Borough of Blackpool

Borough of Blackpool
Borough of Blackpool
Borough and unitary authority
	From left to right:; Top: Blackpool Tower and skyline; Middle 1st: Bispham Parish Church & Layton; Middle 2nd: Little Marton Mill & Anchorsholme; Lower: Aerial of Central Pier and surrounding suburbs;
	Coat of arms
	Motto: Progress
	Blackpool shown within Lancashire
	Coordinates: 53°49′15″N 3°03′05″W / 53.8208°N 3.0515°W
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Country	England
Region	North West
Ceremonial county	Lancashire
Incorporated	1 April 1974
Unitary authority	1 April 1998
Named for	Blackpool
Administrative HQ	Blackpool Town Hall
Government
• Type	Unitary authority
• Body	Blackpool Council
• Executive	Leader and cabinet
• Control	Labour
• Leader	Lynn Williams (L)
• Mayor	Peter Hunter
• MPs	Lorraine Beavers (L); Chris Webb (L);
Area
• Total	17 sq mi (43 km2)
• Land	14 sq mi (35 km2)
• Rank	272nd
Population (2022)
• Total	141,574
• Rank	161st
• Density	10,500/sq mi (4,060/km2)
Ethnicity (2021)
• Ethnic groups	List 94.7% White ; 2.6% Asian ; 1.6% Mixed ; 0.5% Black ; 0.6% other ;
Religion (2021)
• Religion	List 50.8% Christianity ; 41.0% no religion ; 1.4% Islam ; 0.4% Hinduism ; 0.4% Buddhism ; 0.2% Judaism ; 0.1% Sikhism ; 0.5% other ; 5.3% not stated ;
Time zone	UTC+0 (GMT)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+1 (BST)
Postcode areas	FY
Dialling codes	01253
ISO 3166 code	GB-BPL
GSS code	E06000009
Website	blackpool.gov.uk

The Borough of Blackpool is a unitary authority area with borough status in the ceremonial county of Lancashire, North West England. It is named after the seaside town of Blackpool but covers a wider area which includes Anchorsholme, Bispham, Layton, Marton and Squires Gate, as well as the suburbs of Grange Park, North Shore, South Shore and Starr Gate. The borough also forms the core of the wider Blackpool conurbation.

The borough is bordered to the north and north-east by the Borough of Wyre (including Fleetwood, Cleveleys, Thornton and Poulton-le-Fylde), and to the south and south-east by Borough of Fylde (including Lytham St Annes), both of which are non-metropolitan districts in Lancashire. The western boundary is the Irish Sea coast. Surrounding districts form part of the Blackpool Urban Area which covers all the unitary authority area.^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9]

History

Blackpool was a municipal borough from 1876 until 1904 when it became a county borough;^[10] on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, the county borough of Blackpool was reconstituted as a non-metropolitan district with the same boundaries as the county borough.^[11]^[12] Until 1998, Blackpool was administered as part of Lancashire County Council which was based in Preston. After the creation of unitary authorities by the government, Blackpool and Blackburn were successful in gaining their own right to govern independent from the county council. Blackpool gained unitary authority status,^[13] as did Blackburn and it was renamed "Blackburn with Darwen". As of 2021^[update] these are the only two unitary authorities in Lancashire although they remain part of Lancashire for ceremonial purposes.