Getting neighbourhood planning off the ground!

An event in London on neighbourhood planning.

Right to bid gets a new feature for valued community pubs

The government is proposing to make a small but significant change to the planning system.

Community valued pubs that are registered as assets of community value will be stripped of their permitted development rights, meaning that a planning application will be required to convert them to other uses, or demolish them, without sale.

This is an extension of community listing in order to secure a right to bid on sale, into development control. It is entirely possible that other types of use class could gain additional planning protections in future. 

The Ivy House in Nunhead was listed as an asset of community value

My advice to communities who are unsure about listing, is to list those assets! It isn't supposed to be a reactive right. If a building is already under threat, it might be too late. This does ignore the way most communities respond to threats, but that is a weakness of the legislation. Intriguingly, pubs are the most popular category of development to be listed so far.

The Communities and Local Government committee have a report due in February into community rights. There is also a plan to look at how the right to bid and nomination process has been implemented. Currently there is no standard form and it can be unclear what information is required or where to send it. 

What do you love about where you live?

Article originally appeared in Sustain.

One Sunday in July I stood in a small park in a Central London and asked people to pin cards to a tree, telling me what they loved about the community around them. Not to exclude digital natives I also selected a hashtag and invited responses through social media. The fantastic responses I got were an incredibly useful start to developing a neighbourhood plan.

Neighbourhood planning requires wide engagement and an evidence basis to meet the statutory requirements of the Localism Act. Although having a public meeting and setting up a WordPress blog, Twitter account and such are undoubtedly useful, following the maxim “go where the people are” is also essential in order to create a plan that has legitimacy.

Read more....

#loveaboutsoho

I'm asking people what they love about the Soho neighbourhood, both online and at events. The responses are interesting and can be found on Twitter.

Historic day for London and Queen's Park

Elections taking place in the Queen's Park ward of Westminster today are truly historic. As well as the London region MEPs and councillors on Westminster City Council, residents of Queen's Park are voting for truly local councillors to represent them on Queen's Park Community Council.

Queen's Park Community Council is the first ever parish council in Inner London and the first in Greater London as a whole since 1936.

The parish is divided into areas to elect twelve councillors

The Queen's Park area of Westminster has no history of truly local democracy. It has always been subject to remote administration. Before 1900 from Chelsea, until 1965 from Paddington and currently from Westminster.

Most local government services will continue to be provided by Westminster City Council, but now Queen's Park has the ability to act for itself and respond to issues locally. Communities all over London should be interested to learn what they are able to achieve.

A parish council for Barking Riverside?

The latest area in London to look at setting up a parish council is Barking Reach. This area, also known as Barking Riverside, was in the news recently because of plans to connect it to the London Overground so further house building can take place. As much of the area is undeveloped, delineating boundaries should not be as problematic as it can be elsewhere in the urban sprawl.

The boundary follows the new development area

The organisers of the parish council plan have benefited from the new councils grants that are promoted by the Department for Communities and Local Government and the National Association of Local Councils in order to assist in setting up a council.

What next for localism? What next for London?

On Wednesday 26 March 2013 the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) held an event asking the question "What next for localism?" It was attended by everyone from parish councillors and clerks to the minister and shadow minister for local government. Also represented were academics, officers from principal authorities and the Local Government Association.

Speakers came from every level of community, local and national government

"What next for localism?" is a useful to question to ask at this time. A general election is a year away and the flavour of government that will be returned is far from certain. Which isn't to say the political parties are offering dramatically divergent policies right now, there appears to be consensus for "more localism". However, the event was much more focussed on what those involved in delivering community governance had to say. The delegates had a few messages for the ministers.

We've been doing localism for over 100 years

Delegates were keen to note that localism didn't just happen with the Localism Act 2011 or any other piece of legislation. Town and parish councils have been offering a wide variety of services for some time, either alone or more typically by forming partnerships with other tiers of local government or agencies. The flip side of this was a sense that the coalition hasn't "done localism" by passing the Localism Act.

