Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, the entire Forest of Dean; the county town is the city of Gloucester, other principal towns include Cheltenham, Tewkesbury and Dursley. Gloucestershire borders Herefordshire to the north west, Wiltshire to the south and Somerset to the south west, Worcestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the east, Warwickshire to the north east, the Welsh county of Monmouthshire to the west. Gloucestershire is a historic county mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 10th century, though the areas of Winchcombe and the Forest of Dean were not added until the late 11th century. Gloucestershire included Bristol a small town; the local rural community moved to the port city, Bristol's population growth accelerated during the industrial revolution. Bristol became a county in its own right, separate from Gloucestershire and Somerset in 1373, it became part of the administrative County of Avon from 1974 to 1996.
Upon the abolition of Avon in 1996, the region north of Bristol became a unitary authority area of South Gloucestershire and is now part of the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire. The official former postal county abbreviation was "Glos.", rather than the used but erroneous "Gloucs." or "Glouc". In July 2007, Gloucestershire suffered the worst flooding in recorded British history, with tens of thousands of residents affected; the RAF conducted the largest peacetime domestic operation in its history to rescue over 120 residents from flood affected areas. The damage was estimated at over £2 billion. Gloucestershire has three main landscape areas, a large part of the Cotswolds, the Royal Forest of Dean and the Severn Vale; the Cotswolds take up a large portion of the east and south of the county, The Forest of Dean taking up the west, with the Severn and its valley running between these features. The Daffodil Way in the Leadon Valley, on the border of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire surrounding the village of Dymock, is known for its many spring flowers and woodland, which attracts many walkers.
This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Gloucestershire at current basic prices published by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling. The following is a chart of Gloucestershire's gross value added total in thousands of British Pounds Sterling from 1997-2009 based upon the Office for National Statistics figures The 2009 estimation of £11,452 million GVA can be compared to the South West regional average of £7,927 million. Gloucestershire has comprehensive schools with seven selective schools. There are 42 state secondary schools, not including sixth form colleges, 12 independent schools, including the renowned Cheltenham Ladies' College, Cheltenham College and Dean Close School. All but about two schools in each district have a sixth form, but the Forest of Dean only has two schools with sixth forms. All schools in South Gloucestershire have sixth forms. Gloucestershire has two universities, the University of Gloucestershire and the Royal Agricultural University, four higher and further education colleges, Gloucestershire College, Cirencester College, South Gloucestershire and Stroud College and the Royal Forest of Dean College.
Each has campuses at multiple locations throughout the county. The University of the West of England has three locations in Gloucestershire. Gloucestershire has one city and 33 towns: Gloucester The towns in Gloucestershire are: Town in Monmouthshire with suburbs in Gloucestershire: Chepstow The county has two green belt areas, the first covers the southern area in the South Gloucestershire district, to protect outlying villages and towns between Thornbury and Chipping Sodbury from the urban sprawl of the Bristol conurbation; the second belt lies around Gloucester and Bishop's Cleeve, to afford those areas and villages in between a protection from urban sprawl and further convergence. Both belts intersect with the boundaries of the Cotswolds AONB. There are a variety of religious buildings across the county, notably the cathedral of Gloucester, the abbey church of Tewkesbury, the church of Cirencester. Of the abbey of Hailes near Winchcombe, founded by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, in 1246, little more than the foundations are left, but these have been excavated and fragments have been brought to light.
Most of the old market towns have parish churches. At Deerhurst near Tewkesbury and Bishop's Cleeve near Cheltenham, there are churches of special interest on account of the pre-Norman work they retain. There is a Perpendicular church in Lechlade, that at Fairford was built, according to tradition, to contain a series of stained-glass windows which are said to have been brought from the Netherlands; these are, adjudged to be of English workmanship. Other notable buildings include Calcot Barn in a relic of Kingswood Abbey. Thornbury Castle is a Tudor country house, the pretensio
Local government
A local government is a form of public administration which, in a majority of contexts, exists as the lowest tier of administration within a given state. The term is used to contrast with offices at state level, which are referred to as the central government, national government, or federal government and to supranational government which deals with governing institutions between states. Local governments act within powers delegated to them by legislation or directives of the higher level of government. In federal states, local government comprises the third tier of government, whereas in unitary states, local government occupies the second or third tier of government with greater powers than higher-level administrative divisions; the question of municipal autonomy is a key question of public governance. The institutions of local government vary between countries, where similar arrangements exist, the terminology varies. Common names for local government entities include state, region, county, district, township, borough, municipality, shire and local service district.
