borough of Elmbridge

The district was created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, covering two former districts which were both abolished at the same time:{{cite legislation UK|type=si|si=The English Non-metropolitan District (Definition) Order 1972|year=1972|number=2039|access-date=17 November 2023}}

• Esher Urban District
• Walton and Weybridge Urban District

The new district was named after the medieval Elmbridge hundred which had covered a similar area.{{cite legislation UK|type=si|si=The English Non-metropolitan Districts (Names) Order 1973|year=1973|number=551|access-date=3 January 2024}} The hundred appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Amelebrige.[http://www.gwp.enta.net/surrnames.htm Surrey Domesday Book] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071030192829/http://www.gwp.enta.net/surrnames.htm |date=30 October 2007}} The name thus derives from the River Amele or Emley, an old name for the River Mole, rather than elm trees.{{cite book |last1=Room |first1=Adrian |title=Dictionary of place-names in the British Isles |date=1988 |publisher=Bloomsbury |location=London |page=128 |isbn=978-0-7475-0170-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofplac0000room/page/128/mode/2up |access-date=9 January 2024}} The district was awarded borough status from its creation, allowing the chair of the council to take the title of mayor.{{cite web |title=District Councils and Boroughs |url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1974/mar/28/district-councils-and-boroughs#S5CV0871P0_19740328_CWA_145 |website=Parliamentary Debates (Hansard) |access-date=4 December 2021 |date=28 March 1974}}

In the early 1990s the neighbouring London Borough of Kingston upon Thames sought to have eastern parts of Elmbridge, including Long Ditton, Thames Ditton, Hinchley Wood, Weston Green and the Moleseys transferred to it, making the case that these areas had particularly strong social and economic ties to Kingston and Greater London. The proposal was considered by the Local Government Boundary Commission in 1992, but was not pursued.{{cite web |url=http://www.lgbce.org.uk/__documents/lgbce/research/lgbce-reports-1973---1992/general-reports/627-the-boundaries-of-greater-london-and-the-london-boroughs.pdf |title=The boundaries of Greater London and the London Boroughs: Report No 627 |access-date=30 September 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140219113944/http://www.lgbce.org.uk/__documents/lgbce/research/lgbce-reports-1973---1992/general-reports/627-the-boundaries-of-greater-london-and-the-london-boroughs.pdf |archive-date=19 February 2014}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.lgbce.org.uk/__documents/lgbce/research/lgbce-reports-1973---1992/mandatory-reviews/666.-city-of-westminster-and-the-boundaries-with-the-royal-borough-of-kensington-and-chelsea-lambeth-lb.pdf |title= Review of Greater London, the London Boroughs and the City of London: Report No 667 |access-date=12 August 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140219113102/http://www.lgbce.org.uk/__documents/lgbce/research/lgbce-reports-1973---1992/mandatory-reviews/666.-city-of-westminster-and-the-boundaries-with-the-royal-borough-of-kensington-and-chelsea-lambeth-lb.pdf |archive-date=19 February 2014 |url-status=dead }}

{{Infobox legislature

| name = Elmbridge Borough Council

| background_color =

| text_color =

| native_name =

| transcription_name =

| legislature =

| coa_pic =

| coa_res =

| logo_pic = Elmbridge BC Logo.svg

| logo_res =

| house_type = Non-metropolitan district

| body =

| houses =

| leader1_type = Mayor

| leader1 = Steve Bax

| party1 =
Conservative

| election1 = 21 May 2025{{cite web |title=About the mayor |url=https://www.elmbridge.gov.uk/your-council/mayor-elmbridge/about-mayor |website=Elmbridge Borough Council |access-date=31 May 2025}}

| leader2_type = Leader

| leader2 = Mike Rollings

| party2 =
Liberal Democrat

| election2 = 15 May 2024

| leader3_type = Chief Executive

| leader3 = Adam Chalmers

| party3 =

| election3 = 2022

| members = 48 councillors

| structure1 = Elmbridge_Borough_Council_2024.svg

| structure1_res = 250px

|political_groups1 =

;Administration (33)

: {{nowrap|{{Color box|{{party color|Liberal Democrats (UK)}}|border=darkgray}} Liberal Democrats (21)}}

: {{nowrap|{{Color box|{{party color|Residents Association}}|border=darkgray}} Residents' Assoc. (12)}}

;Other parties (15)

: {{nowrap|{{Color box|{{party color|Conservative Party (UK)}}|border=darkgray}} Conservative (10)}}