One size does not fit all

Another theme explored was that the powers available to councils, such as neighbourhood planning, right to challenge and right to bid will not be taken up by every council. Many councils felt able to achieve their objectives without having to 'challenge' anyone. There was also a fear of devolution of bureaucracy occurring, where new powers create new processes that waste time and resources.

Finance, finance, finance

Perhaps unsurprisingly finance was a theme that came up. Councils have lost out because of changes to council tax support, where money isn't always passed on by principal authorities. Local councils are concerned about referendums for precept increases that might be implemented. Looking to the future, councils want to keep some of the business rates that are collected in their area, given their role in creating places for businesses to thrive.

Planning and housing

Housing came up as a theme throughout the day. Local councils are excluded from the New Homes Bonus intended to incentivise house building. As this scheme has not met its goals, devolving it to local councils could be the answer. It will also allow communities control over where houses are built. There was a sense that the removal of regional strategies hadn't devolved powers over planning enough and local councils needed to be involved.

The reception to neighbourhood planning was surprisingly ambivalent. Smaller parishes with meetings rather than councils are excluded and even some parishes with councils felt it was too bureaucratic a process for too little gain. There was also concern that there wasn't adequate safeguard that plans would be followed. Annette Brooke, representing the Liberal Democrats on local government, said a right of appeal might need to be created.

Wrong way round

More radical ideas came from academics who suggested it was about time councils had a constitutional right to exist and shouldn't be granted that right and powers piecemeal from the centre. Principal authorities shouldn't have the power to remove councils and, ideally, everywhere should have a parish council. This frames "what next?" as whatever each council needs. It became clear that councils don't just use powers as they become available, they select them based on their own local requirements.

What next for London?

The take up of parish councils and powers such as neighbourhood planning in London has been slow. The radical idea of systematically creating parish councils might be the only way to get these initiatives moving. However, localism is at best a "bottom up" exercise. Having a share of business rates might encourage parish councils to form in London that otherwise wouldn't. The fear of taxation through precept would be turned on its head with the prospect of a revenue stream being 'lost' without a local council to make use of it. The experience of councils outside London with regards to the new powers available could be useful to communities in London. Many were able to do the things they wanted through informal partnership working. So, perhaps the benefit of forming new parish councils in London isn't about gaining new powers, but creating a structure that will give the community a voice and the corporate form needed to act.

LinkedIn group

I've started a group London Community Governance on LinkedIn for sharing links and discussion related to community governance in London. Please join in!

Book: Local Councils Explained

The National Association of Local Councils (NALC) has published a book which aims to be a comprehensive guide to the workings of parish councils, also known as town, community or neighbourhood councils and collectively “local councils”.

Local Councils Explained is a much needed publication, in part because of the additional powers available to parish councils since 2010. The book has been written by the NALC head of legal services, Meera Tharmarajah and has a sound basis in the legislative framework councils inhabit, but is also an accessible document, written in a style that is engaging and clear.

The book include all relevant information for the running of a local council 

There is no one single piece of legislation governing parish councils and the powers and functions are drawn from legislation going back over 100 years. A guide such as this is therefore invaluable to anyone with an interest in the workings of local councils, including parish clerks and of course councillors.

In particular, those trying to set up new councils in areas that have no recent or nearby experience to guide them, such as in London, will benefit from the book and several chapters have been written with them in mind.

The book went on sale on 4 October and is available from NALC.

Making it easier to set up new town and parish councils?

The Department for Communities and Local Government ran a consultation on the process of setting up new town and parish councils that closed in January 2013. The results of this consultation were published in September.

Since the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 authorities such as London borough councils have the role of deciding if new parish councils should be formed in their area. Previously this decision was centralised. The 2007 act introduced a procedure called a community governance review which could be triggered by local petition. In London this procedure was triggered in 2011 by the Queen's Park ward of Westminster and led to the creation of a new parish council in 2014. The length of time it took to create this parish council points to the failings in the existing system. The campaign was well organised and followed the procedure as set out.

