Association of British Counties

The Association of British Counties (ABC) is a non-party-political society formed in 1989 by television personality Russell Grant to promote the historic counties of the United Kingdom. It argues that the historic counties are an important part of Britain's cultural heritage and as such should be preserved and promoted. It also proposes that there be a clear official distinction between the historic counties and the administrative units known as counties—first described as a separate entity in the Local Government Act 1888.

The ABC recognises ninety-two historic counties of the United Kingdom; and provides a gazetteer of British place names to enable their identification. The gazetteer identifies the corresponding historic county with respect to the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844, in addition to cross-referencing other administrative areas.

The Association does not believe that counties corporate enjoy county status "in the ordinary sense of the term" and includes them within the historic county or counties in which they lie geographically.

The association declares that the "most authoritative definition of the boundaries of the Counties of Great Britain is that obtained by the Ordnance Survey during its first national survey of Great Britain".

Areas transferred from one county to another by the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 are "considered to be associated with both their parent County (from which they are detached) and the County in which they locally lie."

The ABC has declared that it does not want further local government reorganisation. Instead it would rather see an official distinction made between current administrative units known as counties, and those areas known as counties before the local government reforms of 1965 and 1974, which were not abolished.

It seeks to bring about an official change in government terminology to bring it in line with its interpretation of the Local Government Act 1888—the original piece of legislation which created the county councils in England and Wales, though there have since been several further changes. The Act specifically called the areas it created "administrative counties" (although it also amended what it called the "counties"), and the ABC wishes to see this terminology consistently used to describe them. Also it wishes to see the term "county" stripped from the unitary authorities that use it, a measure which it claims will remove what it sees as confusion resulted from the status of various entities termed counties since 1888. In particular, ABC uses scare quotes around the word "county" when not referring to the counties as defined by them.

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