Weymouth and Portland is a local government district and borough in Dorset, England. It consists of the resort of Weymouth and the Isle of Portland, and includes the areas of Wyke Regis, Preston, Melcombe Regis, Upwey, Broadwey, Southill, Chiswell, Castletown, Fortuneswell, Radipole, Nottington, Westham, Weston, Southwell and Easton; the latter six being on the Isle of Portland.
The district of Weymouth and Portland was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, which merged the borough of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis and the nearby Portland urban district. The Mayor of Weymouth and Portland is Anne Kenwood (Labour), with Paul Kimber (Labour) as Deputy Mayor. The district is divided into 15 wards for elections—12 of them are in Weymouth, and three are on Portland. Elections take place in a four-year cycle; one third of the councillors in all but three wards retire or seek re-election in years one, two and three, and county council elections are held in year four.
Weymouth and Portland and Purbeck districts are in the South Dorset parliamentary constituency, created in 1885. The constituency elects one Member of Parliament. The current MP for South Dorset is Richard Drax, a member of the Conservative Party, who was voted in during the 2010 General Election, beating the incumbent Labour MP Jim Knight. Weymouth and Portland, the rest of the south west, and Gibraltar are in the South West England constituency of the European Parliament.
In Portland Harbour is the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy, where the sailing events at the 2012 Olympics will take place. The main reason that the resort was chosen to be an Olympic venue was the fact that the Sailing Academy had only recently been built, so no new venue would need to be provided. Weymouth and Portland's waters have also been credited by the Royal Yachting Association as the best in Northern Europe.
Weymouth and Portland have been twinned with the town of Holzwickede in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany since 1986, and the French town of Louviers, in the department of Eure in Normandy, since 1959.
Famous quotes containing the word portland:
“It is said that a carpenter building a summer hotel here ... declared that one very clear day he picked out a ship coming into Portland Harbor and could distinctly see that its cargo was West Indian rum. A county historian avers that it was probably an optical delusion, the result of looking so often through a glass in common use in those days.”
—For the State of New Hampshire, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)