Local government traditionally had limited power in Egypt's centralized state. Under the central government were twenty-six governorates; these were subdivided into villages or towns. At each level, there was a governing structure that combined representative councils and government-appointed executive organs headed by governors, district officers, mayors, respectively. Governors were appointed by the president, they, in turn, appointed subordinate executive officers; the coercive backbone of the state apparatus ran downward from the Ministry of Interior through the governors' executive organs to the district police station and the village headman. Before the revolution, state penetration of the rural areas was limited by the power of local notables, but under Nasser, land reform reduced their socioeconomic dominance, the incorporation of peasants into cooperatives transferred mass dependence from landlords to government; the extension of officials into the countryside permitted the regime to bring development and services to the village.
The local branches of the ruling party, the Arab Socialist Union, fostered a certain peasant political activism and coopted the local notables—in particular the village headmen—and checked their independence from the regime. State penetration did not retreat under Mubarak; the earlier effort to mobilize peasants and deliver services disappeared as the local party and cooperative withered, but administrative controls over the peasants remained intact. The local power of the old families and the headmen revived but more at the expense of peasants than of the state; the district police station balanced the notables, the system of local government integrated them into the regime. Sadat took several measures to decentralize power to the towns. Governors acquired more authority under Law Number 43 of 1979, which reduced the administrative and budgetary controls of the central government over the provinces; the elected councils acquired, at least formally, the right to approve or disapprove the local budget.
In an effort to reduce local demands on the central treasury, local government was given wider powers to raise local taxes. But local representative councils became vehicles of pressure for government spending, the soaring deficits of local government bodies had to be covered by the central government. Local government was encouraged to enter into joint ventures with private investors, these ventures stimulated an alliance between government officials and the local rich that paralleled the infitah alliance at the national level. Under Mubarak decentralization and local autonomy became more of a reality, local policies reflected special local conditions. Thus, officials in Upper Egypt bowed to the powerful Islamic movement there, while those in the port cities struck alliances with importers. In recent years, Mali has undertaken an ambitious decentralization program, which involves the capital district of Bamako, seven regions subdivided into 46 cercles, 682 rural community districts; the state retains an advisory role in administrative and fiscal matters, it provides technical support and legal recourse to these levels.
Opportunities for direct political participation, increased local responsibility for development have been improved. In August–September 1998, elections were held for urban council members, who subsequently elected their mayors. In May/June 1999, citizens of the communes elected their communal council members for the first time. Female voter turnout was about 70% of the total, observers considered the process open and transparent. With mayors and boards in place at the local level, newly elected officials, civil society organizations, decentralized technical services, private sector interests, other communes, donor groups began partnering to further development; the cercles will be reinstituted with a legal and financial basis of their own. Their councils will be chosen from members of the communal councils; the regions, at the highest decentralized level, will have a similar legal and financial autonomy, will comprise a number of cercles within their geographical boundaries. Mali needs to build capacity at these levels to mobilize and manage financial resources.
South Africa has a two tiered local government system comprising local munici
Glamorgan
Glamorgan, or sometimes Glamorganshire, is one of the thirteen historic counties of Wales and a former administrative county of Wales. It was an early medieval petty kingdom of varying boundaries known as Glywysing until taken over by the Normans as a lordship. Glamorgan is latterly represented by the three preserved counties of Mid Glamorgan, South Glamorgan and West Glamorgan; the name survives in that of Vale of Glamorgan, a county borough. Although a rural and pastoral area of little value, the area that became known as Glamorgan was a conflict point between the Norman lords and the Welsh princes, with the area being defined by a large concentration of castles. After falling under English rule in the 16th century, Glamorgan became a more stable county, exploited its natural resources to become an important part of the Industrial Revolution. Glamorgan was the most populous and industrialised county in Wales, was once called the "crucible of the Industrial Revolution," as it contained the world centres of three metallurgical industries and its rich resources of coal.
