WARRINGTON Borough Council has ruled out erecting boundary signs to show the town is ‘located’ in Lancashire rather than Cheshire.

The British Counties Campaign (BCC) wants the current ‘ceremonial counties’ to be abolished and hopes the boundaries of traditional counties will be marked on maps and signage in the future.

Historically, Warrington was located within Lancashire but – following local government reforms in 1974 – it became a borough within Cheshire.

BCC has been urging people in Warrington who believe they are a resident in Cheshire, rather than Lancashire, to look at the evidence and ‘re-evaluate their position’.

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The campaign group has welcomed guidance from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, titled ‘celebrating the historic counties of England’.

It is designed to bring together resources to help councils prepare ‘effective and well-supported’ activities to celebrate historic counties, while boosting ‘community pride’ and providing opportunities for learning about history and traditions in an area.

The document says: “It is non-statutory guidance, the Government is committed to seeing a greater level of activity to celebrate the historic counties, but believes local approaches must be locally-led if they are to be truly owned by communities and therefore fully effective.”

BCC founder Pam Moorhouse fears history and heritage could be ‘destroyed’ forever.

She says: “In 1974, the Heath Government absolutely forced us to give up our traditional counties, inherited from our ancestors and imposed new meaningless counties on us instead.

“No one wanted the change but they made us accept them, all objections were ignored and still are.

“Now the councils tell everyone that the new counties have always existed, so destroying our identity, history and heritage forever. Hence our fight.”

But the group’s hopes for boundary signs to be installed in Warrington appear to have been dashed.

A council spokesman said “Warrington has been in Cheshire for all ceremonial purposes since 1974.

“We do not believe that the erection of such signs will be a cost-effective decision and would be likely to confuse residents and businesses of their geographic identity.”