Parish is a loaded term

An odd tale has been reported about the church leaders setting up a parish council in Mayfair. This is impossible as a parish council is a civil organisation. It isn't clear where the misunderstanding is coming from, either the church leaders, or the Evening Standard reporter, or both. What it does perhaps highlight is the problem with the nomenclature. The word 'parish' is instantly linked to the church, even though the connection between the two organisations has been broken for over 100 years.

Legislation in 1855 broke any connection between the church
of St George Hanover Square and civil administration

Perhaps it was wise that the 2007 legislation that enabled these councils in London made the change to allow them to be called community or neighbourhood councils instead of parish. They already had the right to be called a town council if they so desired. It might be time to drop the 'parish' name altogether, at least for new creations, and in particular in urban areas unfamiliar with the concept of a civil parish. Although it was reported that a 'church parish council' existed in Mayfair until 1899, this is false. Parish councils never existed in central London and even where they did they were never in any way connected to the church.

Reductions to 'top down' community governance arrangements

Southwark is looking to reduce the number of community councils in the borough. This will be achieved by merging Borough & Bankside with Walworth and combining Bermondsey with Rotherhithe.

Rotherhithe features both areas of high deprivation and Docklands development.
Bermondsey includes solidly working class areas and redevelopment closer to London Bridge

This is being done in order to save money. It is part of a trend I have seen across London over time to reduce or entirely eliminate local authority run community governance structures such as 'area committees', 'ward forums' or other devolved arrangements. The savings made are usually tiny, but the real cost is the loss of a method of engagement focussed on the very local.

London Fields Community Council public meeting

Today I was present at the public meeting to discuss the creation of a community council for the area around London Fields in Hackney. The meeting consisted of a series of presentations and a question and answer session. Of particular interest was a talk about how neighbourhood planning, a feature of the current Localism Bill, could work with a community council. The questions highlighted a range of opinions about the necessity for a community council and the potential role it should play.

First some background. Hackney is one of those areas of London where the smallest unit of local government has been unusually large for some time. The apparently anomalous union with Stoke Newington, which was alluded to in the meeting, has been an intermittent feature of local politics since 1855. Whereas in other areas of London there is a tradition of very small units of local government that have been gradually amalgamated, in Hackney the local face of politics has always been quite large. Or to put it another way, there is no sense of a community council as a means to revert to something that has been lost.

The questions focussed on the usual bones of contention: the precept, boundaries and powers. There appeared to be a three way split forming on the precept: those who thought it was an unnecessary burden, those who thought it was worth paying to get results, and those who wanted it set as low as was possible. Politics in microcosm.

The potential planning power was explained in impressive detail, using the nearby example of Chatsworth Road (@chatsworthroad). I felt that it was perhaps pitched slightly wrongly for the audience, who might have become fatigued by buzzwords and vision, but nonetheless some could see the practical benefits of having some control over planning policy. London Fields is an area of reasonable public transport access and is close to the central London fringe. It is prime for intensification and this is not aligned to community aspirations.

Proposed boundaries of the community council

On boundaries a conversation was clearly started. This could potentially be a thorny issue. London Fields is about as close to the urban core as it is possible to be. Natural boundaries are hard to discern and even using the canal as a southern boundary did not manage to form a consensus. This is a peculiar problem for parish councils in Greater London and is perhaps one that will only ever be fully resolved during the community governance review process which is undertaken by the London borough council.

What struck me about the meeting was how astute the members of the public who came were. They could instantly see the potential pitfalls and the benefits and asked questions accordingly. Some were unconvinced, even after hearing the example of a working parish council outside London and the impressive neighbourhood plan created by Chatsworth Road. What was also clear, as is the case in other meetings elsewhere, is that there are within the community a core of people who genuinely care about where they live and are prepared to make an investment in time and activity. It is unclear if in London Fields a community council will provide a vehicle for their efforts, but based on this starting point, it is certainly possible.

Wapping Town Council proposal

During the summer of 2010 a proposal came about for a town council in Wapping. The proposal seems to have gone cold, with the public meeting held in July 2010 highlighting some particular concerns.

Two problems appear to be specific to Tower Hamlets. Firstly the proposal seems to have become confused and conflated with the creation of a directly elected mayor for the borough. The argument that the town council could be a counterweight to an as yet unelected mayor was not a clear one to grasp in July 2010. Residents were perhaps uneasy about so many changes they did not understand, especially when the matter of costs is broached but not fully elucidated.

More significantly the ghost of the 1980s Liberal Democrat decentralisation of the borough (now reversed) appears not have gone away. There is suspicion voiced in the meeting that this is some sort of "back door" attempt to divide up the borough again. Not that the 1986 decentralisation was that unprecedented. Before 1900 the Wapping area was divided between two fairly small local authorities, the vestry of St George in the East and the board of works of the Limehouse District. But collective memory only goes back so far.

