North Northamptonshire Council is carrying out a Community Governance Review – this reviews, creates and makes changes to the ways town and parish councils and parish areas are organised.
It helps make sure local governance:
- reflects local identities
- reflects the interests of the community
- is working as effectively and conveniently as it should
This is part of the law covering local government.
Changes
The review can consider:
- creating, merging, altering or abolishing parishes
- the electoral arrangements for parishes (including the ordinary year of elections, council size, the number of councillors to be elected and parish warding)
- the naming and style of new parishes
- grouping or ungrouping of parishes
- other types of arrangements (including parish meetings)
It can’t:
- change the number of councillors on North Northamptonshire Council or its ward boundaries
- influence or change the amount of money that an existing town or parish council raise through council tax (precepts)
- change individual parish councillors
Considerations
We are required to consider the:
- impact on community cohesion of community governance arrangements
- size, population and boundaries of a local community or parish
We also need to make sure that community governance will be:
- reflective of the identities and interests of the community in that area
- effective and convenient
- that any other forms of community representation (e.g. neighbourhood or residents associations) have also been considered
Consultation
First, we need to seek the views of the public, town and parish councils, and any interested parties on whether they feel their communities are suitably represented and if they would like to see any changes to their current governance arrangements.