The responses to the consultation came from principal councils, parish councils and individuals, and are were overall in favour of some changes to the process of setting up a parish council. The options available were:

• amending existing guidance;
• changing the law;
• making it easier for neighbourhood forums (used for neighbourhood planning) to start the process for creating a new parish council; or
• some combination of the above.

The responses broadly favoured the changes proposed in all options, with some respondents strongly opposed to changes in each category.

The government response similarly proposes changes drawn from each option:

• limiting the time for a community governance review to twelve months from the receipt of a valid petition;
• reducing the number of signatures needed on a petition for a community governance review;
• making it easier for neighbourhood forums to start the process for setting up new parish councils; and
• amending guidance to local authorities undertaking community governance reviews to favour parish council proposals. 

The test of these measures will be how quickly a new council can be set up under the adapted guidance. In the case of Queen's Park the council added the extra challenge of a local referendum. This kind of extra hurdle is not to be explicitly prevented. Within London perhaps part of the problem is the lack of experience the borough councils have of parish councils. However the community governance review was introduced to London at the same time as the rest of the country and other parish councils have been set up under the 2007 regime in less time. The reduction in signatures needed to trigger a petition might make campaigners feel they have less of a challenge in order to start the review process. The other changes should ensure the review happens in a timely manner. Hopefully a community will want to test this out soon, so I can do a comparison!

Sources:

• Discussion Document, October 2012 (PDF)
• Government Response, September 2013 (PDF)

Save our pub!

The community in Nunhead, Southwark have organised and successfully used the 'community right to bid' part of the Localism Act 2011 to prevent their local pub from being sold to developers. It will now be run as a co-operative enterprise.

Meanwhile in Elm Park, Havering a similar 1930s pub is being sold off for development and the community aren't happy. However, the voices there have not organised in order to use the rights the community have available to them.

In both areas the community identified the pubs for what they were, the scarce resource of an enclosed public space. But what happened to make the Nunhead group organise and held back the group in Elm Park?

It might have been luck. It might be something to do with social capital. Perhaps the Elm Park group had not heard about the rights available to them? It could be that the Nunhead group cared more, or felt they did not have enough alternative facilities. It might have been because of effective leadership.

More questions than answers I'm afraid. One of things I am trying to learn in my PhD thesis is why some communities are able to come together to organise and others do not.

Response to DCLG consultation on setting up town and parish councils

The Department for Communities and Local Government recently closed a consultation on making it easier to set up new town and parish councils. The current legislative framework for this was set down in 2007. I responded to this consultation and recommended a number of amendments to existing policy, including legislative changes.

The consultation presented a number of problems that campaigners for new parish councils might encounter. These include the lengthy timescales to set up a parish council and the administrative burden. Looking at the example of Queen's Park these two problems appear interrelated. The group started discussions to form a council in 2010, followed the relevant procedures, were successful in their efforts,  but will not come into their powers until 2014.

DCLG presented three options for improving the process of setting up town and parish councils. They were keen to stress that these are not mutually exclusive and some elements of each option could be brought forward. I am of the opinion that such an approach is necessary to achieve the aims of the consultation.

Campaigners may find it demanding to create a parish council

I support amending guidance to reduce the timescales of the community governance reviews. However, without statutory compulsion there is a risk that valid proposals could still be delayed in bureaucracy. Therefore a change must be made to legislation in addition to the guidance. I also support the proposal to create an easier route for neighbourhood forums (used for neighbourhood planning) to become parish councils.

The proposal to reduce the scope of the community governance reviews might have some unintended to consequences in Greater London and I highlighted some other factors that might be more specific to London where there is no recent experience of parish councils. The full response is available online.

