Planning Application Consultation

This week, a planning application has been submitted by:

• St Andrew's Church, Church Road, Shilton - retrospective permission for the removal of the lead roof and replacement with a stainless steel roof.

Full details of the application (including site plans) can be viewed here. All comments on the application must be received by Rugby Borough Council by Thursday 19 May.

Where have all the Parish Councillors Gone?

Birdingbury and Wolfhampcote aren’t normally places associated with being at the forefront of local democracy. But right now, the residents of these two villages can consider themselves to be showing the rest of Rugby borough the way it should be done. Next Thursday is election day. Not only is there the national referendum on electoral reform being held alongside elections for most wards on Rugby Borough Council (although not Fosse), but there are also elections for 104 parish councillors sitting on 16 different parish councils in the area.

Public voting for any level of government, national or local, only takes place if more people stand for election than there are vacancies. If there are enough vacant seats for everybody who puts their name forward, those people are elected automatically, without the need for anyone else to vote on the matter. It's called an uncontested election.

And whilst an uncontested election is never likely to happen again at a General Election (the last time being in 1951 in four seats in Northern Ireland), it is equally rare in local elections to Warwickshire County Council or Rugby Borough Council. Sadly, the same can’t be said for parish council elections.

That is why the residents of Birdingbury and Wolfhampcote deserve special recognition, because they are the only parishes holding elections this year where more residents have put themselves forward to sit on their local parish council than there are vacancies available. In the other 14 villages, there will be no need to have an election, because there’s an empty seat available for everyone who put their name forward – and with seats still going spare!

The 14 parishes – Binley Woods, Bourton & Draycote, Brandon & Bretford, Cawston, Dunchurch, Frankton, Grandborough, Leamington Hastings, Marton, Princethorpe, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Stretton-on-Dunsmore, Thurlaston and Willoughby - have a combined 94 parish council vacancies, but only 80 people wanting to fill them.

So why don’t local residents want to become involved in their parish council?

Perhaps parish councils don’t publicise elections enough and nobody actually knows that they are being held until they turn up to vote on 5 May, only to be told that it's a done deal. It’s certainly true that an unscrupulous parish councillor can just keep their mouth shut about the upcoming elections, safe in the knowledge that the best way to get re-elected is by avoiding drawing public attention to the matter. Perhaps too many people still view their parish council as a joke and have no desire to get involved (although that view is self-defeating and will only perpetuate the status quo). Maybe people think that they're a toothless talking-shop, and whilst it’s true that you’re not going to be able to change the world as a parish councillor, there is more scope to influence things than you’d initially consider to be the case.

Take the money that's available as an example. The 80 parish councillors returned unopposed this year will, between them, have the responsibility and authority to spend over £330,000 of taxpayers’ money in the next 12 months on whatever they think their villages need. Whether you're elected unopposed or by a public vote, you have a four year term of office, so the lucky 80 councillors will now have over £1.3m at their disposal before they are required to stand for election again.

Dunchurch parish councillors will spend £70,000 this year, Stretton-on-Dunsmore and Ryton-on-Dunsmore will both spend around £53,000 each, and the parish councillors in Cawston will be spending over £50,000 during 2011/12. If any proof was needed of the topsy-turvy world of parish politics, eight residents in Wolfhampcote are fighting for five seats on their parish council (total annual budget £1,500!)

The next elections for Shilton Parish Council will be held in May 2012. At this stage I have no great confidence that enough people will put their names forward to force an election here either. I hope they do. By then, I'll have managed to be a parish councillor for six years without anyone having to say whether they actually want me in that role. Worse still, it's said that there's not been an election to the parish council in living memory.

If you are interested in what happens in your village (and I've met very few people who aren't) there's no better time to get involved. Budget cuts at national and local level, plus the challenges of the Big Society, mean that villages need people to speak up on their behalf and fight to keep vital services. New legislation will also mean parishes developing Neighbourhood Development Plans that will give them a greater say in planning applications affecting their area. Everybody sings the praises of localism, now we just need the people to make it a reality!

I hope more of us can take inspiration from the Birdingburys and Wolfhampcotes of this world.

Planning Applications Consultation and Decision

This week, a planning application has been submitted by:

• 74 Wood Lane, Shilton - demolition of outbuildings, provision of a link between dwelling and converted garage, and provision of a replacement garage.

Full details of the application (including site plans) can be viewed here. All comments on the application must be received by Rugby Borough Council by Tuesday 26 April.

Rugby Borough Council has also reached the following decision on a planning application submitted in December:

• Top Park, Top Road, Barnacle - retention of the use of land and ancillary operational development as a residential caravan site, including the erection of six temporary amenity blocks - refused.

The full decision on this application can be viewed here.

Time for a Bulkington Parish Council?

Have you been wondering what Bulkington Parish Council is doing in response to the proposals to close their village library? The answer's easy - it's doing nothing, because there is no such thing as a Bulkington Parish Council.

Despite the village having a distinct boundary and strong civic identity amongst its residents, there has not been a local council of any description around which issues affecting the village can be debated and problems solved since 1932. Just 15-odd miles to the south, the 7,500 people who live in Whitnash have their own town council with a £90,000 budget to look after their interests, whilst the 6,500 people of Bulkington have, well, nothing.