: {{nowrap|{{Color box|{{party color|Residents Association}}|border=darkgray}} Residents' Assoc. (2)}}

:{{nowrap|{{Color box|{{party color|Reform UK}}|border=darkgray}} Reform UK (1)}}

: {{nowrap|{{Color box|{{party color|Independent}}|border=gray}} Independent (2)}}

| committees1 =

| joint_committees =

| voting_system1 = First past the post

| last_election1 = 2 May 2024

| next_election1 = 7 May 2026

| session_room = Elmbridge Civic Centre.jpg

| meeting_place = Civic Centre, High Street, Esher, KT10{{nbsp}}9SD

| website = {{URL|www.elmbridge.gov.uk}}

| footnotes =

}}

Elmbridge Borough Council provides district-level services. County-level services are provided by Surrey County Council.{{cite legislation UK|type=act|act=Local Government Act 1972|year=1972|chapter=70|access-date=31 May 2023}} Claygate is a civil parish, which forms a third tier of local government for that part of the borough only; the rest of the borough is an unparished area.{{cite web |title=Election Maps |url=https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/election-maps/gb/ |publisher=Ordnance Survey |access-date=9 January 2023}}

The council has been under no overall control since 2016. Since the 2023 election the council has been run by a coalition of the Liberal Democrats and most of the residents' associations (RA), with a Liberal Democrat leader of the council.

The first elections to the council were held in 1973, initially operating as a shadow authority alongside the outgoing authorities until the new arrangements came into effect on 1 April 1974. Political control of the council since 1974 has been as follows:{{cite web |title=Compositions Calculator |url=https://www.electionscentre.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/composition_calc.html |access-date=26 November 2024 |website=The Elections Centre |publisher=University of Exeter}} (Put "Elmbridge" in search box to see specific results.)

The role of mayor is largely ceremonial in Elmbridge. Political leadership is instead provided by the leader of the council. The leaders since 2010 have been:

Following the 2024 election,{{cite news |title=Local elections 2024: full mayoral and council results for England |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2024/may/02/local-elections-2024-full-council-results-for-england |access-date=21 May 2024 |work=The Guardian |date=4 May 2024}} and subsequent changes of allegiance up to May 2025, the composition of the council was:{{cite web |title=Elmbridge |url=https://www.localcouncils.co.uk/councils/?council=elmbridge |website=Local Councils |publisher=Thorncliffe |access-date=22 July 2024}}

The Thames Ditton and Weston Green RA, Esher RA, Molesey RA, Walton Society, and Weybridge and St George's Independents sit together as the "Residents' Associations Group", which forms the council's administration in coalition with the Liberal Democrats.{{cite web |title=Your Councillors by Party |url=https://mygov.elmbridge.gov.uk/mgMemberIndex.aspx?FN=PARTY&VW=LIST&PIC=0 |website=Elmbridge Borough Council |access-date=31 May 2025}} The next election is due in 2026.

{{also|Elmbridge Borough Council elections}}

Since the last boundary changes in 2016 the council has comprised 48 councillors representing 16 wards, with each ward electing three councillors. Elections are held three years out of every four, with a third of the council (one councillor for each ward) being elected each time for a four-year term of office. Surrey County Council elections are held in the fourth year of the cycle when there are no borough council elections.{{cite legislation UK|type=si|si=The Elmbridge (Electoral Changes) Order 2016|year=2016|number=301|access-date=9 January 2024}}

The council is based at the Civic Centre, off the High Street in the centre in Esher, which was purpose-built for the council in 1991.{{cite web|url=http://www.elmbridge.gov.uk/council/information/councilhistory.htm|title=The History of Elmbridge Borough Council|access-date=21 April 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101223004856/http://www.elmbridge.gov.uk/Council/information/councilhistory.htm|archive-date=23 December 2010|url-status=dead}}{{cite news |title=No official opening for the 'Elmbridge Palace' |url=https://www.findmypast.co.uk/search-newspapers |access-date=9 January 2024 |work=Esher News and Mail |date=15 July 1992 |page=4}}

File:Sandown House.jpg: Council offices until 1991, now flats.]]

When the council was created in 1974 it inherited offices at the Town Hall on New Zealand Avenue in Walton-on-Thames from Walton and Weybridge Urban District Council, and at Sandown House at 1 High Street from Esher Urban District Council. It initially used Walton Town Hall, a 1960s building, as its headquarters, retaining Sandown House as additional offices.{{cite book |title=Municipal Year Book |date=1976 |publisher=Municipal Journal |location=London |page=728}} The new Civic Centre was built on land behind Sandown House, which has since been converted into flats, whilst Walton Town Hall has been demolished.