Community on Google+

There is now a Googe+ Community for issues around community governance. This is a place to share links, discuss and exchange ideas.

Making it easier to set up new town and parish councils

The Department for Communities and Local Government is consulting on changes to the way parish and town councils are set up in England.

Community governance reviews are triggered by a petition

Since the 2007 legislation that allowed parish councils to be formed in Greater London, a new mechanism called a community governance review has been used to create town and parish councils. This represented a devolution of power from the secretary of state to the principal local authorities.

Taking Queen's Park as an example, the only successful parish council in London to date, it took four years from having the idea to form a council in 2010 to coming into their powers in 2014. This is partly due to electoral cycles, but also the guidance for governance reviews which allows local authorities in excess of a year to set the terms of reference and complete the review.

The governance review is only triggered once enough signatures have been collected on a petition. The consultation makes a number of suggested changes to the guidance for principal authorities and has the option of changes to legislation. The department would like responses to their consultation by 9 January 2013.

YouTube Channel

I've started a YouTube channel to share videos that I find related to community governance in London. You can subscribe here.

Who will be next...?

Had a bit of time to check for evidence of communities thinking about forming parish councils. Queen's Park have been successful and will form a parish council in 2014. But what of the other attempts? I can find fifteen and all are at very different stages. The earliest stage of forming a parish council appears to be a period of discourse. This is often internet-based and then spills over into local newspapers, or is triggered by a local politician and perhaps involves correspondence with the local council. The setting up of a dedicated website or Facebook group is an indicator things are moving along and that there is someone driving the proposal forward. Things are really getting serious when there is a public meeting. London Fields and Wapping have reached this stage, but not beyond it. Only Queen's Park have successfully moved to the stage of petitioning the local council for a governance review.

See below for key to prospective councils

But what do these prospective councils point to? Firstly the geographical spread is interesting. Not only are the majority in the Inner London area that has no history of parish councils, but many are on the central London fringe. Only Chingford fits the anticipated profile of a community on the Greater London boundary looking to copy the experience of communities on the other side. Often the desire to form a council references something about identity and difference to "the rest" of the borough in which the community is situated. Communities on edges and boundaries (Crystal Palace, Forest Gate, Kilburn and Thamesmead) are  notably present. But parish councils cannot cross borough lines and cannot be used to ameliorate for the effects of London's often arbitrary (although often ancient) borough boundaries. It would be wrong to suggest people want to form parish councils for political reasons, but often the political profile of these areas differs from the rest of the local authority.

Back to the question "Who will be next...?" It is hard to say, as no community seems anywhere near as driven as the Queen's Park campaign. The most activity appears to be around the idea of councils in the north of Southwark, which is interesting as this borough has the most significant devolved area committee arrangements in Greater London. Has this experience been enough to convince the community they want more?

List of prospective councils:

Bermondsey (Southwark)
Borough & Bankside (Southwark)
Chingford (Waltham Forest)
Forest Gate (Newham)
Harlesden (Brent)
Kilburn (Camden)
London Fields (Hackney)
Mayfair (Westminster)
Mitcham (Merton)
Norton Folgate (Tower Hamlets)
Upper Norwood (Croydon)
Queen's Park (Westminster)
Thamesmead (Bexley / Greenwich)
Wapping (Tower Hamlets)
Waterloo (Lambeth)

Planning Aid for London: Other Models for Neighbourhood Planning in London

In July I spoke at a Planning Aid for London event on neighbourhood planning in London, the creation of urban parishes and alternative forms of community governance. The slides from the event are available here.

Does success for Queen’s Park Parish Council point to how others will fail?

I've been looking forward to the opportunity to write a little about Queen's Park and their bid to form a parish council in London. This community has been the first to gain the necessary approval of their local authority. What is notable about this group is the speed in which they have been able to do this. The legislative powers to form parish councils in London were granted in 2007 and became available from 2008. However, the community did not look to form a parish council until after the general election in 2010. The election of the first parish councillors will take place in May 2014. Four years to set up a parish council may seem a long time, but given the administrative and other hurdles to get over it is difficult to see how they could have done it any quicker. I believe it is unlikely that any other group will be able to repeat their speedy success. I'm going to set out the hurdles a prospective parish council faces and why I think this group overcame them.

Boundaries: where does our community end?

The first hurdle is deciding on boundaries. Where does the community begin and end? This is much more problematic in Greater London than anywhere else because of the endless urban sprawl. Our communities are officially defined only by relatively large boroughs (32 covering 8 million people) and electoral wards (624 of them) that rarely coincide with what we would call a community. An added complication is that civil parishes cannot cross borough boundaries. So communities that sprawl into other boroughs cannot be united as one. In Queen's Park they chose to use an electoral ward. There are a variety of reasons for this. Firstly, it was already being used as a neighbourhood area by Paddington Development Trust so is an existing functional community for governance purposes. Secondly, administrative geography meant that the ward is surrounded on three sides by other boroughs with an isthmus connecting it to Westminster. Far from a protracted discussion on boundaries which could delay another parish council proposal, the boundaries were already self-evident and not a point of contention.

Support, powers and precept

The next hurdles connect with the need to get support. The first is the extent to which a parish council is understood to have sufficient powers to be worthwhile and the second is the extent to which paying increased council tax (known as a precept) is considered acceptable by the community. In the case of Queen's Park the reason for setting up the council was to secure a new means of funding. The grant from government had been cut and the community needed to find a new way to fund local activities. The problem of the precept was therefore turned on its head. Far from being an onerous means to an end, it was the very mechanism the community required and a way for them to help themselves. The other power of the parish council, often overlooked, was the permanence. The structures that had relied on ad hoc grants from government were under threat, but a new parish council would not face abolition merely because of limited funds. The powers of the parish council are fairly limited and this puts off some groups going through the effort of setting one up. In Queen’s Park there were at least two powers they could identify as worth the trouble.

Petition for a community governance review

Gathering popular support is a requirement for setting up a parish council. In order to force the local council to consider setting one up it is necessary to trigger a community governance review. This is done by organising a petition which must be signed by at least 10% of electors. In Queen’s Park there was a very well organised campaign which maximised limited resources. The existing community governance infrastructure and access to a community empowerment practitioner undoubtedly helped to make this petition a success. Genuine community support for the proposal was also present and vital to a such a bid succeeding. As Westminster is a focus for London regional media it was possible for the group to gain some considerable publicity. Had the campaign been in Hillingdon or Sutton this might not have been so easy to achieve.

Once the petition is submitted to the borough council they have a year in which to consider the proposal. There are a number of things that could delay or derail a proposal. It cannot proceed if it is felt the proposed boundaries are not viable, for example by leaving a small part of the borough cut off from the rest, and unable to form parish council in future. As part of the governance review the council will consider the whole borough, not just the area of the proposal. The borough council can choose to approve the new parish or suggest amendments to the proposal, which might include changing the boundaries. The council could divide the whole borough up into civil parishes. This is exactly what happened in Milton Keynes in 2001.

Final hurdle

In the event Westminster did none of these things. It agreed the parish council in principle as proposed, but produced a final hoop for the community to jump through: a non-binding referendum of local electors. I believe adding this step points to the ambivalence of local authorities to parish councils. They are neither enthusiastically behind them nor outright in opposition to them. If they were so minded, Westminster could have rejected the proposal and justified it with a range of reasons. But at the same time they could have approved it at this point, based on the petition, dialogue with the proposers and the responses to the governance review consultation.