Town Hall of St George in the East

The main problem with this campaign appears to have been getting bogged down in detail too early. On the subject of powers (i.e. benefits) there is a vague promise of oversight over planning, but the extent of the power isn't made clear. The idea that the community can negotiate with Tower Hamlets Council over what services they will run met with scepticism. This distrust of the council could have been capitalised on, but was not. Concrete examples of what the town council could do would probably have helped residents see the potential.

Town Hall of the Limehouse District

Most significant appears to be the precept. Although this is an important consideration in the setting up of a local council, by making it an issue this early, before the services to be provided had been considered, it was a little like putting the cart before the horse. The choice of speakers, that included a local councillor who might feel usurped by the town council, was probably not the best choice at this stage.

In summary, the proposition offered a vague range of services that might become locally provided, with an unspecified level of control and for an unspecified cost. Hardly surprising this did not excite the local population into action. I don't doubt that a local council could be valuable to the community in Wapping, but what this proposal shows is that a well organised campaign is as important as need.

Campaign for a Queen's Park Community Council launch

Today I was lucky enough to attend the launch event for the proposed Queen's Park Community Council.

The campaign to create a statutory community council has come about because the Queen's Park Forum, created by the Paddington Development Trust, is about to have a 100% cut in government funding. The local council proposal is intended to preserve and continue the work undertaken since 2003. It is the most advanced proposal for a community council in London and could be on track to be the first.

There was a good turnout for the launch

The Queen's Park ward of Westminster appears to be one of those neighbourhoods in a local authority area that through accidents of geography and history are left on the sidelines. The area was once administered from Chelsea, three miles away to the south, until in 1900 when it was added to the northern tip of Paddington. Since 1965 it has formed the northwest protrusion of the City of Westminster. Perhaps because of this history or because of political and physical differences with the rest of the borough, it has needed its own voice in order to flourish.

The campaign launch was positive and clear: your community is under threat and a statutory community council could provide a lifeline. The organisers must gather enough signatures (10% of electors) to force Westminster City Council to consider their proposal.

Petition for a community governance review

The Queen's Park proposal has a number of things in its favour. First of all the messy business of boundaries is taken care of. The council will operate in the Queen's Park ward, which is the same area as the forum. Secondly, the existing forum has a track record of achievement and, finally, the networks in the community are already there. The two speakers at the event from the Queen's Park Forum were confident, articulate and proud of what their community had done and what they saw as its future. As they spoke I felt convinced they would succeed.

The campaign is well organised. The message clear, concise and not bogged down in technical specifics. There was photography, media involvement and a sense of occasion was created. The proximity of the impending cuts created a feeling of urgency which is probably an advantage in getting traction. The challenge, of course, is getting the message outside of the room and connecting will all sections of the community, those who don't come to such meetings, and locking them in to the proposal.

Localism Bill: What is a community?

This is the first in a series looking at various aspects of the Localism Bill.

The Localism Bill introduced in this parliament aims to redefine the relationship between local authorities and communities. Reading the Guide to the Localism Bill there is a blurring of language and the word "community" is used vaguely in some instances to mean both local authorities and neighbourhood groups and more specifically in other cases. Although authorities are to be given more powers from the state, the mechanism for local groups to gain new responsibilities is principally through piecemeal leaching of power and challenge to local authorities.

New rights to build local assets, such as libraries, brings the sort of responsibility that would ordinarily be enjoyed by parish councils to less formally structured communities. But how are these groups to be made accountable? How will they be structured? What happens if people move on? Will wealthier areas take control of councils assets, leaving the council to administer the rest? Where is the benefit of forming a parish/local council if the powers are available to less formal groups?

There is a lack of direction in how the coalition government envisages "the community" that it intends to take on these new powers. The previous government was also fairly unclear about its preference for community structure, perhaps this is a continuation of that indifference and an acceptance of plurality. The Localism Bill treats some parish councils more like local authorities than community groups, allowing a veto of 'excessive' council tax precept rises and even extending the general power of competence to some.

Parish/local councils, now permitted almost anywhere in England, would seem the natural vehicle for the localism reform. However, they already suffered from a lack of powers that perhaps made them unattractive to communities. The Localism Bill, by failing to create new powers especially for these accountable groups, restricts their appeal as vehicles for community governance. This could be a missed opportunity to finally recast the parish/local council as an urban solution.

Consensus on local councils in London

Ahead of the Localism Bill introduced in December, confirmation came that the coalition government supports the creation of local councils within Greater London. There appear to be communities in Kilburn, Wapping, the South Bank and Queen's Park that are interested in forming a council, as well as the idea mooted for one in Thamesmead earlier this year. One note of caution, the council proposed for Kilburn, that would cross borough boundaries would not be possible under current legislation. This was also identified as a potential problem for the Thamesmead council.