District of Lochaber 1975 to 1996

Highland council area  shown as one of the council areas of Scotland

Lochaber (Scottish Gaelic Loch Abar) is one of the 16 ward management areas of the Highland Council of Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 and one of eight former local government

Local government of Scotland

Local government in Scotland is organised through 32 unitary authorities designated as Councils which consist of councillors elected every four years by registered voters in each of the council areas....

 districts of the two-tier Highland

Highland (council area)

Highland is a council area in the Scottish Highlands and is the largest local government area in both Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole. It shares borders with the council areas of Moray, Aberdeenshire, Perth and Kinross, and Argyll and Bute. Their councils, and those of Angus and...

 region. There are also earlier senses of Lochaber as a district, and Parish, within the county of Inverness (Inverness-shire), and the county of Argyll

Argyll

Argyll , archaically Argyle , is a region of western Scotland corresponding with most of the part of ancient Dál Riata that was located on the island of Great Britain, and in a historical context can be used to mean the entire western coast between the Mull of Kintyre and Cape Wrath...

 - north of Loch Eil - and as simply a district of Scotland. All senses of Lochaber refer to an area in the west of the Scottish Highlands

Scottish Highlands

The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...

The ward management area is one of five comprising the Highland Council's Ross, Skye and Lochaber corporate management area, which is one of three Highland Council corporate management areas. The Ross, Skye and Lochaber area consists of six out of the 22 wards of the council area and the Lochaber area consists of two wards, the Caol and Mallaig ward, which elects three councillors, and the Fort William and Ardnamurchan ward, which elects four councillors. Each of the other wards of the corporate area is a separate ward management area.

There is also a Ross, Skye and Lochaber constituency

Ross, Skye and Lochaber (UK Parliament constituency)

Ross, Skye and Lochaber is a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom . It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....

 of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

 (at Westminster

Palace of Westminster

The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...

), but its boundaries are not exactly those of the council corporate management area. The constituency was created in 2005 with boundaries based on those of wards in use during the period 1999 to 2007.

History of local government

As statutory

Statute

A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs a state, city, or county. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. The word is often used to distinguish law made by legislative bodies from case law, decided by courts, and regulations...

 local government areas, the Highland region and its districts were created in 1975, under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973

Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973

The Local Government Act 1973 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, that reformed local government in Scotland, on May 16, 1975....

, and abolished in 1996.
The 1973 legislation abolished local government counties

Counties of Scotland

The counties of Scotland were the principal local government divisions of Scotland until 1975. Scotland's current lieutenancy areas and registration counties are largely based on them. They are often referred to as historic counties....

 and burgh

Burgh

A burgh was an autonomous corporate entity in Scotland and Northern England, usually a town. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when King David I created the first royal burghs. Burgh status was broadly analogous to borough status, found in the rest of the United...

s throughout Scotland and created a new system of nine two-tier regions and three islands council areas

Islands council areas of Scotland

Between 1975 and 1996 there were three islands council areas of Scotland:* Orkney* Shetland* Western IslesThe islands council areas were the only unitary councils created under the Local Government Act 1973, which came into force in 1975...

. Each region consisted of a number of districts and the islands areas were created as unitary council areas.

The Lochaber district of the Highland region was created by merging the Ardnamurchan

Ardnamurchan

Ardnamurchan is a peninsula in Lochaber, Highland, Scotland, noted for being very unspoilt and undisturbed. Its remoteness is accentuated by the main access route being a single track road for much of its length.-Geography:...

 district and the Ballachulish

Ballachulish

The village of Ballachulish in Lochaber, Highland, Scotland, is centred around former slate quarries. The name Ballachulish was more correctly applied to the area now called North Ballachulish, to the north of Loch Leven, but was usurped for the quarry villages at East Laroch and West Laroch,...

 and Kinlochleven

Kinlochleven

Kinlochleven is a village in Lochaber, in the Scottish Highlands and lies at the eastern end of Loch Leven, a sea loch cutting into the western Scottish Highlands. To the north lie the Mamores ridge; to the south lie the mountains flanking Glen Coe...

 electoral divisions of the former county of Argyll

Argyll

Argyll , archaically Argyle , is a region of western Scotland corresponding with most of the part of ancient Dál Riata that was located on the island of Great Britain, and in a historical context can be used to mean the entire western coast between the Mull of Kintyre and Cape Wrath...

 with the burgh of Fort William and the district of Lochaber of the former county of Inverness. Therefore the boundaries of the district included North Lorne, Glen Coe

Glen Coe

Glen Coe is a glen in the Highlands of Scotland. It lies in the southern part of the Lochaber committee area of Highland Council, and was formerly part of the county of Argyll. It is often considered one of the most spectacular and beautiful places in Scotland, and is a part of the designated...