The county of Glamorgan comprises several distinct regions: the industrial valleys, the agricultural Vale of Glamorgan, the scenic Gower Peninsula. The county is bounded to the north by Brecknockshire, east by Monmouthshire, south by the Bristol Channel, west by Carmarthenshire and Carmarthen Bay, its total area is 2,100 km2, the total population of the three preserved counties of Glamorgan in 1991 was 1,288,309. Glamorgan contains two cities, the county town and from 1955 the capital city of Wales, Swansea; the highest point in the county is Craig y Llyn, situated near the village of Rhigos in the Cynon Valley. Glamorgan's terrain has been inhabited by humankind for over 200,000 years. Climate fluctuation caused the formation and reformation of glaciers which, in turn, caused sea levels to rise and fall. At various times life has flourished, at others the area is to have been uninhabitable. Evidence of the presence of Neanderthals has been discovered on the Gower Peninsula. Whether they remained in the area during periods of extreme cold is unclear.
Sea levels have been 150 metres lower and 8 metres higher than at present, resulting in significant changes to the coastline during this period. Archaeological evidence shows; the oldest known human burial in Great Britain – the Red Lady of Paviland – was discovered in a coastal cave between Port Eynon and Rhossili, on the Gower Peninsula. The'lady' has been radiocarbon dated to c. 29,000 years before present – during the Late Pleistocene – at which time the cave overlooked an area of plain, some miles from the sea. From the end of the last ice age Mesolithic hunter-gatherers began to migrate to the British Peninsula – through Doggerland – from the European mainland. Archaeologist Stephen Aldhouse-Green notes that while Wales has a "multitude" of Mesolithic sites, their settlements were "focused on the coastal plains", the uplands were "exploited only by specialist hunting groups". Human lifestyles in North-West Europe changed around 6000 BP, they cleared the forests to establish pasture and to cultivate the land and developed new technologies such as ceramics and textile production.
A tradition of long barrow construction began in continental Europe during the 7th millennium BP – the free standing megalithic structures supporting a sloping capstone. Nineteen Neolithic chambered five possible henges have been identified in Glamorgan; these megalithic burial chambers, or cromlechi, were built between 6000 and 5000 BP, during the early Neolithic period, the first of them about 1500 years before either Stonehenge or the Egyptian Great Pyramid of Giza was completed. Two major groups of Neolithic architectural traditions are represented in the area: portal dolmens; such massive constructions would have needed a large labour force – up to 200 men – suggestive of large communities nearby. Archaeological evidence from some Neolithic sites has shown the continued use of cromlechi in the Bronze Age; the Bronze Age – defined by the use of metal – has made a lasting impression on the area. Over six hundred Bronze Age barrows and cairns, of various types, have been identified all over Glamorgan.
Other technological innovations – including the wheel. Deforestation continued to the more remote areas as a warmer climate allowed the cultivation of upland areas. By 4000 BP people had begun to bury, or cremate their dead in individual cists, beneath a mound of earth known as a round barrow. From c. 3350 BP, a worsening climate began to make agriculture unsustainable in upland areas. The resulting population pressures appear to have led to co
Parliament of England
The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England, existing from the early 13th century until 1707, when it merged with the Parliament of Scotland to become the Parliament of Great Britain after the political union of England and Scotland created the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1066, William of Normandy introduced what, in centuries, became referred to as a feudal system, by which he sought the advice of a council of tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics before making laws. In 1215, the tenants-in-chief secured Magna Carta from King John, which established that the king may not levy or collect any taxes, save with the consent of his royal council, which developed into a parliament. Over the centuries, the English Parliament progressively limited the power of the English monarchy which arguably culminated in the English Civil War and the trial and execution of Charles I in 1649. After the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, the subsequent Glorious Revolution of 1688, the supremacy of Parliament was a settled principle and all future English and British sovereigns were restricted to the role of constitutional monarchs with limited executive authority.
The Act of Union 1707 merged the English Parliament with the Parliament of Scotland to form the Parliament of Great Britain. When the Parliament of Ireland was abolished in 1801, its former members were merged into what was now called the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Under a monarchical system of government, monarchs must consult and seek a measure of acceptance for their policies if they are to enjoy the broad cooperation of their subjects. Early kings of England had no standing army or police, so depended on the support of powerful subjects; the monarchy had agents in every part of the country. However, under the feudal system that evolved in England after the Norman Conquest of 1066, the laws of the Crown could not have been upheld without the support of the nobility and the clergy; the former had economic and military power bases of their own through major ownership of land and the feudal obligations of their tenants. The Church was a law unto itself in this period as it had its own system of religious law courts.
