Hereford and Worcester
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Hereford and Worcester was an English county created on April 1, 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972 from the area of the former administrative county of Herefordshire, most of Worcestershire (except Halesowen and Stourbridge, which went to West Midlands) and the county borough of Worcester.
It bordered Shropshire, Staffordshire and the West Midlands to the north, Warwickshire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south, and Gwent and Powys in Wales to the west.
The county was unpopular, especially among people from Herefordshire, who due to the disparity of sizes of the populations (Worcestershire: 550,000 (2001), Herefordshire: 170,000 (2001), saw it as a takeover rather than a merger.
Under the Local Government Bill as introduced into Parliament, it was named Malvernshire, after Malvern, a town roughly in the geographical centre of the new county. The name was altered before the Bill became an Act.
As part of the 1990s English local government reform, the Local Government Commission under John Banham recommended that Herefordshire should become a unitary authority, with the rest of the county retaining a two-tier structure. This was implemented by The Hereford and Worcester (Structural, Boundary and Electoral Changes) Order 1996 - SI 1996/1867, which came into effect on April 1, 1998. A new Herefordshire district was formed from the Herefordshire parts of Malvern Hills and Leominster, along with Hereford and South Herefordshire, and became a unitary authority, with the remainder of those two districts becoming a new Malvern Hills district, in a two-tier county of Worcestershire, along with the remaining districts.
Despite the abolition, some remnants of Hereford & Worcester's existence remain - for example, there is still a Hereford and Worcester fire service and ambulance service. Also, the name is still used by some organisations, such as the BBC local radio station BBC Hereford and Worcester. There is also a Hereford and Worcester Chamber of Commerce.
Districts
Hereford and Worcester was divided into nine districts:
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