In England and Wales, charter trustees are set up to maintain the continuity of a town charter or city charter after a district with the status of a borough or city has been abolished, until such time as a civil parish council or in larger settlements, a town council is established. Duties are limited to ceremonial activities such as the election of a mayor, and various other functions depending upon local customs and laws.

The charter trustees are made up of local councillors in the district representing wards within the boundaries of the town/city. If there are fewer than three district councillors for the former borough, then qualified local electors may be co-opted to make the number up to three.

Charter trustees must hold an annual meeting within twenty-one days of the annual meeting of the district council. The first item of business is the election of a town or city mayor and deputy mayor for the next year.

As of 2023, there are nineteen areas in England which continue to appoint charter trustees.

The original bodies of charter trustees were set up in 1974, under section 246 of the Local Government Act 1972. The concept was introduced into the Bill by a government amendment in September 1972.^[1]

Section 245(4) of the Local Government Act 1972 allowed the shadow district councils to make a petition to the Queen for borough status, before their coming into effect on 1 April 1974. In this case, if "it is signified on behalf of Her Majesty before that date that She proposes to accede" to the request then, the style of borough could be used immediately from 1 April 1974, despite the fact that the charter would be presented only later.

For the new districts which made no such petition (or where it was refused), for each former municipal borough in the district which was to become an unparished area (rather than a successor parish), a body corporate was established under section 246(4) of the Act, styled as the charter trustees of the town or city.

In the original legislation, charter trustees could also be formed in Welsh districts, but the Charter Trustees Order 1974, which provided for the establishment of the trustees, stated that the section "shall not apply to the area consisting of the counties established by section 20 of the Act (new local government areas in Wales)", and "there will be no charter trustees in Wales."^[2]

Charter Trustees Act 1985

Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to provide for the continuation of the charter trustees of any city or town and for the preservation of their powers and of the privileges and rights of the inhabitants of their area upon that area becoming comprised in a borough.
Citation	1985 c. 45
Territorial extent	England and Wales
Dates
Royal assent	16 July 1985
Commencement	16 July 1985
Other legislation
Amends	Local Government Act 1972
Text of statute as originally enacted
Text of the Charter Trustees Act 1985 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.

Originally, under section 246(7), when the district in which a town for which charter trustees had been established gained the status of a borough, the trustees would be immediately dissolved. Some new district councils petitioned for borough status soon after 1 April 1974, quickly dissolving the charter trustees.

This was changed by the Charter Trustees Act 1985, which provided that charter trustees would cease to exist only when a parish council was formed for the area of the former borough.

Legislation passed in 1992 led to the establishment of a Local Government Commission whose remit was to review the system created in 1974. As a result there was a partial reorganisation, with a number of districts with borough or city status being abolished. The mechanism of creating charter trustees to preserve civic traditions was again used. However, trustees were created only where an outgoing council requested their establishment. The failure of the extinguished City of Rochester-upon-Medway council to appoint charter trustees for Rochester or to apply for Rochester's city status to be transferred to the replacement unitary authority of Medway led to Rochester losing its city status.

Some abolished boroughs such as Beverley included a large rural area. In such cases, the charter trustees were not established for the entire area of the former borough, but were limited to that part of the new authority which was unparished: the area identifiable as the town.

A further wave of reorganisations came into effect in some areas of England on 1 April 2009, under the terms of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. The reforms saw the creation of new unitary authorities and the abolition of a number of districts with city or borough status. The Charter Trustees Regulations 2009 allow for the creation of trustees to preserve civic traditions in those areas where there is no obvious successor parish council. In the case of the cities of Chester and Durham the charter trustees area are identical to the entire abolished district, which includes not only the central unparished area but also the surrounding parishes.^[3]

The structural changes to local government in 2009 led to the formation of Charter Trustees for Crewe, Macclesfield, Chester and Ellsemere Port.^[24] The Charter Trustees for Crewe and Macclesfield were subsequently abolished and replaced by parishes.

Charter trustees were established in April 2019 for Bournemouth, Poole and Taunton as a consequence of local government structural changes in Dorset and Somerset.^[6]

On 1 April 2023 the unitary authorities of Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness, and North Yorkshire were established. Charter trustees were established for Carlisle (which also preserved its city status^[25][26]), Barrow,^[4] Harrogate and Scarborough.^[27]

• An article about Charter Trustees from the City of Bath

• Local Government Act 1972
• Charter Trustees Act 1985 (C.45)
• Local Government in England and Wales : A guide to the New System, HMSO, London 1974