Talk:West Midlands (region)

WikiProject: West Midlands proposal

I have proposed the creation of WikiProject: West Midlands at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#West Midlands. If you are interested in participating in the project, if created, please add your name to the list. Thank you. - Erebus555 18:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Gloucestershire

I believe Gloucestershire is classed as part of the west midlands by the BBC as it receives Midlands news.

Perhaps so, but it isn't part of the "official" region, and the regional programming overlaps. I would be very surprised if South Gloucestershire didn't get news from Bristol. Fingerpuppet 21:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

BBC 'regions' are largely meaningless and are based on 1950s transmitter locations in the 405 line VHF TV days. They are periodically rejigged for the BBC's convenience and are often unpopular locally. The Stoke-on-Trent relay at Fenton has always been a Sutton Coldfield relay since the start of UHF, as the BBC consider Stoke to be in the West Midlands, but the neighbouring Leek relay was almost switched to Winter Hill because people in the Moorlands resent the 'midlands' tag so much and many receive programmes directly from WH anyway. The BBC Oxford transmitter is part of the ridiculous BBC South 'region' which goes right up to the Warwickshire border but is physically and culturally based in Southampton 80 miles away on the south coast. There are many other examples. --80.176.142.11 (talk) 15:27, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

How can North Gloucestershire not be considered part of the West Midlands region when Herefordshire is, yet parts of it lie to the south-west of Gloucestershire? Shouldn't South Herefordshire be considered in the South West region then? It makes no sense and living in North Gloucestershire for many years i can attest to the fact many locals here regard themselves as being Midlanders and not from the South West. N. C. Fortune (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 15:41, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

County Towns

I note the addition of the italicising of County Towns in the list, which includes Birmingham. Given that West Midlands County Council no longer exists, Birmingham cannot be said to be the seat of goverment of the county. Equally, as Stoke-on-Trent and Telford and Wrekin are techically Administrative Counties, should these be italicised?

I think that it should be removed altogether to prevent this sort of issue. Fingerpuppet 16:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Populations of major towns & cities

Wikipedia states that the population of Wolverhampton is 236,600 and that the population of Stoke-on-Trent is 240,636. According to the 2001 census both figures are falling. If 'settlement' figures are to be used rather than the census figures used elsewhere in Wikipedia then the reason for this inconsistency should be explained. To get the population of Stoke to over 250,000 the The Potteries Urban Area figure (362,403) is used but then this includes Newcastle-under-Lyme - a major town that also appears further down the list. I don't think this is satisfactory. Also... isn't the 'settlement' population for Walsall (including Aldridge, Brownhills, Streetley etc) 253,500? Perhaps Walsall should appear further up the list? Constantine (talk) 21:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

No, not at all. Local authority districts are not the same thing as settlements. The relevant settlement figures (and their source) can be found at List of towns and cities in England by population, which gives Stoke-on-Trent as 259,252; and Wolverhampton as 251,462. The populations are 2001 census figures from the Office for National Statistics, using the Key Statistics for Urban Areas figures, that divorce the populations of towns and cities from the Local Authority district(s) that they are contained within. Both cities have expanded into former Rural Districts outside their local authority boundaries (such as Blythe Bridge in the case of Stoke-on-Trent, or Perton in the case of Wolverhampton) therefore the settlement figures are larger than those for the local government districts of like names.

The population of Walsall (the town) is somewhat different from Walsall MBC (which also includes the settlements listed above), and is given by the ONS as 170,994.

Put it another way - is Sandwell MBC a town? Of course not, but West Bromwich clearly is. Did Sutton Coldfield, a town with a population of over 100,000 suddenly cease to exist in 1974? Other major towns that would need removing include Shrewsbury, Nuneaton, Cannock, Stourbridge and Halesowen - simply due to the fact that none of those towns have a like-named local authority. Fingerpuppet (talk) 07:20, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The reference to figures in the Wikipedia List of towns and cities in England by population is reasonable. The problem I see with this article is that the links in the list of cities take the reader to information that is immediately contradictory. Unlike towns within metropolitan borough or district council areas, major cities are defined by their administrative boundaries. People in Blythe Bridge and Brown Edge really do not consider themselves to be citizens of Stoke-on-Trent for the very reason that they dwell outside the city limits and their local council is based in Leek. I would suggest maybe removing the bold type denoting cities from the list and allow the reader to research for themselves which settlements are towns and which are cities and/or annotating the list to indicate that 'settlement' figures have been used rather than population numbers as defined in the articles on each of the cities. Constantine (talk) 19:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that's being a bid pedantic. If the settlement is designated as a city, then this should be reflected in the boldening of its name. As for people living outside urban boundaries not seeing themselves as belonging to the urban area (Blythe Bridge to Stoke-on-Trent in your example), that's an entirely different matter. I mean, we have to take a population figure from somewhere, so it might aswell be an official body of the government. Asdfasdf1231234 (talk) 21:28, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Local government table

A nice addition to the article - thanks for that! However, I'd take issue with the town/city and urban area columns.

Firstly, the town/city column sometimes talks about local government districts (Birmingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Worcester) and other times about settlements (Telford, Hereford, Nuneaton). This column needs consistency - and I'd suggest that it should be local government districts, as settlements are covered elsewhere in the article. There is the obvious problem of Herefordshire in that, but I'm sure we can overcome that.

