Town and parish councils

If community-based planning is to work at all, it requires an institutional base, a way of organising local communities so generate ideas for the local area, harness resources from within the community and maintain open and transparent lines of accountability. The Government has undertaken a consultation exercise on making it easier to create new town or parish councils. So are these the right institutions for community-based planning, management and action? Clearly, given the legislative changes implementing the Localism agenda, there are considerable benefits in having such a council in your neighbourhood. These councils have a General Power of Competence and can exercise the Community Right to Challenge and the Community Right to Bid (in relation to community assets). They hold the new neighbourhood planning powers and also will receive a share of the Community Infrastructure Levy from new development; they can even levy a local tax (or precept) although this will not raise much.
The concern with any such institution must be about its representativeness and transparency. One does not need to believe that everything in "The Archers" is fact rather than fiction to believe some of its portrayal of parish politics. Capture of such councils by a small minority is always a possibility and indeed, representing all elements of a local community (across age, gender, class and ethnicity) may be almost impossible. Consensus cannot always be generated and some form of leadership is necessary for change to be driven through. But the danger of focussing on the 'ease' of creating councils is that the dynamics that have to be put in place to make such councils effective and just may be forgotten.
It is not just about setting up the institution 'vessel' through which community planning will occur. It is also about creating, building, managing, resolving conflicts with the local people - residential and business - who make up that community or amalgam of communities. In the UK we put far too little emphasis on community building, assuming that it will somehow happen in civil society. But such community building can be a vital way of ensuring inclusion and justice in how such parish and town councils operate and we need investment in making this happen.