Borough of Barrow-in-Furness

The area covered by the district is at the edge of the Furness peninsula. It jolts into the Irish Sea, being north of Morecambe Bay and south of the Duddon Estuary. The current borough was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of the former county borough of Barrow-in-Furness and the Dalton-in-Furness urban district from the administrative county of Lancashire. Despite being one of England's smallest local authorities it has a coastline of 63 km and has equally diverse built and natural environments. This includes 274 Listed buildings and four SSSIs, ranking as the seventh highest concentration of 325 districts on the English Heritage Index.[3]

Barrow-in-Furness Borough Council sits at the Town Hall in Barrow. It is led by a mayor, who is elected by council members. In 2006, the Council was fined £125,000 for violation of health and safety laws that led to the deaths of seven people in the United Kingdom's worst outbreak of Legionnaires' disease. The council also became the UK's first public body to be charged with corporate manslaughter, but was found not guilty.[4]

Following boundary changes in 2008,[5] the council is composed of 36 seats, elected across 13 wards. From 2011 the council has switched from the previous system of elections occurring over a four-year cycle, with a third of seats elected each year and one 'fallow' year, to one where full council elections occur every four years.[6]

Since its inception in 1973, the council has often been under Labour control, most recently from the 2011 election, but with three years of Conservative control (1976–1979) and ten years of no overall control (most recently from 2006 to 2011).[7]

Current Composition
As of the 2015 election[7]

The Borough of Barrow-in-Furness comprises thirteen electoral wards, all of which can be seen on the map below.

The densely residential Barrow Island

Victorian architecture in Central Barrow

Semi-rural Newton-in-Furness

A coastal scene in North Walney