The Borough of Welwyn Hatfield is a local government district in southern Hertfordshire, England.

Its covers the two towns of Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield, along with numerous smaller settlements from Woolmer Green in the north to Little Heath in the south. Each of the towns has a railway station on the East Coast Main Line and they are close to the A1 road. It borders the London Borough of Enfield.

The district was formed on 1 April 1974, as a merger of the Welwyn Garden City urban district, with the Hatfield and Welwyn rural districts. It petitioned for borough status in 2005, which was agreed to by the Privy Council on 15 November 2005. In April 2006 a charter conferring borough status was granted, and the title of the council officially changed to Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council on 22 May 2006. The first Mayor of the borough, John Hawkins, was chosen on 22 May.

Set within the London green belt, the towns still retain something of their own identities. Welwyn Garden City has a famous heritage being one of only two Garden Cities in the country, and is uniquely both Garden City and designated New Town. They function to some extent as dormitory towns for householders who work in London. The Welwyn Viaduct is a locally important landmark.

Welwyn Hatfield is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Grant Shapps, a Conservative.

History

The seat was called for by the second periodic review of Westminster seats (the first periodic review led by the Boundary Commission was in 1945 and followed that of the Representation of the People Act 1918). Its changes were made in time for the first 1974 general election which resulted in a temporary minority administration on a hung parliament.

Despite its short history, the seat has seen two parties serve it, with two Labour periods of representation, during the longer part of the Labour Government 1974-1979 and during the first two terms of the Blair ministry. Other than this the seat has elected a Conservative as its MP.

The present majority more than tripled on the second election of Grant Shapps, in 2010, from a historically breakable (in the constituency) majority of 5,946 votes to the 26th largest Conservative share of the vote, which on standard uniform swing seen in elections since 1931 represents a safe seat.

Coordinates: 51°49′52″N 0°12′54″W / 51.831°N 0.215°W / 51.831; -0.215

Welwyn /ˈwɛlɪn/ is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England. The parish also includes the villages of Digswell and Oaklands. It is sometimes called Old Welwyn to distinguish it from the newer settlement of Welwyn Garden City, about a mile to the south, though many residents object to the suggestion of inferiority or irrelevance that tends to be implied by the moniker "Old".

Etymology

The name is derived from Old English welig meaning "willow", referring to the trees that nestle on the banks of the River Mimram that flows through the village. The name itself is an evolution from weligun, the dative form of the word, and so is more precisely translated as "at the willows", unlike nearby Willian which is likely to mean simply "the willows". In having its name derived from welig rather than sealh (the more commonly cited Old English word for willow), Welwyn perhaps shares an etymology with the estate of Heligan in Cornwall whose name is derived from helygen, the Cornish word for willow.

Welwyn is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England.

Welwyn may also relate to: