Template talk:Infobox UK place/Archive 9

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City of London bug

Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The London Assembly constituency name is not being retrieved for places within the City of London. See Aldgate and Bishopsgate for examples.

The problem is that the other London boroughs retrieve the assembly constituency from the /local subtemplate using parameter level4, but the City values are given as a default at the level3 tier, and level3 is not supplied when retrieving assembly. Though the #switch happens within {{Infobox UK place/local}}, the simplest change would be to supply the missing parameter by amending {{Infobox UK place}}.

Specifically, the fix would be to replace this code in Template:Infobox UK place:

    <tr class=mergedrow>
        <th>[[London Assembly constituencies|London Assembly]]</th>
        <td>{{Infobox UK place/local|level1=England|level2={{{region}}}|level4={{{london_borough}}}|retrieve=assembly}}</td>
    </tr>
}}{{#if: {{{london_borough1|}}}|
    <tr class=mergedrow>
        <th></th>
        <td>{{Infobox UK place/local|level1=England|level2={{{region}}}|level4={{{london_borough1}}}|retrieve=assembly}}</td>
    </tr>
}}{{#if: {{{london_borough2|}}}|
    <tr class=mergedrow>
        <th></th>
        <td>{{Infobox UK place/local|level1=England|level2={{{region}}}|level4={{{london_borough2}}}|retrieve=assembly}}</td>
    </tr>

with this:

    <tr class=mergedrow>
        <th>[[London Assembly constituencies|London Assembly]]</th>
        <td>{{Infobox UK place/local|level1=England|level2={{{region}}}|level3={{{london_borough}}}|level4={{{london_borough}}}|retrieve=assembly}}</td>
    </tr>
}}{{#if: {{{london_borough1|}}}|
    <tr class=mergedrow>
        <th></th>
        <td>{{Infobox UK place/local|level1=England|level2={{{region}}}|level3={{{london_borough1}}}|level4={{{london_borough1}}}|retrieve=assembly}}</td>
    </tr>
}}{{#if: {{{london_borough2|}}}|
    <tr class=mergedrow>
        <th></th>
        <td>{{Infobox UK place/local|level1=England|level2={{{region}}}|level3={{{london_borough2}}}|level4={{{london_borough2}}}|retrieve=assembly}}</td>
    </tr>

I've tried the amendment at Template:Infobox UK place/sandbox and added a testcase, which looks OK.

— Richardguk (talk) 21:06, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Unitary authorities

Latest comment: 14 years ago27 comments7 people in discussion

MRSC alluded to a problem above, but it seems to have been ignored. He mentioned that editors were linking Unitary authority to Shropshire Council, rather than to Shropshire. This appears to be common for some of the latest batch of super unitaries created in the latest local government reorganisation.

The longstanding principal appears to have been that the Infobox in a settlement should have a link to the local government area in which it was located, not the governing body of that area; just as it has a link to the ceremonial county. For example, Cheadle is linked to Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, not to Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council; Horsforth to City of Leeds, not to Leeds City Council; Eye to Peterborough, not to Peterborough City Council; Pwllheli to Gwynedd, not to Gwynedd Council. Indeed, in the vast majority of the country, Placename Council has been merged into, or redirects to, Placename, as in West Berkshire, Portsmouth, Medway, Cheshire East and East Riding of Yorkshire. Before the most recent mad dash to local government centralisation, this was never an issue: there were very few instances where the shire district and shire district council had separate pages; and the ceremonial county field never linked to a county council, only to a county. Nor has it proven a problem in the unitary authorities established up to this latest round, nor in the Scottish council areas or Welsh principal areas: the counties and county boroughs. The link is always to the local government area. I have yet to see any reason given why this should be changed for the 2009 unitaries, which would then be treated differently to any other local government area in the country. Ultimately, I think you have to ask yourself, what is the general reader expecting to find when following the link. Do they expect to find an article about the area, its population, traditions, economy, geography, history, people, language; or do they expect to find an article detailing how many seats were won or lost by the United Kingdom Independence Party and who had a row about a council logo?

For the exisiting unitaries the position in general is as follows:-

UK Infobox not used:-

Blackpool

Link to unitary council

Link to unitary area

Settlements in Scotland and Wales, which can also be considered to be unitary authorities, also link to the ‘’area’’, rather than the ‘’council’’.

