waste annually. Governance Municipal Between 1923 and 1968, Billingham had its own urban district council which built, among other things, the Billingham Forum, Kennedy Gardens and Billingham Golf Club (the UK's first municipally-owned club). Billingham's last mayor was Octavious Evitts in 1952. It was included into the County Borough of Teesside in 1968. In 1974, Teesside County Borough was replaced by the County of Cleveland, which had four districts: Hartlepool, Langbaurgh-on-Tees, Middlesbrough and Stockton-on-Tees. Billingham was then part of Stockton-on-Tees. In 1996, with the abolition of Cleveland County, Billingham remained within Borough of Stockton-on-Tees which became a unitary authority. Town parish Billingham civil parish is the largest area and size in the Stockton Borough. Other than the town itself, areas of the parish include Haverton Hill, Port Clarence, Cowpen Bewley and Seal Sands. A petition to Stockton Borough Council and referendum held in 2003 both having given assent to proposal for Billingham to become reparished. The Department for Communities and Local Government and the Electoral Commission issued orders for the creation of a Billingham Parish and the setting up of a new town council in February 2007. It is funded by a precept of £80,000. The first elections for the new Town Council were held on 3 May 2007. Geography The town is effectively split into two separate areas by name: Old Billingham (the area around the village green adjacent to St Cuthbert's church and built up around the ICI works) and the more planned estates that have spread out since the 1950s, increasing the town's size and borders towards the villages of Wolviston and Cowpen Bewley to the point of almost incorporating them. Billingham Beck Valley Country Park was landscaped from a reclaimed industrial waste tip and has steadily grown to include former grazing land to form a site including wetland habitats. Designated as a Local Nature Reserve by English Nature in 1992, it won a Green Flag Award in 2005. The beck itself is one of the major tributaries of the River Tees and has a tidal reach around the former ICI site. Town centre Billingham Town Centre provides the town with national retail chains such as Asda, Greggs, Iceland, Argos, Aldi, Costa, Poundland and Boyes, as well as several charity shops, estate agents and banks, with a market featuring in the centre every Monday and Friday. The town centre lacks some services but Stockton Town Centre is