OK, to be fair they do have a county councillor (but who doesn't live there) and two borough councillors. But doesn't Bulkington need and deserve to have access to grassroots representatives who live amongst the people they represent, who hold public meetings locally and are accountable in a sense that someone who lives in Nuneaton and attends meetings in Warwick isn't?

It's not like Warwickshire County Council even holds a distinct Bulkington Community Forum for the people who live in the village, preferring instead to have a 'Whitestone & Bulkington' forum, as if a suburban housing estate in Nuneaton shares any of the issues and problems that a village community does.

Perhaps Bulkington doesn't want it's own council. Perhaps it thinks that the threatened library closure, the solutions to the traffic and parking problems in Chequer Street and Leicester Street, the bus services to Coventry that will be cut, and all the other issues that it will have to face up to in the coming years are best left to bureaucrats in other places, without the direct input and influence of people who have to adapt and live with the consequences of these decisions.

It's been nearly 80 years since the residents of Bulkington were served by their own local council. As the ideals of localism and civic self-responsibility come back into vogue, is it now time to ask again whether those residents can be better served with their own local parish council giving a louder voice to their interests, instead of forever being told by others what's good for them?

Over 200 new parish councils have been established across England in the last ten years, and the National Association of Local Councils' 'Power to the People' toolkit should be the first port of call for anyone who's interested in exploring this issue further.

WALC Annual Seminar - 5 March

Earlier this month I attended the Warwickshire and West Midlands Association of Local Councils (WALC) Annual Seminar in Warwick. It is now the third year that I've attended this one day training event that brings together representatives from many of the town and parish councils in Warwickshire and the West Midlands to listen to speeches, undertake training and share best practice with colleagues.

Once again, there were three main sessions that I attended: James Derounian from the University of Gloucestershire led a very topical discussion on parish councils' role in the Big Society and Localism, Gary Stephens, Planning Policy Team Leader at Warwick District Council talked about the Government's proposed changes to the planning system, and then Nick Booth from Podnosh spoke about the benefits of social media as a means of effective consultation.

All three sessions were really interesting. The Localism debate, and what the Big Society actually means in reality, rages on and it's clear that parish councils have a big part to play in this, as borough and county councils across the country end up cutting services (whether they want to or not).

Given its very broadest definition, I would imagine its hard for anyone to disagree with the philosophy behind the Big Society, and I am a huge supporter of the principles of localism given how chronically over-centralised this country has become over the last generation or so. But (and it's a big but), I'm not sure of the capacity parish councils have at the moment to step in and fill the void left by retreating county/borough councils and other service providers.

Attending conferences such as this one opens your eyes to many of the amazing things that some parish councils do within their community, but the parish council sector as a whole needs to be honest enough to admit that there is a mixed bag out there and many local councils just do not yet have the capacity, skills, knowledge and ability to deliver effective public services to their community. The challenge will be how this can be addressed over the coming years.

'Planning' is always a contentious subject matter for parish councils, where it is almost impossible to please everybody. It was therefore interesting to hear of the Government's new approach to the planning system that is contained within the Localism Bill. Back in May last year, the Government announced that the Localism Bill would, amongst many things:

develop greater powers to councils and neighbourhoods, and give local communities control over housing and planning decisions.

Of particular interest to parish councils within the Localism Bill is the creation of Neighbourhood Plans, which are intended to give a focus to the local planning aspirations and objectives of a parish area and are written by the local community itself. These plans cannot contradict national planning policies or the borough council's Core Strategy, so it might be argued that they serve little purpose - especially as they're projected to cost £17,000+ to produce. If that turns out to be their true cost (which to my mind seems ridiculously high) I can't imagine any Neighbourhood Plans being produced. The value of producing such a plan appears to be where the community wishes to encourage more development than might otherwise be envisaged in the borough's Core Strategy. As Gary Stephens said, the Government see Neighbourhood Plans as "not a means to prevent growth, but to stimulate more". Any takers?

The day finished with Nick Booth from Podnosh demonstrating how social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogger etc can be used to engage with members of your local community. Clearly, he was preaching to the converted in my case(!), but it was interesting to see the many examples of where the internet is being utilised to spread the word of what parish councils and councillors are getting up to. The flip side of this is that social media is also increasingly being used by local residents to hold public services to account. I talked about this back in 2009, and another more recent example is the whatsinKenilworth.com community website. As the traditional local print media seems to get less and less 'local', many people predict that it'll be sites such as this one where people will look first for their local news. Anyone out there planning a 'whatsinRugby.com' or even a 'whatsinFosse.com' website??

Overall, it was really interesting day with plenty of ideas to mull over in the coming months (and at a very reasonable cost of £15 to the Shilton taxpayer).

Fosse Community Forum - 17 March

Click on the image above if you need to make it larger to read it more easily.

Planning Application Decision

Rugby Borough Council has reached the following decision on a planning application submitted in February:

• 2 Lower Road, Barnacle - extensions and alterations to bungalow to create two storey dwelling and use of roof space - refused.

