The Humber Bridge, an engineering masterpiece spanning the mighty River Humber, was designed to unite the two parts of the county of Humberside. The county was created by the local government reforms in 1974 but was never popular with the residents of East Riding and northern Lincolnshire and was abolished in 1996. The intention of the new county was to stimulate economic growth, but people had firm attachments to the historic counties and resented the change being forced on them by Whitehall.
Unitary authorities replaced the county council and not much changed until quite recently. Devolution of the English regions meant that the local councils would have to choose to stay in the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership or opt to join the Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership. The three Conservative MPs in northern Lincolnshire, part of Boris Johnson’s government, chose to join Lincolnshire, which has always been a traditional Tory county council. Fast forward to 2025 and the political landscape has been transformed.
Labour regained MPs in Grimsby and Scunthorpe in last year’s general election, but an unpopular Labour government resulted in Reform UK Ltd winning both the Greater Lincolnshire and Hull & East Yorkshire inaugural mayoral elections in May (albeit with a voter turnout of around 30%). Reform also took control of Lincolnshire County Council.
Humberside’s blurred boundaries
The Labour government has also recently announced that it wants to get rid of district councils, so Greater Lincolnshire could be controlled by one or two new unitary authorities. However, the name of Humberside lives on, with Humberside Police and Humberside Fire still serving the geographic area of the old county. This means that there will be two police and crime commissioners in Greater Lincolnshire. Yorkshire and the Humber is one of the official regions of England and it’s not clear how this will function now that the two northern Lincolnshire councils are part of Greater Lincolnshire.
The urban areas of Hull, Scunthorpe and Grimsby, with some of the most deprived wards in England, are very different to the mainly rural counties of Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire. Merging these areas may prove complicated for the constabularies. In the meantime, it is unclear how people currently served by Humberside Police in northern Lincolnshire will be represented by the Lincolnshire Police and Crime Commissioner.
If the official regions are changed it will be relatively straightforward for Hull and East Yorkshire to be part of the Yorkshire region, but the northern Lincolnshire councils will have to become part of the East Midlands region and all of the historic and existing data from the South Humberside era and current councils would have to be incorporated into the East Midlands.
The mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire has joined a new group of northern mayors, The Great North, to promote the region on a wider scale. The Great North comprises 11 strategic authorities in England and aims to stimulate growth in the North by working together on areas including transport, education and clean energy, but it will stop on the north bank of the Humber, so the important industrial area on the south bank won’t be included.
Greater Lincolnshire is therefore not part of this group, but Grimsby would benefit from being part of this group as there is no similar group for the East Midlands. In any case, I doubt if many residents of Grimsby would say that they live in the Midlands.
The future of the Humber
The Humber region has suffered years of industrial decline and disgruntled voters were strongly in favour of Brexit, but it has recently become an important location for the offshore wind industry. Siemens Gamesa has a large wind turbine manufacturing facility in Hull and Grimsby that is now a leading operations and maintenance base for wind farms in the North Sea. However, it remains to be seen if the two Reform mayors will put the interests of the areas they serve ahead of their party’s views on climate change and renewable energy.
The county of Humberside was created with the aim of developing industry in a geographically isolated corner of England, looking outwards to Europe by taking advantage of its ports to access new trading partners. Brexit, a polarised electorate and now devolution have split the area and both sides of the Humber will have to find their own path in a complicated world.
Humberside County Council only existed for 22 years and many people may be glad of its demise, but the reasons for its creation are still valid today, perhaps more so now if the region wants to develop new industries and provide opportunities for future generations.
