Isle of Wight Council
British administrative body
Isle of Wight Council, known between 1890 and 1995 as Isle of Wight County Council, is the local authority for the Isle of Wight in England. Since 1995 it has been a unitary authority, being a county council which also performs the functions of a district council. It is based at County Hall in Newport. The council has been under no overall control since 2021. With the introduction of a committee system, replacing the former cabinet model from May 2025, the council is currently led by an independent politician, with committee chairs elected from Reform UK and the Island First Network.
In 2026, the council became a member of the Hampshire and the Solent Combined County Authority.
History
Elected county councils were established in England and Wales in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888, taking over administrative functions previously carried out by unelected magistrates at the quarter sessions. As part of the historic county of Hampshire, the Isle of Wight was initially governed by Hampshire County Council. Shortly afterwards it was decided that the island should form its own administrative county, whilst remaining part of Hampshire for judicial and lieutenancy purposes.
The administrative county of the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Wight County Council were therefore established, by the Local Government Board's Provisional Order Confirmation (No.
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This entry incorporates text from “Isle of Wight Council” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.