68% of electors voted to approve the parish council and the first elections will take place in May 2014 at the same time as the London borough council elections. It may seem like a lengthy process, and it is. However, Queen’s Park have probably navigated it about as quickly as is possible. Other campaigns have got stuck very early in this process and even had they got past initial conversations about boundaries the introduction at the last minute of additional hurdles such as a referendum might have derailed them entirely. Queen’s Park represented a well organised and well supported campaign, and Westminster a typical local authority in terms of its attitude to community governance. Without the special set of circumstances that existed in Queen’s Park it is unlikely that we will be seeing the introduction of further parish councils in London soon.

London's first parish council

Following a referendum organised by Westminster City Council, it looks very likely that the first parish council in Greater London since 1936 will be created in Queen's Park, Westminster in 2014. The formal decision will be made at a council meeting in June.


View Queen's Park, Westminster CP in a larger map

London's last parish council

BBC article today suggested that a new parish council for Queen's Park would be the first in 50 years. It is actually more like 75 years as the last parish council was abolished in 1936, not in 1965 as implied. But where was this last parish council?

There have been around 55 parish councils in the current area of Greater London. Almost all were created in 1894 and all were gone by 1936. All were situated in what is now Outer London. No mechanism has ever existed before 2007 to create a parish council in Inner London. Parish councils were created systematically in 1894. All of the country was already divided into civil parishes and any that were outside a borough or urban district (the big towns) got a parish council.

As London was expanding the number of parish councils started to decline. This was because when civil parishes became absorbed by boroughs or urban districts they were no longer permitted to have a parish council. The Local Government Act 1929 created a new mechanism - the county review order - which sped up the process of removing parish councils. The trigger for reform was usually an increase in population. In inter-war Outer London it was not uncommon for a parish to have a tenfold increase in population within a decade as suburban housing was constructed.

The loss of a parish council did not always equal a reduction in identity and local decision making. In this period the change from parish council was often a conversion to urban governance to reflect increased population, rather than an amalgamation with an adjacent district. The efficiency consensus that bigger was better had not yet been reached. However some outcomes of the reviews under the 1929 act were that very large urban districts such as Harrow, Hornchurch and Orpington replaced a number of parishes that had each previously enjoyed a parish council.

1934 was a big year for the parish council in Greater London. By the end of the year only one remained. Interestingly it was the now still semi-rural North Ockendon that survived two more years to 1936. The conversion to urban governance was perhaps in anticipation of house building there. In the event the Second World War and the Metropolitan Green Belt kept the suburban sprawl just a few hundred yards from the parish. North Ockendon was further made an anomaly with the construction of the M25 motorway and is now the only part of Greater London outside the limit it forms. It also holds the distinction of being the last place in Greater London to have a parish council from 1894 to 1936.


View North Ockendon in a larger map


Full list of parish councils and dates abolished

Chislehurst	1900
Foots Cray	1902
Feltham	1904
Hayes (Hillingdon)	1904
Ruislip	1904
Arkley	1905
Merton	1907
Yiewsley	1911
Morden	1913
Totteridge	1914
Beddington	1915
Coulsdon	1915
Mitcham	1915
Sanderstead	1915
Wallington	1915
Crayford	1920
Addington	1925
Dagenham	1926
Hornchurch	1926
Northolt	1928
Cowley	1929
Harefield	1929
Hillingdon East	1929
Ickenham	1929
West Drayton	1929
Bedfont	1930
Cranford	1930
East Bedfont	1930
Hanworth	1930
Harlington	1930
Harmondsworth	1930
Edgware	1931
Chelsfield	1934
Cranham	1934
Cudham	1934
Downe	1934
Farnborough	1934
Great Stanmore	1934
Harrow Weald	1934
Havering-atte-Bower	1934
Hayes (Bromley)	1934
Keston	1934
Little Stanmore	1934
Mottingham	1934
Noak Hill	1934
North Cray	1934
Orpington	1934
Pinner	1934
Rainham	1934
St Mary Cray	1934
St Paul's Cray	1934
Upminster	1934
Wennington	1934
West Wickham	1934
North Ockendon	1936