Secondly, the urban area column is incorrect. To take the example of the West Midlands conurbation, it spills outside the West Midlands county and contains parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire within. Nuneaton & Bedworth and Telford & Wrekin are not urban areas, but local government districts and contain rural areas. Bedworth, for example, is part of the Coventry/Bedworth Urban Area. And there are urban areas in Worcestershire and Herefordshire! I'd suggest that this column should be removed entirely. Fingerpuppet (talk) 08:23, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair points. I've added a 'largest settlement' column however, as I feel that the district pages tend to be a bit 'bare', and the actual largest urban area is usually composed of the 'largest settlement'. It makes sense in my mind anyway, and I don't see any reason not to include it. :) Thanks, Asdfasdf1231234 (talk) 20:13, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

No problem - it makes sense to me too. Thanks for that! Fingerpuppet (talk) 21:19, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

"Former" West Midlands County

The article states that "The West Midlands is an official Region of England, covering the western half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It contains the former West Midlands county area..."

Is this definitely correct? The West Midlands county still exists, no? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Midlands_(county) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iyatoni (talk • contribs) 14:54, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

It is arguable whether the WM county still exists. It was effectively abolished in 1986, though the quoted article on it qualifies this:

The West Midlands County Council was abolished on 31 March 1986, and so its districts (the metropolitan boroughs) are now unitary authorities. However, the metropolitan county continues to exist in law and as a geographic frame of reference.

Personally I think the article's phrasing is fine as it is. --80.176.142.11 (talk) 18:18, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Image needs replacement

Hello all...

An image used in the article, specifically Image:KEASTON Main.jpg, has a little bit of a licensing issue. The image was uploaded back when the rules around image uploading were less restrictive. It is presumed that the uploader was willing to license the picture under the GFDL license but was not clear in that regard. As such, the image, while not at risk of deletion, is likely not clearly licensed to allow for free use in any future use of this article. If anyone has an image that can replace this, or can go take one and upload it, it would be best.

You have your mission, take your camera and start clicking.--Jordan 1972 (talk) 01:14, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Boundaries

Although in the West Midlands standard region, residents of North Staffordshire have never considered themselves part of the West Midlands. They have been bombarded with this since the end of the 60s and still resent it. They consider themselves part of a city region incorporating the Potteries Urban Area and Crewe / Nantwich in Cheshire, and very much Northerners rather than Midlanders. This can be confirmed by asking in any local pub in the area.

There is a widespread local suspicion that this classification derives from an inability of London civil servants to distinguish between Stoke-on-Trent and the Black Country, though administrative laziness and county boundaries are more likely to be responsible.

Some reference to this in the article would be appropriate. --80.176.142.11 (talk) 20:53, 18 July 2009 (UTC)[[

Although the local populations may not fully understand the rationale and have little say in the decisions, it is almost certain that governments draw up the boundaries for reasons of governance and statistics, following at least some form of academic study. Probably most important for an encyclopedia are the official boundaries as shown on any regional maps from government sources. If different government departments, districts and councils show the same boundaries, therein lies the answer. What people in pubs consider, unless it is documented and references can be cited in the article, and the probability that Whitehall does not base its boundaries on popular culture, are possibly of secondary importance and may not be of encyclopedic relevance.--Kudpung (talk) 02:56, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with the WM article in general - in fact, it's quite good. I simply think that all the articles on English standard regions would benefit from a section describing the areas within those regions where the categorisation is controversial or unpopular locally. This usually requires some local knowledge and supporting references can be difficult to find, which is why I haven't simply modified the article.

The North Staffs issue probably derives from the nature of the county, which has a very different character as you move up the M6. It would be more culturally appropriate to split the county somewhere around Stafford but this can't happen while standard regions are delimited by county boundaries.

There are other unpopular categorisations that I'm aware of, such as Chesterfield (East Midlands) and Oxford/Banbury (South East) --80.176.142.11 (talk) 13:25, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Ethnicity Demographics

I wish to include a ethnicity section under demographics and will proceed accordingly. Twobells (talk) 13:02, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

infographic?

Hi, I’m Andrew Clark and I work at the Office for National Statistics in the UK.

We publish lots of infographics and I wonder if this one on West Midlands (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Regional_profile_of_the_West_Midlands.png) would be of interest for West_Midlands_(region)

FYI, the full gallery, updated weekly, is here <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Content_created_by_the_Office_for_National_Statistics>

All the best

Andrew Clark (smanders1982) 10 Dec 2013

Smanders1982 (talk) 13:35, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

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Economy section

This section is severely under-sourced and is not much more than free advertising for small businesses (see WP:PROMO). Ultimately it tells you pretty much nothing about the economy of the region. I propose deleting it. — dukwon (talk) (contribs) 12:41, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

All of the articles about each of the regions of England seem to suffer from the same problem. Ideally each "Economy" section should be replaced by something that summarises the economy of the whole region. A simple list of businesses isn't appropriate. Neither, in my opinion, is it appropriate to subdivide sections (on any topic) into subsections about each county. County-by-county analysis should go into each county article. These regional articles ought to talk about each region as a whole. -- Dr Greg  talk  18:27, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

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Images

The number of images here was completely ridiculous before I hid some of them. I managed to get rid of the absurd amount of white space in "Towns and cities", but there are still far too many that aren't especially aesthetic (or relevant - a picture of a Land Rover in Africa?). Esszet (talk) 03:24, 21 July 2022 (UTC)