In order to seek consultation and consent from the nobility and the senior clergy on major decisions, post-Norman Conquest English monarchs called Great Councils. A typical Great Council would consist of archbishops, abbots and earls, the pillars of the feudal system; when this system of consultation and consent broke down, it became impossible for government to function effectively. The most prominent instances of this before the reign of Henry III are the disagreements between Thomas Becket and Henry II and between King John and the barons. Becket, who served as Archbishop of Canterbury between 1162 and 1170, was murdered after a long running dispute with Henry II over the jurisdiction of the Church. John, king from 1199 to 1216, aroused such hostility from many leading noblemen that they forced him to agree to Magna Carta in 1215. John's refusal to adhere to this charter led to civil war; the Great Council evolved into the Parliament of England. The term came into use during the early 13th century, when it shifted from the more general meaning of "an occasion for speaking."
It first appears in official documents in the 1230s. As a result of the work by historians G. O. Sayles and H. G. Richardson, it is believed that the early parliaments had a judicial as well as a legislative function. During the 13th and 14th centuries, the kings called Knights of the Shire to meet when the monarch saw it as necessary. A notable example of this was in 1254 when sheriffs of counties were instructed to send Knights of the Shire to parliament to advise the king on finance. Parliaments were summoned when the king needed to raise money through taxes. After Magna Carta, this became a convention; this was due in no small part to the fact that King John died in 1216 and was succeeded by his young son Henry III. Leading peers and clergy governed on Henry's behalf until he came of age, giving them a taste for power that they would prove unwilling to relinquish. Among other things, they made sure. Once the reign of John ended and Henry III took full control of the government, leading peers became concerned with his style of government his unwillingness to consult them on decisions he took, his seeming patronisation of his foreign relatives over his native subjects.
Henry's support of a disastrous papal invasion of Sicily was the last straw. In 1258, seven leading barons forced Henry to swear to uphold the Provisions of Oxford, the following year, by the Provisions of Westminster; this abolished the absolutist Anglo-Norman monarchy, giving power to a council of fifteen barons, providing for a thrice-yearly meeting of parliament to monitor their performance. Parliament assembled six times between June 1258 and April 1262, most notably at Oxford in 1258; the French-born nobleman Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, emerged as the leader of this characteristically English rebellion. In the years that followed, those supporting Montfort and those supporting the king grew more hostile to each other. Henry obtained a papal bull in 1263 exempting him from his oath and both sides began to raise armies. At the Battle of Lewes on 14 May 1264, Henry was taken prisoner by Montfort's army. However, many of the peers who had supported Montfort began to suspect that he ha
Severn Estuary
The Severn Estuary is the estuary of the River Severn, the longest river in Great Britain. It is the confluence of four major rivers, being the Severn, Wye and Avon, other smaller rivers, its high tidal range 50 feet, means that it has been at the centre of discussions in the UK regarding renewable energy. Definitions of the limits of the Severn Estuary vary. A narrower definition adopted by some maps is that the river becomes the Severn Estuary after the Second Severn Crossing near Severn Beach, South Gloucestershire, stretches to a line from Lavernock Point to Sand Point near Weston-super-Mare; the definition used on Admiralty Chart SC1179 and the Bristol Channel and Severn Cruising Guide is that the estuary extends upstream to Aust, the site of the old Severn Bridge. The estuary is about 2 miles wide at Aust, about 9 miles wide between Cardiff and Weston-super-Mare; the Estuary forms the boundary between England in this stretch. On the northern side of the estuary are the Caldicot and Wentloog Levels which are on either side of the city of Newport.