I suspect that the problem has occurred in this latest round because of the description ‘’Unitary authority’’ used in the template, which some have interpreted to mean the ‘’council’’, rather than the ‘’area’’.

So, two questions. Do we want to link to the ‘’area’’ or the ‘’council’’? if the answer is ‘’area’’, can we prevent editors misunderstanding the intention by rephrasing ‘’Unitary authority’’ to something like ‘’unitary area’’ or ‘’Unitary authority area’’? Skinsmoke (talk) 18:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Whichever is decided, I suggest a link from the template doc page to a "List of ..." article, one which lists all valid authorities (subdivided into England, Scotland etc) which may be used, so that editors may choose the relevant one. I am sure that the distinction between Metropolitan Borough of Stockport and Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council is completely lost by many: placing just one of these two into that list will help some editors, and for those editors who use the wrong one, those eds who fix it can place a link to that list page in the edit summary as justification for their change. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Excellent idea. Skinsmoke (talk) 19:22, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the intention was to link to the area and not to the council, links to the council article, if there is one, would be found in the area article. If you are changing the name it needs to be short so as not to cause an extra line by wrapping or widen the box. Keith D (talk) 19:37, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

The problem with linking to the area is that the article about the area may not be about the same area as the Unitary Authority. In the case of Cornwall, the ceremonial county and the unitary authority are not coterminous. Are we to make a new article Cornwall Unitary Authority as a content fork to deal with this? Or are we to have two links to the same article in an infobox, with none to the council? DuncanHill (talk) 00:19, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning this again. The infoboxes should link to the area, not the local authority. The articles (such as Cornwall) by convention cover both the ceremonial county and the local government area, even when they are different in extent. It might be worth changing the unitary authority link to read District to avoid confusion. MRSC (talk) 08:02, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Prefer [Placename District/Borough/City/County|Placename] where it exists, else use [Placename].

There are potentially at least three relevant articles for any administrative area: "Placename", "Placename District/Borough/City/County", and "Placename Council", with possible further variations of "Placename Ceremonial County", "Placename Traditional County" etc. I agree that we should be consistent and (as the infobox is primarily a list of the geographical hierarchy) list "Placename District/Borough/City/County".

The full range of existing headings is illustrated at /testcases. At present, the only heading that describes a council not a place is [Districts of England|Unitary authority] for unitary_england. In Scotland we have [Subdivisions of Scotland|Council area] which is the correct legal term. In Wales we have [Administrative divisions of Wales|Principal area] which is also the correct legal term but (unlike the Scottish term) is meaningless to most people and has caused some negative comment here previously (not from me!). In Northern Ireland we have [Districts of Northern Ireland|District] which is simple and accurate. Unfortunately, an English unitary authority may be in law either a district council (with the district sometimes also being a borough or city) or a county council, and many unitary authorities prefer not to mention the status of their area at all (hence, "Cornwall Council"), so there is no single term that is both readily understood and legally correct. Even the word "unitary" itself is a bit legalistic for an infobox and (ironically) not used in the relevant primary [qualifier added — Richardguk (talk) 09:12, 3 February 2010 (UTC)] legislation.

How about changing the unitary_england heading to [Districts of England|Council area] or else [Districts of England|Unitary area]? The former term is friendlier; would it cause problems for areas that also have parish/town councils? (Apparently not a problem in Scotland, though their community councils have much less status than English parish councils.) The latter term is ugly, a bit obscure, but accurate to those who know what a unitary local authority is.

Also, how about making the Welsh equivalent friendlier by changing it to [Administrative divisions of Wales|Council area] (or [...|Unitary area] if that is too confusing to those mindful of Welsh community councils).

