The few large dispersed settlements, historically tied to one church community, and major changes to boundaries allow more elaborate claims.
A third common criterion is simply stating it is a 'village' in a nameplate or whole community organisation, which leads to city district such as Blackheath, London having a strong claim.
[citation needed] The typical English local government district contains a variety of settlements and, while planning law encourages the existence of buffers, the term village has no formal use and wards are not permanently fixed.
For example, Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire is widely considered a "town"[2] yet its population is half that of Birstall in the same county, most organisations of which and writers about which describe it as a village.
Since 1974, separation of rural settlements from urban settlements has not been important for local authorities themselves, and became less so with the new top-level authorities created that year e.g. Bessacarr, South Yorkshire was not part of the town of Doncaster before 1974; it is often spoken of as a suburb of Doncaster now, but, where described as a village today, then it was a ward with Cantley having 14,408 people in 2011.