Style guide

Use a forward slash without a space to separate the two years within a single academic year, for example 2025/26

See also: dates, financial years, years

There is no need to include Surrey in any Merton address. Since 1965 Merton has been in Greater London, not in the jurisdiction of Surrey. Write: Merton Civic Centre, London Road, Morden SM4 5DX.

Do not abbreviate Street (St) or Road (Rd) – write them out in full.

Affect is the verb, meaning to have an influence on. For example, the weather affected our plans.

Effect is the noun, which means the result of a change. For example, exercise can have an effect on your mood.

Used to show possession, or to indicate that letters are missing from a word.

For example:   
Mr Jones’s house   
London Councils’ report   
It’s raining today

​Use bold text sparingly for emphasis.

Large blocks of bold text should be avoided, as they can make reading harder for people with dyslexia or a visual impairment.

Should be in italics. As should all titles of plays, songs, films, exhibitions and paintings.

For example:

The Director of Public Health's report, Tackling Diabetes in Merton, has been printed.

The Wimbledon Times published an article headlined The King opens new homes for veterans in Morden.

Film Merton are screening Beethoven in Mitcham Library Arts Space.

See capital letters

Only begin a word with a capital letter when absolutely necessary.

Use when a full, specific proper name is used, for example the London Borough of Merton.

Job and role titles should be capitalised when referring to a specific person, but lower case when used generically, for example, ‘the Chief Executive, Hannah Doody, met other chief executives at a conference.’

For headings, headlines and page titles, use upper case for the first letter of the first word and proper nouns only. For example ‘Better opportunities for young people in Morden’ not ‘Better Opportunities for Young People in Morden’.

Organisations, government departments and places, as well as the titles of books, reports, consultations, newspapers and magazines should all be written in title case.

Small words (such as ‘in’, ‘at’, ‘of’, ‘for’, ‘the’, ‘and’, ‘on’) are only capitalised if they’re the first word in a sentence – even in titles.

Use capital letters sparingly and don't write whole words in capital letters, which readers can perceive as SHOUTING and is hard for people with visual impairments to read. Use bold text to emphasise a word, but never underlining, as this can be mistaken for a website address.

Use lower case for the names of documents when talking about them in general, for example, ‘a penalty charge notice’, ‘temporary event notices’, ‘building regulations’. Use upper case when talking about a specific document, for example The Building Regulations 2010.

Use upper case for all names of taxes and benefits, such as Business Rates, Council Tax Support, Universal Credit.

Capitalise the full names of committees and sub-committees. For example, Planning Applications Committee, Licensing Sub-Committee.

See also: council

Use commas to separate thousands in numbers with four or more digits. For example 1,000.

Use a comma in a list where you could also write ‘and’ or ‘or’. For example: 'The most commonly spoken languages in Merton are English, French, Italian and Spanish.'

When using a comma to join two complete sentences into a single sentence, the comma must be followed with a suitable connecting word such as ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘but’, ‘while’ or ‘yet’. For example: ‘We must respond to the press enquiry by Tuesday, or they will publish the article without our comment.’

Use a pair of commas, like this, to mark off parts of a sentence that contain extra information.

Only use a comma before the word ‘and’ (an ‘Oxford comma’) where it is necessary to avoid ambiguity. For example, ‘Sara is pictured with her parents, the King, and the Archbishop of Canterbury’ has a different meaning to ‘Sara is pictured with her parents, the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury.’

Capitalise 'Merton Council' and the names of other councils.

Capitalise 'Council' when writing about the decision-making body: for example 'a new Mayor of Merton has been elected by the Council'. If writing about a 'full Council' meeting, do not capitalise 'full'.

In all other instances, 'council' is lower case.

Avoid writing 'the council': use 'we', 'us', 'Merton Council' instead.

Our style is: 1 December 2019 (day, month, year with no commas or letters ^st, ^nd, ^rd, ^th after dates). Do not use only numbers, for example 11.10.19. Decades are written 1990s with no apostrophe.

For date ranges, all of the following are acceptable:

• from 1 January to 28 February
• from 1 January to 28 February 2025
• between 1 January and 28 February
• 1 January – 28 February (spaced en dash)
• 1–3 January (unspaced en dash)
• 2021–2031 (unspaced en dash)

Do not use ‘from’ or ‘between’ with a dash or hyphen, for example do not write ‘from 1–3 January’.

See also: academic years, financial years, years

Not ‘the disabled’. Say ‘uses a wheelchair’ (not ‘wheelchair-bound’ or ‘in a wheelchair’), deaf people (not ‘the deaf’), blind people, visually impaired people, people with epilepsy.

Follow the GOV.UK guidance on inclusive language

Discreet means tactful, for example, 'the Mayor discreetly signalled to the council officer to bring over the scissors for the ribbon cutting.'

Discrete means distinct and separate, for example, 'the consultation about the air quality strategy is a discrete piece of work.'

Enquiry – small-scale, for example in a letter ‘Thank you for your enquiry.’

Inquiry – large scale, for example ‘conducting a public inquiry’.

People are appointed CBE, OBE and MBE (they stand for Commander, Officer and Member of the Order of the British Empire).