— Richardguk (talk) 12:31, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

It's worth noting that the railway station template seems to work quite well by using the inaccurate, but seemingly understood, Borough for this field. Skinsmoke (talk) 13:01, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah, but then {{Infobox GB station}} doesn't try to do anything clever with it: it's just displayed as entered, not tested against anything. {{Infobox UK place}} does all sorts - mostly emergency services but others too like the map; and they have to be in the right permutation. For example, if you pick the wrong region for the local authority in {{Infobox UK place}}, something like this can happen. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:35, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Granted, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make. Just that, despite the fact that they use the term Borough, edtors seem to know instinctively, somehow, that this means Shire District, Metropolitan Borough, City, County, County Borough, Council Area, London Borough, Unitary Authority Area, Borough or Islands Area. Skinsmoke (talk) 13:44, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I still don't understand why we should have two links to Cornwall and none to Cornwall Council in an infobox about a civil parish in Cornwall. "District" will confuse things even more (there aren't any any more in Cornwall). I think the argument that readers will expect a link to the history, culture etc under the unitary authority field fails - readers would expect that under ceremonial county, under "authority" they would ecpect information about the local authority as an authority - and that is at the council article. DuncanHill (talk) 14:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I think, Duncan, that the point is that a reader would expect that field for a settlement in Cornwall to be used in exactly the same way as the same field for a settlement in Durham, Gwynedd or Aberdeenshire, considering that the same Infobox is used. Skinsmoke (talk) 19:43, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely, it needs to be consistent. MRSC (talk) 17:03, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Then the "authority" field needs to be renamed. The authority for Cornwall is Cornwall Council, not Cornwall. I have to say that it still seems irrational not to have a link to the authority, but I suppose we'll just have to put it in the text where it will degrade the already poor prose instead of in an infobox where it can be seen clearly. DuncanHill (talk) 01:30, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

You're right to an extent about the use of the term "authority"; the local authority of say Wigan, is Wigan Council. However, Whitehall seems to have declared the unitary geographic units (i.e. the districts themselves) as "unitary authorities", a term equal to "non-metropolitan counties" (reference here). I'm confident that the present situation, and the view put forward by Skinsmoke is, rightly or wrongly, referencing real-world and verifiable terminology: Cornwall is indeed one of the unitary authorities of England, so I'd have to support keeping the term "authority" and linking it to the district (in Cornwall's case, the county). --Jza84 | Talk 01:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

The SI establishing Cornwall Council says Cornwall Council is the authority, not Cornwall. The infobox is fundamentally flawed - confusing administrative matters with geographical ones. Far better to split it into a geographical and an administrative section, put the Lord Lieutenancy area (ceremonial county) and other geo links in one section, and the authority, police, constituency etc into the other. DuncanHill (talk) 01:54, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

You don't need to buy it: take a look at the title.... if not, it's avaliable for free here. It's not the sole definitive source, but it is just an example of the jargon in an uber-reliable reference.

And I'm confused by your second point. A county (and lieutenancy area) is an administrative unit. It is not something that appears as a natural phenomina. Same goes for England - it's human geography, not natural geography. My point was that some districts are called "authorities", and officially so. It's unfortunate and confusing, but ~~true~~ verifiable. --Jza84 | Talk 02:03, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

So some districts are officially called authorities - but Cornwall isn't, the authority is officially Cornwall Council, and judging from what else I've read on this page the same problem arises elsewhere. What is unfortunate and confusing is taking a "one size fits all" approach, which places standardizing the usage of the infobox above providing accurate internal links. DuncanHill (talk) 02:22, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. It's not that "some" are called districts, and others are called authorities. Those districts that are self-governing (i.e. unitary), are officially designated as "Unitary Authorities". I suppose the nearest comparison would be that all counties are counties, but some are called metropolitan counties. Cornwall is a county and a unitary authority. It's local authority is Cornwall Council. It is correct to describe Cornwall as a Unitary Authority because this is a type of district. --Jza84 | Talk 02:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so we just stick to making it harder for readers to get to where they were going. Put two links to Cornwall and none to the authority, and hope that no readers ever want or need to know what council a place is in. I'm out of here, consensus has been declared and acted upon during this discussion already, so I may as well stop wasting my time and yours. DuncanHill (talk) 02:34, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way. But I assure you, it's not my fault this term exists. We cannot airbrush reality and must present the facts as they are. I understand your frustration, and detest the term "Unitary Authority" for exactly the same reasons you cite. --Jza84 | Talk 02:45, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

My fault he's taken the huff, I'm afraid. I had looked on here, seen that there was no further discussion, and reverted his reversion with the comment that there was consensus here to link to the area, not the council. In the meantime the discussion had reignited here unknown to me. Sorry Duncan. Even so, the position remains that you do appear to be in a minority of one, as far as I can see, which is about as consensual as it gets on Wikipedia. Skinsmoke (talk) 03:51, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Aren't we sidestepping the fact that "unitary authority" is the wrong heading to describe the area covered by a unitary authority? An authority is a body given certain powers (ie given authority), such as a local authority with powers over a locality, also known in this context as a (local) council. "Authority" = "Council". But the place itself is a district, borough, city, county or (informally) unitary area/district/county.

