 Up to 2009 the civil parish was doubly represented, in both the Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council and the Shropshire County Council, which both ceased to exist that year with the creation of the unitary council.It is represented in Parliament within the Shrewsbury and Atcham constituency.From the 19th to the 20th century the main industrial employer of Hanwood was coal mining, by the Hanwood Colliery, whose shaft was strictly outside the parish boundary to its west within the parish of Pontesbury near Cruckmeole.