This page gives some information regarding the Parish Council itself including a bit of history and the powers and duties it has.

Parish Councils are one of the oldest, unreformed parts of local government. Elwick Parish Coucil was formed under the Local Government Act 1894 with seven elected members to cover the parish of Elwick only (the area to the east of North Lane). It did not include the parish of Elwick Hall, the land to the west of North Lane. The first meeting of the Parish Council was on 4th December 1895 and a Clerk was also appointed at a salary of £5 per year.

In 1897 it established the first village bye laws which were only revised in the 1980‘s.

Following this, a number of successful prosecutions were taken out for such offences as grazing a pony on The Green and driving a horse and cart on The Green.

The minute books also show that in 1902 the Parish Council complained about the state of the road between the village and West Hartlepool which just goes to show that things don’t really change! This was repeated in 1913 when it was reported that Doctors were charging extra to come to the village since they had to come to the village via Hart or Dalton Piercy because the road was so bad.

Although there is much interesting history of the Parish Council, the next major development was the amalgamation of Elwick and Elwick Hall parishes in the 1970s to form the present Parish Council. This meant that overnight, the population of the Parish almost doubled and its geographical area quadrupled. We will endeavour to put more instalments on this site over the next few months. Watch this space!