Though not used in the primary legislation, "unitary authority" is clearly defined in regulation 2(3) of the Local Government Changes for England Regulations 1994:

"'unitary authority' means any authority which is the sole principal council for its local government area."

That definition is cited or reproduced in many subsequent statutory instruments.

The Boundary Commission publication cited above uses "unitary authorities" as a shorthand for "non-metropolitan districts and counties for which there is a sole principal council"; in other words, they use the term inaccurately, but only as a heading.

A quick Google of the phrase confirms that the 1994 meaning is and remains the one in statutory use.

Which is just as well since only a lunatic would grant authority to a patch of land! Though whether it is saner to grant authority to a group of councillors is, perhaps, a POV.

In any case, the infobox is inconsistent in using the heading "Unitary authority" to describe the area for which a unitary authority is responsible, hence the understandable vexation of User:DuncanHill. I've made reasoned suggestions for two alternatives in my earlier comment, above.

— Richardguk (talk) 09:12, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

In England (whose local government is a mess compared to Wales), the term "unitary authority" is correctly used where there is a single layer between central government and the parish or town council level, as opposed to two layers, county and district. For example, Swindon (borough) is within traditional Wiltshire, but does not have anything to do with Wiltshire Council (Swindon reports directly to Westminster), so Swindon (borough) is a unitary authority; however, the next district to the east, Vale of White Horse, is a district council within Oxfordshire (Oxfordshire reports to Westminster, and VoWH reports to Oxon), so neither Vale of White Horse nor Oxfordshire are unitary authorities. The heading therefore needs to vary according to the local government structure applicable in that area. This is presently handled by offering the editor the choice of whether to fill in |unitary_england= alone, or |shire_district=/|shire_county= as a pair. I think that if the correct usage were documented, with such documentation having a link to a list of valid entries, much of the confusion could be avoided. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:06, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter whether the term is being used "correctly" though: what matters is whether people understand the term when they are editing or reading. Clearly, from the diverging uses, editors are interpreting the term differently, both from each other, and from the original intent. For that reason, I would err on the side of the earlier suggestion of Council Area. I know User:DuncanHill doesn't think I get his point, but I really do. He has another point also, which really needs to be considered, which is whether there should be a link to the Council article as well. I would be inclined to say no, partly on the grounds others have given that this can easily be accessed from the Council Area article; partly because we have very few Council articles at present; and partly because there is also provision for a direct website link to the council on the Council Area article. But I'm prepared to be persuaded otherwise.

Incidentally, in conjunction with the thoughts further up this page on revamping the whole Infobox, why do we supply information on police, fire and ambulance services, but not on Primary Care Trust (NHS) or equivalent; hospital services provider; water and sanitation provider; and electricity distribution company? Should these be considered for inclusion? Skinsmoke (talk) 10:43, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Police boundaries are well-defined, well-understood and have some practical significance. Fire, less so, since a fire engine might cross a boundary if needed and public contact with fire brigades is (stereotypically) via a national emergency number. Ambulances, even less so, since the boundaries don't all follow council boundaries, and one would hope that ambulance drivers do not defer to boundaries in times of emergency. But the 999 association makes it hard to list one without all three (at least we don't list coastguard yet!). People have a degree of choice about medical facilities, and NHS PCT/SHA the boundaries are complicated and changeable, so I'd caution against including them. Many utilities compete against each other nowadays, and water supply and sewerage boundaries would be fiendish to ascertain. If anything, I think we should be inclined towards reducing rather than increasing the organisational information that we currently (attempt) to list, as it is often confusing for editors and not readily verifiable. Similarly, if we listed councils per se, we'd have to drop council areas to stop the list being ridiculously long, so I agree that we need to stick with local government areas (or districts etc) and describe them accordingly. It's not hard to follow a link from [[Placename]] to [[Placename District]] and from there to [[Placename District Council]], so long as the link to [[Placename District]] is not misleadingly headed. — Richardguk (talk) 13:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Header graphic

Latest comment: 14 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The French language version of this is a bit more swishy. In that one (and also found here), the first column head has a compass rose background graphic. It appears to be from the code class="entete map".