For example, Councillor Edith Macauley MBE.

A person can be made a peer, baronet or knight or receive or be awarded a peerage or a knighthood.

Hyphenate compound nouns such as ‘a build-up of leaves’, but not verbs such as ‘to build up your confidence’.

​Use hyphens to form compound adjectives such as ‘blue-chip company’. Be aware that the adverb could be mistaken for an adjective: a ‘little used car’ is not the same as a ‘little-used car’.

Do not use hyphens after adverbs ending in ‘ly’, for example, ‘a constantly evolving process’.

If two adjectives only make sense together then they need to be hyphenated. For example: ‘the strategy was discussed with borough-based, community-led organisations’.

Inquiry is large scale, for example a public inquiry.

Enquiry is small scale, for example a press enquiry.

Use when quoting book, article or report titles. See book, article and report titles.

Use sparingly for emphasis or clarity.

Large blocks of italics should be avoided, as they can make reading harder for people with dyslexia or a visual impairment.

Licence is the noun, for example driving licence or off licence.

License is the verb, for example you can license a café to sell alcohol.

You can use bullets or numbered lists to make text easier to read.

• Each list item may consist of one or more complete sentences, ending in a full stop, or the whole list may make up one continuous sentence. Don't mix the two kinds in one list.
• If every item in the list consists of complete sentences, each point should start with an upper-case letter and end with a full stop.
• Only use numbered lists when you are describing steps in a process, or a list of priorities in order. Otherwise use bullet points.

If the bullet points are complete sentences, consider whether the bullet points are really appropriate or whether you are simply writing a series of punchy sentences.

Make sure that you:

• use more than one bullet
• don’t make the whole bullet a link if it’s a long phrase

If you use a lead-in line (like this):

• end the lead-in line with a colon
• use lower case at the start of each bullet
• each bullet should make sense running on from the lead-in line
• don’t put ‘or’ or ‘and’ after the bullets
• don’t put a semicolon at the end of a bullet
• don’t use more than one sentence per bullet – use commas or dashes to expand on an item
• don’t put a full stop after the last bullet

It’s sometimes necessary to clarify whether all or some of the points apply. For example, ‘You can apply for a disabled parking bay if all of the following conditions are met:’, ‘You can provide any one of the following documents as proof of address:’.

Since October 1995, public sector organisations have had to use the metric system for weights and measures. Failure to do so can result in legal challenges to our claims.

Exceptions are the pint (for beer and milk) and the mile (including miles per hour and miles per gallon). Mile, yard, foot and inch are also allowed for road traffic signs and for related distance and speed measurements.

Write from one to ten as words and use numerals for 11 and over. Numbers between 9,999 and 999,999 should include commas. Spell out millions and billions, but use m and bn for sums of money (five million people, £5m, 11 billion grains of sand). Include a space before million and billion, but not before m or bn.

Always use numerals for percentages – for example 4% – and for weights and measures where the unit is abbreviated – for example 4.5km, 6kg, 7st 5lbs or £7m.

A sentence should never begin with digits.

Fractions are written as words, for example two thirds.

Double quotation marks should only be used to indicate that someone is being quoted. Put the name of the speaker directly before the start of the quote. For example:

Councillor Ross Garrod said: “I enjoyed meeting members of the chamber of commerce at the meeting.”

If the quoted material is a complete sentence or question, punctuation should fall inside the closing quotation mark, as in the example above.

If the quoted material is a single word or phrase, put the punctuation outside the closing quotation mark. For example:

Too many post-16 learners felt they had made ‘false starts’.

Use a colon to introduce a longer quotation, or a comma to introduce a short sentence or phrase.

If the sentence continues after the quote, there should be a comma within the closing quotation mark. For example:

“The reduction in fly-tipping is encouraging,” she said.

If a quote continues for more than one paragraph, add the open quote marks at the start of each new paragraph. Close the whole quote with one set of double quote marks.

Do not use single quote marks around the titles of reports or articles, as these should be written in italics.

Use His Majesty The King on first mention only, and the King from then on.

Use Queen Camilla on first mention, and in later references the Queen.

Use the Prince of Wales on first mention, thereafter Prince William or the prince.

Use Catherine, Princess of Wales on first mention, thereafter the princess.

Use His Royal Highness or Her Royal Highness (HRH) for other members of the Royal Family.

Abbreviate to St (no point), for names of towns, schools, churches, and so on, for example:

• St John Fisher School
• St Mark's Church
• St Helier hospital

If a web address comes at the end of a sentence you should not follow it with a full stop, but try to avoid it coming at the end of a sentence in the first place. This avoids any confusion about whether the full stop is part of the address.

Merton's web address must appear on all documents.

Use a specific ‘friendly’ address where possible, such as merton.gov.uk/jobs

Omit ‘http://’, ‘https://’ and, if possible, ‘www.’

Always check that a web address works before including it.

'That' defines, while 'which' gives extra information.

'This is the book that Chris wrote. The illustrations, which Jane drew, are in colour.'

Use 'Year 1', 'Year 3', 'Year 12', 'Reception Year', 'Nursery' when referring to school years, but 'nursery' when referring to a nursery setting.

See also: dates, academic years, financial years