File:St George's Hill Golf Club, Weybridge, Surrey 19587026000.jpg Golf Club in Weybridge]]

In common with the nearby Surrey boroughs of Spelthorne and Epsom and Ewell, much of Elmbridge is a continuation of the built-up area of suburban London, and the areas of Molesey, Long Ditton, Thames Ditton, Hinchley Wood, Esher, Cobham and Claygate lie within the social and commercial orbit of neighbouring Kingston upon Thames. Molesey, Cobham, the Dittons and Claygate were included in the Metropolitan Police District from 1840 until 2000.{{London Gazette|issue=19904|page=2250|date=13 October 1840}}{{cite legislation UK|type=act|act=Greater London Act 1999|year=1999|chapter=29|section=323|access-date=10 January 2024}}

The northern third of the borough is flatter and fertile with free draining slightly acid loamy soil, similar to the south, as described in the Surrey article. In the next third, the first of the remarkable acid soil heaths in west Surrey begin to appear in places here {{refn|See also Bagshot Formation, Chobham Common and Surrey Heath|group= n}}, characterised by undulating heaths: these sandy and stony reliefs start in the east in the Esher Commons, covering the central swathe of the area including Oxshott Heath and Woods and areas of Weybridge and areas surrounding Wisley, a natural soil for pines, other evergreen trees as well as heather and gorse, described as naturally wet, very acid sandy and loamy soil which is just 1.9% of English soil and 0.2% of Welsh soil.{{cite web|url=http://www.landis.org.uk/|title=LandIS - Land Information System - Homepage Soil Portal|website=www.landis.org.uk}} Claremont Landscape Garden and Fan Court (now independent school) is on part of this elevated soil as is St George's Hill. Most undeveloped land in Elmbridge is Metropolitan Green Belt.

The central band of forest/heath includes part of the Wisley and Ockham Commons reserve within the national wildlife trust scheme: see Surrey Wildlife Trust, several pine heath based golf courses and in the north there are reservoirs, on the side of which there is sheep grazing.

The Mole, passing the Grade I Church in Stoke D'Abernon,{{National Heritage List for England|num=1030111|desc=Church of St Mary|access-date=16 October 2012}} Cobham Mill at Grade II{{National Heritage List for England|num=1190885|desc=Cobham Mill|access-date=16 October 2012}} and Painshill Park and the Wey, passing Silvermere Golf Course and the Brooklands circuit, hotel and retail park, cut through the borough from south to north reaching the River Thames which denotes the northern border, stretching from Weybridge to Thames Ditton apart from inclusion of inhabited islands such as Wheatley's Ait{{refn|Also in the borough other than the riverside properties on Wheatley's Ait are the largely undeveloped islands of Desborough, D'Oyly Carte and Sunbury Lock Ait in the River Thames|group= n}}. The Wey and Mole have sources beyond gentle valleys which cut through the high North Downs to the south.

:From East to West:

• Long Ditton
• Thames Ditton
• Hinchley Wood
• Claygate
• Weston Green
• Molesey (East Molesey)
• Esher including West End and Lower Green{{Cite web|url=https://lowergreenesher.co.uk/2019/11/22/lower-green-map/|title=Modern map of Lower Green Esher|date=2019-11-22|website=Lower Green Esher|language=en|access-date=2020-03-30}}
• Oxshott
• Hersham including Burwood Park{{refn|Also including Whiteley Village|group= n}}
• Molesey (West Molesey)
• Walton on Thames including Fieldcommon and Ashley Park
• Cobham including Fairmile and the hamlets of Hatchford and Downside
• Stoke D'Abernon
• Weybridge including St George's Hill

The borough is home to some of the county's highest earners.[http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2134362_elmbridge_stumps_up_1bn_annual_income_tax Surrey Press & Herald] "Elmbridge Stumps up £1Bn Annual Income Tax" Claire French, 20 May 2013 It has been labelled Britain's Beverly Hills by sections of the press. Famous residents, past and present, include Maurice Gibb Sir Cliff Richard, Mick Jagger, George Harrison, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Ronnie Wood, Andy Murray, Kate Winslet, John Terry, Gary Lineker, Mick Hucknall, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba, Theo Paphitis, Chris Tarrant, Peter Crouch, Michael Aspel and Shilpa Shetty.{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/property/house-and-home/elmbridge-britain-s-beverly-hills-2190344.html|title=Is Elmbridge Britain's Beverly Hills?|date=21 January 2011|last=Bennett|first=Oliver|publisher=Independent Digital News & Media Ltd|newspaper=The Independent|access-date=1 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210101154751/https://www.independent.co.uk/property/house-and-home/elmbridge-britain-s-beverly-hills-2190344.html|archive-date=1 January 2021|url-status=live}}