On the southern, side, are Avonmouth, Portishead and Weston-super-Mare. Denny Island is a small rocky island of 0.24 hectares, with scrub vegetation three miles north of Portishead. Its rocky southern foreshore marks the boundary between England and Wales, but the island itself is reckoned administratively to Monmouthshire, Wales; the estuary has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world — about 50 feet. The estuary's funnel shape, its tidal range and the underlying geology of rock and sand, produce strong tidal streams and high turbidity, giving the water a notably brown coloration. West of the line between Lavernock Point and Sand Point is the Bristol Channel, which in turn discharges into the Celtic Sea and the wider Atlantic Ocean; the islands of Steep Holm and Flat Holm are located close to that line, in the middle of the estuary. Sometimes the term Severn Estuary is used to include the tidal upstream stretch between Gloucester and Aust. During the highest tides on the upper reaches of this stretch, the rising water is funnelled up the estuary into the Severn bore, a self-reinforcing solitary wave that travels upstream against the river current.
The tidal range results in the estuary having one of the most extensive intertidal wildlife habitats in the UK, comprising mudflats, rocky platforms and islands. These form a basis for plant and animal communities typical of extreme physical conditions of liquid mud and tide-swept sand and rock; the estuary is recognised as a wetland area of international importance and is designated as a Ramsar site. The estuary is recognised as a Special Protection Area under the EC Directive on the conservation of Wild Birds; the estuary is recognised as a Special Area of Conservation under the EU Habitats Directive. Parts of the estuary have been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest; the SSSI includes most of the foreshore upstream from Cardiff and Brean Down and most of the upper estuary as far as Sharpness. The Upper Severn Estuary SSSI covers the tidal river between Frampton on Severn; the Severn Estuary SSSI original designation involves the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire in England, Gwent and South Glamorgan in Wales.
The Severn Estuary SSSI designation overlaps individual site designations for separate sites in Avon and South Glamorgan. The 1976 designation includes two sites notified in 1952; the SSSI forms the major part of a larger area which includes the Taf/Ely Estuary and Bridgwater Bay The Upper Severn Estuary SSSI designation involves the English county of Gloucestershire. The site is listed in the'Forest of Dean Local Plan Review' as a Key Wildlife Site. Both SSSI citations provide detail of the geological and biological interest and of particular note is the international importance for wintering and wading birds of passage, of estuarine habits of outstanding ornithological significance, it is stated that the estuary supports over 10% of the British wintering population and is the single most important wintering ground for dunlin, for significant numbers of Bewick's swans, European white-fronted geese and wigeon. Nationally important wintering populations are supported such as gadwall and pochard.
There are notably seven species of migratory fish. These include significant numbers of common eel. A huge tidal range and high level of surrounding industry and population have long made the Severn Estuary and Bristol Channel a focus for tidal energy schemes and ideas. Plans for a Severn Barrage — running 16 km across the Bristol Channel from Lavernock Point near to and south west of Cardiff to Brean Down near and just south west of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset — would generate a massive 8640 MW when the tide flows, have been discussed for several decades now; the power generated would come from a lake of 185 square miles with a potential energy depth of 14 metres. Tidal power only runs for around ten hours a day, but by using the enclosed lake as a reservoir of potential energy more hours of operation could be achieved. Other energy sources, such as wind and solar power create electricity at times that do not always match when it is needed. Excess power could be stored by pumping water uphill
David Davies (Welsh politician)
David Thomas Charles Davies is a British Conservative Party politician. He is the Member of Parliament for Monmouth in South Wales. A vocal critic of the European Union, he supported Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum, he has since been supportive of pro-Brexit pressure group Leave Means Leave. Davies was educated at Bassaleg School, Bassaleg, a suburb of Newport, he is the eldest child of Kathleen Davies. After leaving school in 1988 he worked for the British Steel Corporation and served with the Territorial Army, he worked for his family in Burrow Heath Ltd, before he entered politics. He was a Special Constable with the British Transport Police for 9 years, he married Aliz Harnisfoger, Hungarian, in October 2003 in Monmouth, they have three children. A keen sportsman, Davies has fought in several charity boxing matches as "The Tory Tornado" and is a former President of the Welsh Amateur Boxing Association, he unsuccessfully contested the safe Labour seat of Bridgend at the 1997 general election, finishing in second place some 15,248 votes behind the sitting Labour MP Win Griffiths.