The full decision on this application can be viewed here.

Parish Council Meeting - 1 March

On Tuesday night I chaired the March meeting of Shilton Parish Council. As usual, the meeting began with updates from County Councillor Phillip Morris-Jones and Borough Councillor Rachel Watts. Both reported that their respective councils had now agreed their budgets for 2011/12, and that this would result in an unchanged level of Council Tax for next year compared to this year. There was a little more detail on the potential job losses that are likely to be required to achieve these stand still budgets - Rugby is expected to make 24 posts redundant, Warwickshire needs to find 1,800 job losses.

Rachel Watts was also able to give an update on progress with the Rugby Rural CCTV Network project that I blogged about following last month's parish council meeting. The trial that is being carried out together with Wolston Parish Council is still on-going. The trial had identified a number of technical problems that needed to be overcome (including poor rural broadband speeds to carry the CCTV images back to the central monitoring control room - a problem that will also impact on the roll-out of any system within Shilton and Barnacle), but these problems have now been overcome and it appears that it's now ready to be demonstrated to other interested parishes. Dunchurch and Ryton-on-Dunsmore parish councils already appear to be next in line, but Shilton parish councillors expressed their wish to see a demonstration of the CCTV system in operation at the earliest opportunity to assess its suitability for adoption in either or both our villages. I shall hopefully have more to report next month.

In other updates on items raised at the last meeting, it was reported that there had thankfully been no further reported incidents of the car park in Church Road, Shilton being used as a discrete location at which to smoke drugs. As ever, local residents provide the eyes and ears that give an early warning of these sorts of incidents and I would urge anyone seeing anything suspicious in the future to report the matter to either the parish council or Warwickshire Police's Safer Neighbourhoods Team.

There had also been reports of litter problems at the rear of the car park, and it was agreed to install a bin to (hopefully) encourage anyone looking to dispose of their litter to do so in more a responsible way.

In other business, the parish council agreed its cemetery fees for 2011/12. Some fees went up and others came down as we tried to bring our fees more in line with those charged by neighbouring councils. Parish councils are give clear guidance from the Government that the cost of providing cemeteries should be met from the burial fees they charged - effectively, the cemetery should be 'self financing'. For smaller parishes like Shilton this poses some difficulties, as it is not easy to accurately predict demand. Clearly, if only one or two people are being buried in any year, the fees received will not cover the cost of that year's cemetery maintenance. But as with most things, you do what you think is best and then manage the situation during the course of the year in response to developments.

The next meeting of Shilton Parish Council will be held on Tuesday 5 April at 7.30pm in the Parish Council Meeting Room, Church Road, Shilton.

WALC Rugby Branch Meeting - 24 February

Last night I chaired the Rugby branch meeting of the Warwickshire and West Midlands Association of Local Councils (WALC) in Easenhall. This is the quarterly meeting of all of the parish councils in the Rugby borough area where we discuss recent developments and shared matters of interest.

There is always an invited speaker who gives a presentation on a topic of interest to parish councils, and last night John Cowley, Play Development Officer from Rugby Borough Council attended to talk about the work of the Rugby Play Partnership over the last few years. The Play Partnership is a forum for local residents (including children) to meet with the borough council and other interested bodies to share ideas and give feedback on play facilities within the borough.

John Cowley spoke at length about the objectives of the borough's Play Strategy and the progress made during the last few years with the delivery of its objectives. It would be fair to say that the focus of the Rugby Play Partnership has been more urban based so far, although it was now intended to expand the work to include more of the rural parts of the borough, something that would be done by working closely with parish councils in mapping the existing play facilities within villages and identifying where there were gaps in provision. As now seems to be the trend though, there were concerns that funding cuts may require the ambitions of the Play Strategy to be scaled back somewhat.

The WALC Rugby branch is fortunate to have Councillor Chris Hartny-Mills from Pailton Parish Council as its representative on the Rugby Play Partnership. Chris is committed to improving the play facilties available for young people in the borough and will lead on the project to identify the facilties that currently exist in the rural area in order that funding can be targeted where it is most needed.

Elseware on the agenda, we received updates from other councillors who represent the branch on outside bodies and groups, including the Cement Community Engagement Group (which meets to address environmental concerns arising from the Cemex cement plant in Rugby) and the latest business discussed by the Rugby Local Strategic Partnership.

The next branch meeting is scheduled for the end of April, when it is hoped that an officer from Warwickshire County Council will be in attendance to talk about youth services in the county (and another area that has been hit very hard by recent budget cuts).

Planning Applications Consultation and Decision

This week, a planning application has been submitted by:

• 2 Lower Road, Barnacle - extensions and alterations to bungalow to create two storey dwelling and use of roof space.

Full details of the application (including site plans) can be viewed here. All comments on the application must be received by Rugby Borough Council by Friday 25 February.

Rugby Borough Council has also reached the following decision on a planning application submitted in December:

• Land rear of The Trossachs, Croft Farm, Parrotts Grove, Coventry - creation of a raised hard-standing for car parking and storage - refused.

The full decision on this application can be viewed here.