Guide
Two-tier councils explained: why two councils cover one postcode
Updated
Much of England has two councils, not one, and the split between them is not intuitive. That is the most useful thing to know about English local government.
Question 1
What is the postcode of the address?
The checker looks it up on postcodes.io, which serves the Office for National Statistics postcode directory, and names the council, or both councils where the area is two-tier. Only England has the two-tier structure that makes this confusing.
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The two lists
gov.uk gives county council responsibilities as education, transport, planning, fire and public safety, social care, libraries, waste management and trading standards.
And district, borough or city council responsibilities as rubbish collection, recycling, Council Tax collections, housing and planning applications.
Neither list is what people guess. Roads are county. Bins are district. Social care is county. Housing is district.
The three that appear in both
Planning. The county holds the development plan, minerals and waste applications and county developments. The district decides household and most commercial applications. If you are extending a house, it is the district.
Waste. The county's waste management is disposal and the treatment sites. The district collects from the bin. A missed collection and a question about where the recycling goes are two different councils.
Transport and highways. The county is the highway authority for roads, potholes, street lighting and traffic orders, and it also runs school transport. The district holds car parks in many areas, which is where the confusion starts.
Why council tax makes it worse
The district collects the council tax, so the bill has the district's name on it. Most of the money funds county services, and the bill shows that as a county precept.
So the organisation that takes the money is not the one providing most of what it funds, which is a reasonable thing to be confused by.
The fastest way through it
Run the free lookup on gov.uk to get both council names.
Then search for the service by name alongside the specific council's name, not your town. District names frequently do not match the place people say they live in.
And when one council says it is not theirs, ask which tier it belongs to. They field that question several times a day and will know at once.