As an opponent of the Welsh assembly who helped to set up the'No' campaign in the devolution referendum, Davies gained a higher profile and was selected as Conservative candidate for Monmouth. At the inaugural 1999 Welsh Assembly Election he won election to the National Assembly for Wales there. Davies speaks fluent Welsh after learning the language from scratch when he was elected to the National Assembly for Wales, he was awarded the accolade of Welsh Speaker of the Year and was the first AM to address the Welsh Language Society, Cymdeithas Yr Iaith Gymraeg, in Welsh. He was elected at the 2005 general election as member of the House of Commons for Monmouth, the same seat he held in the Welsh Assembly, he defeated the sitting Labour MP Huw Edwards by 4,527 votes, remains the MP for the constituency. On 18 May 2005 he made his maiden speech as an MP, using it to give a history of his constituency from Geoffrey of Monmouth forwards. In parliament he joined the Welsh Affairs Select Committee on his election.
After the 2015 general election, he was returned unopposed the chairmanship of the Committee. In 2008, Davies criticised the National Black Police Association's race-based membership policy for not allowing white people interested in fighting racism to become full members; the text of the speech on his website states that Keith Vaz asked him to attend the meeting after Vaz was unable to fulfil the engagement himself. Davies was criticised by The Daily Telegraph, for claiming £2,000 and paying it to a family business. Davies justified his actions in an interview. Davies said he had done nothing wrong, told BBC Wales that the work was done at short notice and at cost value, neither he nor any of his family made any profit from the work, he said he was now having to use a specialist company in London for the production of such material, one, used by many other MPs, the real cost was higher. In May 2009, after revelations about expenses were published by The Daily Telegraph in relation to other politicians, Davies became the first member of the Commons voluntarily to put all his expense claims in public for anybody to examine.
They were scrutinised by an independent panel that included a journalist, a former Labour candidate among others, Davies emerged unscathed from his decision to release all his expenses claims from the House of Commons. Davies continues to employ his wife as a part time Office Manager. In June 2010, Davies was appointed Chairman of the Welsh Affairs Committee, he is a former member of the Home Affairs Select Committee and is an advocate of tough measures to deal with criminality. Davies is Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary China Group and a member of the All-Party Parliamentary British-German Group. In January 2012, the Prime Minister David Cameron announced his appointment as a representative of the UK delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. During the trial of fellow Welsh MP Nigel Evans, Davies' best man at his 2003 wedding, Davies defended his character, stating that Evans liked a drink and became jovial when intoxicated, unlike some people who have a dark side.
Davies is quoted as saying "He’s been a good friend of mine for a lot of years. I am stunned by these allegations and find them impossible to believe." Evans was acquitted. Davies opposed his Government's plans to introduce same-sex marriage, describing them as "barking mad" due to the possibility that they may alienate the Conservative party's traditional supporters. Davies said he was not bigoted, offering the unusual defence that he had once fought an amateur boxing match against the "Pink Pounder", an gay boxer. On 5 February 2013, Davies voted against in the House of Commons Second Reading vote on marriage equality in Britain. Davies has said "I support the sentiments of Better Off Out" which campaigns for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. Davies is sceptical of the theory of man-made global warming and in 2013 questioned the evidence in Parliament. In January 2010 he was criticised for referring to some communities as having imported "barbaric views on women". Commenting on a rape case, Davies said that upbringing could be a major factor although he saw it as "not an Islamic issue... let me be quite clear, it's not a racial issue".
During a phone-in during the Jeremy Vine show on BBC Radio 2, Davies told a member of the public that she should join the BNP after she suggested it should be a requirement for Welsh civil and public servants to understand Welsh
District of Monmouth
Monmouth district was one of five districts of Gwent in Wales between 1974 and 1996. In 1988 the district was granted a charter conferring borough status, becoming the Borough of Monmouth; the district was created by the Local Government Act 1972 from the following parts of the administrative county of Monmouthshire: The municipal boroughs of Abergavenny and Monmouth, The urban districts of Chepstow and Usk The rural districts of Abergavenny, Chepstow and part of Pontypool Rural District. The headquarters of the district council was Pontypool; this had been the administrative centre of Pontypool Rural District, was in the neighbouring district of Torfaen. The borough was abolished in 1996 by the Local Government Act 1994, with the area forming nearly all of the new principal area of Monmouthshire; the Parliamentary constituency of Monmouth covers the same area