, Nether Lochaber

Nether Lochaber

Nether Lochaber in Lochaber, Highland, Scotland, is the modern name for the Parish of 'Ballachulish and Onich'. This Parish was formed, in 1911, out of the Quoad Sacra Parish of 'Ballachulish and Corran of Ardgour' which itself was formed, in 1829, out of the Parish of 'Kilmallie' when the Thomas...

, the western part of the Rannoch Moor

Rannoch Moor

Rannoch Moor is a large expanse of around 50 square miles of boggy moorland to the west of Loch Rannoch, in Perth and Kinross and Lochaber, Highland, partly northern Argyll and Bute, Scotland...

, the Road to the Isles, Moidart

Moidart

Moidart is a district in Lochaber, Highland, Scotland.Moidart lies to the west of Fort William and is very remote. Loch Shiel cuts off the south-east boundary of the district. Moidart includes the townships of Dorlin, Mingarry, Kinlochmoidart and Glenuig. At Dorlin is located the ancient fortress...

, Ardgour

Ardgour

Ardgour is a district of Lochaber on Ardnamurchan peninisula on the western shore of Loch Linnhe, in Highland Scotland.The term Ardgour, together with Kingairloch, is applied to a large area of countryside around the village, from the Glensanda Superquarry, Kingairloch and Kilmalieu in the south...

, Morvern

Morvern

Morvern is a peninsula in south west Lochaber, on the west coast of Scotland. The name is derived from the Gaelic A' Mhorbhairne . The highest point is the summit of the Corbett Creach Bheinn which reaches in elevation....

, Sunart

Sunart

Sunart is a rural district and community in the south west of Lochaber in Highland, Scotland, on the shores of Loch Sunart, and part of the civil parish of Ardnamurchan...

, Ardnamurchan

Ardnamurchan

Ardnamurchan is a peninsula in Lochaber, Highland, Scotland, noted for being very unspoilt and undisturbed. Its remoteness is accentuated by the main access route being a single track road for much of its length.-Geography:...

, and the Small Isles

Small Isles

The Small Isles are a small archipelago of islands in the Inner Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland. They lie south of Skye and north of Mull and Ardnamurchan – the most westerly point of mainland Scotland.The four main islands are Canna, Rùm, Eigg and Muck...

 (Rùm

Rùm

Rùm , a Scottish Gaelic name often anglicised to Rum) is one of the Small Isles of the Inner Hebrides, in the district of Lochaber, Scotland...

, Eigg

Eigg

Eigg is one of the Small Isles, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. It lies to the south of the Skye and to the north of the Ardnamurchan peninsula. Eigg is long from north to south, and east to west. With an area of , it is the second largest of the Small Isles after Rùm.-Geography:The main...

, Muck

Muck, Scotland

Muck is the smallest of four main islands in the Small Isles, part of the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. It measures roughly 2.5 miles east to west and has a population of around 30, mostly living near the harbour at Port Mòr. The other settlement on the island is the farm at Gallanach...

 and Canna

Canna, Scotland

Canna is the westernmost of the Small Isles archipelago, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. It is linked to the neighbouring island of Sanday by a road and sandbanks at low tide. The island is long and wide...

).

The 1994 legislation abolished regions and districts and established a system of 32 unitary council areas covering the whole of Scotland, and all of the Highland districts were merged into the new unitary Highland council area.

In 1996 the new Highland Council adopted the areas of the former districts as council management areas, and created area committee

Area committee

Many large local government councils in the United Kingdom have a system of area committees, with responsibility for services in a particular part of the area covered by the council....

s to represent them. The Lochaber management area then consisted of eight out of the 72 wards of the council area, each electing one councillor

Councillor

A councillor or councilor is a member of a local government council, such as a city council.Often in the United States, the title is councilman or councilwoman.-United Kingdom:...

 by the first past the post system of election. In 1999 ward boundaries were redrawn to create 80 new wards. Management area boundaries were not redrawn, however, and therefore area committees ceased to represent exactly the areas for which they were named and made decisions. The Lochaber committee continued to have eight members. The area manager throughout this period (1996–2007) was John Hutchison.

Ward boundaries were redrawn again this year, 2007, under the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004

Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004

The Local Governance Act 2004 is an Act of the Scottish Parliament which provided, inter alia, for the election of Councillors to the local authorities in Scotland by the Single Transferable Vote system....

, and the council abolished its eight management areas in favour of three new corporate management areas and 16 new ward management areas. Each of the 22 new wards elects three or four councillors by the single transferable vote

Single transferable vote

The single transferable vote is a voting system designed to achieve proportional representation through preferential voting. Under STV, an elector's vote is initially allocated to his or her most preferred candidate, and then, after candidates have been either elected or eliminated, any surplus or...

 system, a system designed to produce a form of proportional representation

Proportional representation

Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...

, and the total number of councillors remains the same. Various ward management areas, including the Lochaber area, cover more than one ward.

Lochaber used to be known as Abria.

Further reading

• Howat, Patrick, The Lochaber Narrow Gauge Railway, Northern Books from Famedram, ISBN 0-905489-43-8, now out of print