Help:Place Names

When editing the SABRE Wiki it is likely that you will need to add place names for route descriptions and locations. The following is intended as a guide to how to describe places and areas.

Towns and Cities

In general, roads link one urban area with another and, in general, place names refer to the urban areas of those names, not to local authorities with similar names, unless specifically qualified. So, Nottingham refers to the urban area of the city, not just to the smaller area administered by Nottingham City Council. Equally, Dudley refers to the town itself, rather than the larger Metropolitan Borough of the same name.

Use of place names is intended to be completely ambiguous to avoid heated debate between contributors getting in the way of adding real actual content to the SABRE Wiki - a prime example of ambiguity is relating to the M5 and M42, both of which are clearly related to Birmingham, but neither pass through Birmingham itself. Equally, if a road travels through the rural commuter belt of a large town or city, then it may be added to that place's categories and so on, unless it is better referred to by another place. For example, do not refer to roads better described as being in or near Salford or Stockport as "Manchester".

All Primary Destinations within the United Kingdom have individual pages, as do some of the largest and most important Non-Primary Destinations. In the Republic of Ireland, all Terminal and Intermediate Destinations and the majority of medium and large towns and cities have pages of their own.

Counties

Unless specified otherwise, counties within the SABRE Wiki refer to the Historic (or Traditional) County, rather than any modern or defunct administrative area such as former Metropolitan Counties or former administrative counties such as Avon or Cleveland. Historic Counties are used as the primary geographical area larger than an individual town or city.

The full versions of the historic counties should be used, so Yorkshire is acceptable, whereas "West Riding of Yorkshire" would not; similarly Lincolnshire is acceptable whereas "Kesteven" would not.

To clarify, local goverment units are not static frames of reference as they regularly change; and can be very confusing when multiple different bodies with different boundaries share similar names. Historic Counties are the only standard geographical reference that is unambiguously correct for any road project ever.

If you are unsure as to which Historic County a roads feature falls into, then there is a SABRE Maps layer available which shows all the boundaries.

It should be noted that, like towns and cities, Historic Counties have their own pages on the SABRE Wiki, which talk about the road network in that county both in its historical and modern aspects.

Highways Authorities

The Highway Authority is the body that maintains the road, bridge or junction within a particular location. For the majority of items, this is the top-tier local authority in a particular area. Top-tier local authorities include Administrative Counties such as "Devon Council", Unitary Authorities (which are a form of Administrative County) such as "Blackburn with Darwen Council", Metropolitan Boroughs such as "Wolverhampton Council", or London Boroughs. Other level local authorities (such as "Winchester City Council") within Great Britain do not maintain the road network and should not be referred to wherever possible.

The most important routes are maintained by the relevant national body, which for example in England is National Highways and in Northern Ireland is DfI Roads. The exception is in London, where there is a regional body of Transport for London which is responsible for the most important roads in the Greater London Authority area.

Maps of highest tier Highway Authority roads and areas can be found at:

• Highways Agency
• Transport for London North
• Transport for London Central
• Transport for London South
• Trunk Road Map of Scotland
• Trunk Road Map of Wales

Maps of other top tier Highway Authorities are generally not available, but it is safe to assume (for roads in Great Britain) that if the road is not maintained by a national body or Transport for London, it is very likely to be maintained by the top-tier local authority - bridges and tunnels are common exceptions to this guide.

Just like towns, cities and Traditional Counties, Highway Authorities have their own pages on the SABRE Wiki, which talk about the road maintenance in those areas. Pages are differentiated from like-named counties, cities or towns by the use of Council in pagenames - for example Essex Council (compared to Essex) or Walsall Council compared to Walsall (the town).

Londonderry or Derry?

The current policy of the SABRE Wiki is that the city should be referred to as Derry, whilst the county should be referred to as County Londonderry.