Governance of the City of Preston
After the non-metropolitan district of Preston was granted city status, the former governing body - Preston Borough Council was dissolved and an election was called. The electors of the new city with slightly changed boundaries elected their new governing body – the Preston City Council in 2002.
The Preston City Council consists of 57 councillors who are directly elected by 22 district council wards who either choose 2 or 3 representatives in the Preston’s governing body. The number of councillors each ward selects depends on the number of electors within a particular ward. Thus wards with about 5400 electors send three representatives to the city council, while wards with about 3600 electors select two councillors.
The Preston City Council provides a variety of public services but it also makes decisions about all important matters concerning the city and its future on its regular meetings which are held every three months. De facto governance of the City of Preston, however, holds the Cabinet. It refers to a group of councillors consisting of the Leader of the Council (currently Peter Rankin, the Labour councillor from the Tulketh ward) and 5 other councillors who currently also come from the Labour Party.
Although the Labour Party had most seats in the Preston City Council since the first council election in 2002, it failed to win the absolute majority until the most recent election in 2011. After the 2007 council election, the Cabinet was even formed by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Parties which were the second and third largest groups in the Preston City Council, respectively. Together, however, they had the absolute majority in the council. The Cabinet was controlled by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats until 2011 when the Labour Party finally managed to win the absolute majority in the city council.
In the 2011 council election, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats lost one seat each to the Labour Party which was not enough for the latter to gain overall control of the city council. But the Labour candidates also managed to win over two Independent councillors increasing the total number of seats in the council from 25 to 29 seats. Thus the period of no overall control of the Preston City Council as well as the Conservative – Liberal Democrat control of the Cabinet came to an end.
The Preston City Council after the 2011 council election consisted of 29 Labour councillors, 21 Conservative councillors, 6 Liberal Democrat councillors and 1 Independent councillor. However, the composition of the city council changed slightly by the end of October 2011. The Conservatives lost another seat as one of their councillors left the Conservative group and became an Independent councillor.
Election to the Preston City Council is held every year three years in a row with the fourth year without election (to the city council but the Preston electors select their representatives in the Lancashire County Council). Only one third of councillors (19 of total 57) is elected a year.
Every year, the councillors select one councillor as the Mayor of Preston who has a representative rather than executive function. The current Mayor of Preston is councillor Roberta Cartwright.