: Thu May 21, 2009 10:56 am
Bonzo wrote:
To say Castleford is a small town in Wakefield is factually incorrect though. Castleford is a town which (unfortunately for its residents) lies within the Metropolitan Borough of the City of Wakefield. With a population approaching 40,000 it can hardly be classed as small either.
It was an unfortunate event when Castleford was placed in the WMDC, I believe it should really have been the West Riding MDC or West Yorkshire MDC.
Look at Huddersfield, which has a population of 146234, yet it's under the control of Kirklees Council.
As far as size is concerned, Castleford (40,000) is easily the biggest of the 5 towns at and growing, with Pontefract (29,000), Normanton (20,000), Knottingley (16,000) and Featherstone (11,000).
Wakefield itself only has a population of around 76,000, which is why it needs Castleford and the other surrounding towns to give it any clout, otherwise it's just a very small city even when compared with York (137,000) and compared with Leeds (440,000) or Bradford (290,000), but I suppose it's bigger than that other very tiny city Ripon (16,500)