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Parish CouncilThe First CouncilThe first meeting of the Highclere Parish Council was held on Friday 14 December 1894 and comprised 5 councillors. There are eight councillors today representing the two wards of Penwood and Highclere. The Hampshire Archives holds many of the old minute books from parish council meetings – visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk for details. Role and ResponsibilitiesThere are two sorts of parishes, whose boundaries may or may not coincide:
A civil parish is an independent local democratic unit for villages, smaller towns, and suburbs of main urban areas. Each parish has a Parish (or Town) Meeting consisting of all its local government electors and most (where the electorate exceeds 200) have a Parish or Town Council. Over 13 million people live in such parishes. A parish or town council is a small local authority. Its councillors are elected for four years at a time, as with other councils. Bye-elections may be held to fill vacancies occurring between elections. The council is the corporation of its village or town. Each year the councillors choose a chairman from amongst their number; in town councils usually called Town Mayor. Parish councils have a number of formal powers. Many provide allotments, look after playing fields, village greens and leisure facilities. They have a hand in communications by maintaining or guarding such things as rights of way, bus shelters and public seats, and smaller scale street lighting. An important matter in which they are concerned is the provision of village halls and meeting places. The parish council can do these things by actually providing them itself, or by helping someone else (such as a volunteer or a charity) financially to do them. Parish councils are heavily dependent on voluntary effort. Some also provide such things as village guides and leaflets, help the Meals on Wheels or local bus services, car or cycle parks, public conveniences and seats and litter bins (they can also prosecute litter bugs!) - there is even one that runs a holiday hotel! Many appoint charitable trustees and school managers, and very often local cemeteries are managed by parish councils. They have the power to improve the quality of community life by spending sums of money on things which, in their opinion, are in the interests of the parish or its inhabitants, and many kinds of activities are aided in this way. Parish councils are the most un-bureaucratic and the cheapest kind of local authority in existence. Their funds are a tiny part of the council tax and they get no general government grant, so they have every incentive to keep expenditures low and economical. Parish councils have lately become more important because district councils have become larger and therefore more remote. The parish councillors know the village and can (and increasingly often do) represent its views to other authorities like district or county councils and health authorities, providers of transport services, and to Ministries. They are entitled to be consulted on planning applications and are often consulted on such things as schools and roads and they also put the parish's case at public inquiries. The people elect members every four years and they are entitled to go to the annual parish meeting and have their say. Parish accounts are strictly audited every year. Parish and town boundaries are reviewed by the Local Government Commission; the aim is to make existing parish and town boundaries correspond better to the social communities in which people live and to create new councils for areas which have not had them before. |