St George's Hill is noted as the site of one of the earliest experiments in common ownership of land by ordinary people, in a marked contrast to the area's modern status as a wealthy private estate. In 1649 the "Diggers", one of the radical groups set up in the aftermath of the English Civil War and the execution of Charles I seized common land in the area and lived by simple farming. As well as debates about religion and how the country should be run at this time these groups complained that even the Parliamentary side in the Civil War was dominated by "Grandees" i.e. wealthy nobles who often spent their time in comfort conducting fatuous debates in Parliament while the less well off risked their lives in the war to defeat an absolutist system. They were the subject of a long campaign of harassment by a local landowner and were eventually removed following a court case.{{cite web |last1=Bernardes Roberge |first1=Lívia |title=Seventeenth century squatters? The Diggers and the occupation of St George's Hill |url=https://elmbridgemuseum.org.uk/network/blog-3-seventeenth-century-squatters-the-diggers-and-the-occupation-of-st-georges-hill/ |website=Elmbridge Museum |access-date=10 January 2024 |date=23 March 2022}}

The M25 motorway has several junctions nearby and the A3(M) from London bisects the borough.

The main north-south road is the A244 for instance to London Heathrow Airport and starts in the borough at Walton Bridge leading to Esher and Oxshott then to Leatherhead. The east-west Leatherhead to Horsell, Woking road, the A245 leads by Cobham and Brooklands, Weybridge.

As to rail, the South West Main Line cuts through the borough, with four stations from Esher to Weybridge, one of which several express services call at: Walton on Thames in the Ashley Park estate of the south of the town. The branch lines have services with four stations in the borough via Cobham & Stoke D'Abernon to Guildford; and a branch to Thames Ditton and Hampton Court railway station in East Molesey, both within Transport for London's Zone 6.

Bus services include TfL Oyster card services to East and West Molesey, Hinchley Wood, Claygate and Esher.

Cycling is very popular, with the Thames Path passing through the north of the borough and the 2012 Summer Olympics hosting both of the main road cycling events in the borough with most of the road section around Hampton Court and with the sections of the routes taken to and from Box Hill.

The economy is diverse, with a strong local service sector, including numerous bars and restaurants, homes built and being built for city workers as the majority of locations have access to one of the Home Counties fastest commutes,{{cite web|url=https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/|title=National Rail Enquiries - Official source for UK train times and timetables|website=National Rail}} trades including interior supplies, fitting, gardening, golf course/landscape management and a developed public/education sector. Of international renown are the employers Sony, Procter & Gamble, JTI (formerly Gallaher) and Toshiba Information Systems alongside the local corporate venues and day-out attractions of Sandown Park Racecourse and Mercedes-Benz World. As of 2012, Elmbridge residents had average weekly earnings of £1162.[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20816479 BBC News - Hart in Hampshire remains UK's most desirable place] BBC News 22 December 2012 Retrieved on 17 July 2013.

The Borough of Elmbridge is not twinned with any towns. However, between 1966 and 2009 Elmbridge was formally twinned with the Paris suburb of Rueil-Malmaison, Hauts de Seine, France.{{cite web|url=http://www.elmbridge.gov.uk/atoz/detail.htm?pk_services=992|title=Elmbridge twinning info}}

The council's arms were created upon the formation of the present day district, being formed out of symbols taken from the local towns and villages with the Latin motto meaning until the rivers cease. The arms include a depiction of an elm tree on a bridge, being a play on the district's name.

{{Reflist|group=n}}

{{reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160306155650/http://thehershamhub.co.uk/ Local Community Website]
• [https://www.facebook.com/groups/HershamHubCommunity/ Community Facebook Group]
• [http://www.facebook.com/thehershamhub/ Community Facebook Page]
• [http://www.elmbridge.gov.uk/ Elmbridge Borough Council]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20140730170834/http://www.elmbridgeguardian.co.uk/ Elmbridge Guardian newspaper]

{{Surrey}}

{{SE_England}}

{{coord|51.3700|-0.3618|type:adm3rd_dim:15000_region:GB-SRY|display=title}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elmbridge, Borough of}}

Category:Local authorities adjoining the River Thames

Category:Non-metropolitan districts of Surrey

Category:Boroughs in England