abolished by 2028 and replaced by new unitary authorities.

That created a genuine risk. If the old council ceases to exist and nobody has explicitly carried the status forward, city status does not simply transfer of its own accord.

There is a cautionary tale close to hand. Rochester in Kent lost its city status in 1998 when the issue was overlooked during the creation of Medway Council. Nearly three decades on, it has never got that status back. Council officers in Stoke warned earlier this year that regaining city status after the fact could mean a "complex and unnecessary bureaucratic undertaking", precisely the outcome nobody in the Potteries wants to see repeated.

The fix: Charter Trustees

The safeguard the council has settled on is the creation of a Charter Trustees body, a mechanism available under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. Charter Trustees exist specifically to carry forward the ceremonial and historic rights of a former council area, including maintaining the office of Lord Mayor and Deputy Lord Mayor.

Under the plans, when the new North Staffordshire unitary authority takes over from Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council and Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, the Charter Trustees would preserve Stoke-on-Trent's city status and mayoralty, alongside Newcastle-under-Lyme's much older borough status, which dates back to 1173.

This week's statement is effectively the council confirming, in plain terms, that this safeguard has been built into the statutory order rather than left to chance.

The wider picture

Local government reorganisation will see all ten of Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent's principal councils abolished and replaced with two new unitary authorities, one covering the north of the county and one covering the south. The new arrangements are not expected to be in place until 2028, and existing councils continue to deliver services as normal in the meantime.

For residents, the day-to-day changes are still some way off. But for a city whose name and identity have been bound up with its status for a century, this week's confirmation closes off one of the more symbolically important questions hanging over the process.