Is there an English language equivalent of entete map, whether we use it or not?

Howard Alexander (talk) 19:39, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Use council area to simplify template use

Latest comment: 14 years ago11 comments4 people in discussion

A wider proposal inspired by the unitary discussion above. I know it's not helpful to have too many hares running at once, but hope it's useful to set this out as we consider various aspects of the template.

The problem: There's confusion among article editors about whether to link place names, and whether to use names of common areas, administrative areas or councils. This leads to inconsistency, complicates the current template code and can cause #switch comparisons to fail without an error message so that editors fail to understand why they are not seeing their ambulance service listed (for example).

The proposal: There are around 600 UK local authorities (excluding parish-level councils). It's a big list but not an overwhelming one. Why not have the template reference a list of all UK district-level authorities with a UK-wide parameter of (say) council_area = Placename? Let the template then do the tedious work of adding the wikilink and the county/region/emergency fields.

Advantage: It would be a lot easier for editors, and the template code would not be much more complicated than the current spaghetti of parameter retrieves. On the whole, a bigger but single list would be easier to maintain than the current multi-level combination. (For example, no one seems to have noticed this which needs fixing: ...#if: {{{unitary_wales3|}}}|<tr class=mergedrow><th></th><td>{{Infobox UK place/local|level1=Scotland|....)

Disadvantage: We'd need a transition project to delink existing parameters but once completed the template would be a lot simpler for article editors: no need to enter wikilinks or county or lieutenancy fields, and invalid area names would be rejected with a very obvious error.

The present flexibility is at the expense of great complexity, inconsistency and poor validation. We'd need to manage the transition carefully, but I think article editors would find the template a lot more inviting if we adapted.

— Richardguk (talk) 12:54, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

If there's no opposition, can we take this forward? Skinsmoke (talk) 14:59, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Agree we should action this. When constructing the table, don't forget about the two halves of Stockton-on-Tees (borough) being in different counties and also there are some minor differences between the regional boundaries and ambulance areas. MRSC (talk) 17:02, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Ceremonial anomaly: All-too-aware of the affront to hierarchy that occurs at the Tees.

In any case, we'd need error messages and defaults for any articles which (of necessity or through editor limitations) did not include district or even county values.

Ambulance trusts: For archived threads, I've found your external link to a list of ambulance trust boundaries (link no longer valid, but still online here). Everywhere seems definitive according to administrative or (in the case of Shrivenham) electoral boundaries, except for Glossop within High Peak and the split within Hart District. I see the template defines Glossop by postcode, which might only be a workaround. Any idea where we might get a comprehensive definitive list? Though I do wonder in practice whether ambulance drivers and their bosses are perhaps more pragmatic about boundaries given the likelihood of roads and vehicle access not respecting administrative borders!

As far as the Glossop area is concerned, the ambulance trust covers the same area as Tameside and Glossop Primary Care Trust. Looking at their website, that means that the former Municipal Borough of Glossop and the civil parishes of Charlesworth and Chisworth are definitely included. It isn't clear whether Tintwistle is included or not, but I would guess yes, as I can't see it being lumped in with Huddersfield or Barnsley, and there is no access to the rest of Derbyshire without going through Glossop. Conveniently, that would equate exactly to the SK13 postcode (give or take a couple of farms). Skinsmoke (talk) 04:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

[continued from above] Other: Not aware of any other UK anomalies, except of course for the sui generis nature of the Isles of Scilly and the City of London. It used to be possible for English civil parishes to straddle districts, but I think that's no longer the case – and we already allow for multi-district articles. Fortunately, the district level has been quite stable since 1974, with most major changes being through simple amalgamation, so I'm glad the proposal has some support. We'd need to prepare the transition carefully of course. If there's continued consensus (hopefully we don't need to wait 3 months to ascertain that this time), perhaps we should create a subpage to consider the detailed principles, practicalities, implementation and transition.

