| Parish
Council - Questions and Answers |
As
with all organisations the Parish Council can be a mystery to
some and downright confusing to others, believe me, the Parish
Clerk and I have talked. Hopefully this page will answer some
of your questions and any it doesn't feel free to contact the
above mentioned Parish Clerk who will try to help. |
| What
is a Parish Council |
 Parish
councils are the lowest tier of government in England. They
are no longer anything to do with the church, although they
were in times past. The parish council is responsible for a
parish, a small area normally enclosing one community. If the
community is sufficiently large the council may be called a
town council, rather than a parish council but its responsibilities
and powers are identical. In some small parishes there is no
parish council, just an annual parish meeting. Not every community
has a parish council and in some cases, like Kirkbampton, several
communities are combined into one parish.
Who are my Parish Councillors? |
The
next tier above parish councils is the district council, which
covers a much wider area, and above that comes the county council.
As town councils sometimes exist as an alternative to parish
councils you sometimes find city councils in place of district
councils.
Who is
my District Councillor?(external link) |
The
highest tier of local government in Cumbria is the County Council.
The last re-organisation of local government introduced the
concept of unitary authorities combining the function of district
and county councils. This was attempted recently in Cumbria
but failed.
Who is
my County Councillor?(external link) |
The
parish can get money from its residents in the form of a "precept",
which is added to the figures requested by the county council,
the police and fire authority and the district council and is
then collected by the district council in the council tax (previously
called the community charge or "poll tax" and, before
that, the rates). |
| What's
involved in being a Councillor? |
As a
minimum you would be expected to attend most of the full Council
meetings which are held on the second Monday of every alternate
month, January, March, May, July, September and November at
7:30pm in Kirkbampton Village Hall.
You may also get approached by villagers asking you to help
them with their problems, especially in things like planning
matters, but this doesn't happen very often. |
| Am
I Eligible? |
| In
order to be a parish councillor you must be aged 21 years or
over and be a Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of an EU member
state and you must qualify to be a parish councillor by one
of the following:
* be a local government elector in the parish (ie on the electoral
roll)
* owned or rented land within the parish for the last twelve
months
* lived in the parish or within 4.8 kilometres (3 miles) of
it for the last twelve months
* worked in the parish for the last twelve months
Many people qualify on more than one of the above grounds. |
| How
do I find out more? |
The full
council is elected every four years, with the next election
being in May 2011 however councillors sometime resign in mid-term
so there are occasional "casual" vacancies that are
usually filled by co-opting someone. The way this works is that
the parish council finds one or more people who might be suitable
and then votes to select one. It's rare that there's more than
one candidate.
So if you're interested in being co-opted the next time there's
a vacancy make yourself known to the clerk, chairman or any
of member of council. |
