Letter: Spelthorne Is Not in Surrey

Published on: 22 Sep, 2026
Updated on: 22 Sep, 2026

Parts of Spelthorne Borough (in red) were once in Middlesex.

From Gareth Coates

In response to: What’s in a Name?

The article by Cllr Austin is a (slightly) edited version of something published by the Farnham Herald on August 5. It is disheartening to see that she believes she can overturn a motion passed by a more than two-thirds majority by rehashing the same column time and again in media outlets covering the south of the area covered by the new authority.

[Publication by The Guildford Dragon was delayed by the migration of our website to a new host and is not the fault of Cllr Austin. Ed]

The facts are simple. This new mega-council will not be creating a new county; it will be an administrative body straddling two historic counties, Surrey and Middlesex. What we now know as Spelthorne sits to the north of the River Thames and therefore is not and can not be, physically, in Surrey. The very name of the county translates from the Saxon for “southern district” which Spelthorne, being separated from the other five boroughs being merged into the new Unitary Authority, clearly is not.

The motion proposing an alternative council name passed by a majority greater than two thirds. This name can be easily abbreviated to ‘WSSM’ and is geographically more accurate than simply (and erroneously) calling it “West Surrey”.

Cllr Austin also approached this matter from a position of historical and geographic ignorance. She fails to acknowledge that what we now call Spelthorne came under the umbrella of Surrey County Council thanks to a scaremongering campaign from the Conservatives running the local Urban District Councils at the time Middlesex County Council was being abolished. They were fearful of sharing a borough with Feltham, which was a Labour stronghold at the time, but were horrified when their opposition got them lumped in with Surrey!

Cllr Austin is absolutely correct that this is far from the most pressing matter facing the new council but as the authority doesn’t start delivering services until next April, adopting a name which includes all of its residents, not just 85 per cent, before the signs get made and the websites built is not a bad way to start.

[Middlesex, as a administrative area, disappeared in 1965 when the majority of  county was included as part of Greater London with the rest being subsumed by neighbouring ceremonial counties. Ed]

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