Broader issues: Is the time also ripe for a broader review of the parameters in current use? I know that Wikipedia is better suited to gradual change, but if we're set to have a major recode, it might be useful to have a clear view of any features worth dropping or adding at the same time. (For example, (a) the Dublin discussion has led some people to suggest dropping all distances, and others to suggest including more; (b) it would be technically possible to autolink the post_town output and to calculate postcode_area automatically from postcode_district.) Personally, I do think it's better to have well-supported well-used parameters than a myriad of parameters that are poorly used and little understood among editors and, perhaps, little appreciated by most readers, since the article prose can contain any secondary information. That said, if we're serious about proposing to extend support to places in the Republic of Ireland (which seems overambitious to me, but which has been well supported here so far), then perhaps the parameter list for that needs agreeing before coding this major internal change.

— Richardguk (talk) 18:37, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest operating the new and old system concurrently. Create a totally new field that triggers the automation UK_principal_area or somesuch and then run a bot or use AWB to update the fields. When that is complete, turn off the old functions.

Automation from postcode district isn't fully possible because of some shared sectors. If I were starting from scratch again I think I would suggest limiting infoboxes to post town and postcode area (no districts). They are more trouble than they are worth, with edit wars in some cases over what districts cover the town etc. Even Royal Mail's own sources do not help. I realise others don't agree with that and want to include them, so fair enough. ~~If we were to automate from postcode district it would not need any AWB/bot activity so it could be actioned separately.~~ (actually no it would, because of entries like MK1-6 or MK1, MK2)

As far as the district automation goes I am happy for it to happen. MRSC (talk) 19:00, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Watch the lieutenancy areas of Scotland and Northern Ireland. Howard Alexander (talk) 20:28, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

@Skinsmoke: Ambulance trusts: Ah, well the PCT has a statutory boundary defined as including 8 former wards of the borough of High Peak: All Saints, Gamesley, St Andrew's, St Charles, St James', St John's, Simmondley, and Tintwistle; which since 2003 have been replaced by the 11 current wards of Dinting, Gamesley, Hadfield South, Hadfield North, Howard Town, Old Glossop, Padfield, St John's, Simmondley, Tintwistle, and Whitfield; and which more simply correspond to the 3 civil parishes of Charlesworth, Chisworth, and Tintwistle, plus the unparished area of Glossop. (For the sake of completeness, the area is also equivalent to that covered by the 3 Derbyshire county divisions of Etherow, Glossop North and Rural, and Glossop South; and approximately equal to that inhabited part of High Peak north of 53.41°). In the District of Vale of White Horse, the Shrivenham ward boundary seems mercifully stable since 2003. Any clues for partitioning the District of Hart?

@MRSC: Post town automation: Great! Bit fiddly to code but not impossible to automate unsplit multi-district lists such as "MK1, MK2" if there's a #switch against the wikicode equivalent to trim(left(postcode_district & ",", 4)) ?= "MK1," (pseudocode). It's rare for lists to get so long that a dash/hyphen would be needed instead of several commas, but even that could be coded if felt worthwhile.

@Howard Alexander: Lieutenancies: Fair point. The NI county boundaries have the advantage of being well known, though poorly correlated with administrative boundaries. It would be helpful to have more information about the lieutenancy areas of Scotland, as the current article understandably reflects the roots of the boundaries in abolished administrative areas, but does not indicate the contemporary equivalent. No doubt some areas do not have a match, but I'd guess that several still do at council area level (at least the 4 lord-provostships and the 3 island areas) or at some other useful level.

— Richardguk (talk) 13:11, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Hart is a bit out of my area of knowledge, but do the Ambulance Trusts not also follow Primary Care Trust boundaries there? Just a guess, but I'd assumed that the ambulance areas were constituted from PCT areas throughout England. Skinsmoke (talk) 14:07, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Is there any purpose in giving Ambulance Trust areas or Fire authorities? It is unnecessary information in the context. Howard Alexander (talk) 22:13, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Pre-emptive comment from #Unitary authorities above: "Police boundaries are well-defined... Fire, less so... Ambulances, even less so... But the 999 association makes it hard to list one without all three... we don't list coastguard... — 13:57, 3 February 2010 (UTC)" There are many other layers of NHS geography which we (rightly) already exclude. Maybe it is a false equality to include all three services. Police areas have significantly greater notability. Fire authorities are at least relevant to articles about unitary and county council areas, as there are strong administrative ties. But maybe not worth deleting anything unless we are reappraising the template more broadly. — Richardguk (talk) 00:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)