Civil Parish The Situation In England History The Situation In

Most parish councillors are elected to represent the entire parish. Only if there are more candidates standing for election than there are seats on the council will an election be held.

Some parishes are deemed too small to have a parish council and instead have a parish meeting; an example of direct democracy. Parishes can be grouped with other parishes and share a common parish council.

A parish council can also be called a Town Council or a City Council (but not all city or town councils are parish councils). It can become a Town Council unilaterally, simply by making a resolution to do so. City status however is granted by the crownThe Crown is a term which is used to separate the government authority and property of the state in a kingdom, as opposed to any personal influence and private assets held by the current Monarch. In the United Kingdom (and by extension, most of the nation. In England, there are currently six parishes with city status : ChichesterChichester is a city in the south of England, in the county of West Sussex. It is the administrative centre for the Chichester district. The area is believed to have been a bridgehead for the Roman invasion of Britain and the city centre stands on the fou, Ely, Hereford, Lichfield, Ripon, and Wells. The Chair of a Town council or City council will usually have the title Mayor.

Sometimes a city or town is abolished as a district, and it is considered desirable to maintain continuity of the charter until a parish council to replace it can be set up. In this case Charter Trustees perform some of the functions of a parish council, and maintain traditions such as mayoralty. An example of such a city was Hereford, whose city council was merged in 1998 to form a unitary Herefordshire. The area of the city of Hereford remained unparished until 2000 when a parish council was created for the city.

The policy of the present government is to encourage creation of town and parish councils in unparished areas. Recently established councils include those for Daventry ( 2003), and Folkestone ( 2004).

Parishes tend not to exist in metropolitan areas such as Greater London, but there is nothing to stop their establishment. For example, Birmingham has a parish, New Frankley.

2 History

Whilst as their name suggests, Civil Parishes arose out of the ecclesiastical parish system, their purpose was to administer the Poor Law. The entire country of England was divided into parishes, each responsible for the maintenance of the poor people born in the parish. A rate (property tax) was levied in each parish.

As Local Government was restructured in the 19th Century, some parishes were designated Urban Sanitary Districts and had their powers greatly increased. Smaller parishes were grouped together as Rural Districts but still retained some responsibilities. However the Poor Law obligations were now given to "Unions" of a number of parishes, in order to have sufficient resources to establish and administer workhouses and "outdoor relief". In 1929 the old Poor Law system was abolished, central government now assuming responsibility for welfare payments. In 1974 rural parishes were retained but most urban areas became "unparished".

3 The situation in Wales

County and county boroughs may be divided into communities as English districts are may be divided into parishes. Community council s in Wales are identical to Parish councils in terms of their powers and the way they operate. Welsh community councils may call themselves town councils unilaterally and may have city status granted by the Crown. In Wales all town councils are community councils. There are currently two community councils with city status: Bangor and St Davids. The Chair of a town council or city council will usually have the title Mayor.

In areas with populations too small to justify a full community council, community meetings will be established.

4 See also

5 External links

www.nalc.gov.uk The National Association of Local Councils represents English parish councils and Welsh community councils

Subnational entities

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