Unless there is a change of mind over its legislation on London, the Government is about to miss the opportunity of a century to restore local democracy.  When in Opposition, Tony Blair talked on and on about the value of the community.  But now that Labour's first reform of local government is under way, the hopes held out for the community have been allowed to slide.

A Mayor and a new Authority for 7 million residents of London will follow the Referendum on 7 May, and that is all to the good.  But where are the local roots of this massive new government?  Aneurin Bevan once said that "bigness is the enemy of humanity".  If only he was here to say it again - and if only we had a Government which would listen.

The Government does at least bemoan the low turn-out in local elections.  But it draws the wrong conclusion.  In its recent consultation paper Modernising Local Government all the talk was of local focus groups, standing panels, citizens' juries - but no mention of bigness.  There was not even a hint that the apathy is partly due to "government" being too large, the Councils so remote that people have turned away from them, in their millions.

Nor was there any mention of Europe, where community government is the norm.  Britain is at the bottom of European league for interest in local government, with only 40% turn-outs at local elections -

Percentage of Electorate Voting in Local Elections

• Luxembourg                93%
• Italy                             85%
• Belgium                       80%
• Denmark                      80%
• Germany                      72%
• France                         68%
• Spain                           64%
• Portugal                        60%
• Netherlands                  54%
• UK                               40%

The fact is that the extraordinarily large constituencies in British local government have distanced the governors from the governed.  This has particularly mattered in London, as an ancient city.  London has grown gradually, around the villages that were there before, and the roads which connected them.  The London Boroughs are bureaucratic abstractions.  Hardly anyone feels a sense of belonging to, say, "Westminster": they live in Pimlico, Belgravia, Mayfair, Soho, Covent Garden, and so forth.  And it is the same in every London Borough.  Tower Hamlets, in east London, is the only one with the right name.  If "government", at its most fundamental level, were based on the places which people identified with, communities would be put back on the local government map.  New blood and new talent could then flow back into the democracy.

Another consequence of the awful enlargement is that fewer people are able to take part in government of any kind, and to learn about it.  This was John Stuart Mills' main argument for local government.  He argued that in the case of local bodies, beside the function of electing, many citizens in turn have the chance of being elected, and many - either by selection or rotation - fill one or other of the numerous local executive offices.

Yet the central Parliament has for a century moved in the other direction, away from the local.  The most local structures of government have been dismantled - condemned as "inefficient" in the delivery of services, as if that were ever their sole or primary function.  In truth, they gave shape to each community, articulating its identity, and giving expression to its common voice.

Since the wave of centralisation during and after WW2, the destruction of community government has proceeded apace in the rest of Britain.  Legislation in 1958, 1972 and 1994 hastened the shift towards large and larger "more efficient" representative Councils, each serving more and more people and becoming less accessible, more remote.  Each Councillor came to represent more and more residents - in London now, about 3,500 to each Borough Councillor.

In London, parish government was abolished in 1900, when Parliament created the 100 "metropolitan Boroughs".  In 1963, those Councils were in turn slashed in number, to be replaced by the 32 "big boroughs" of today.  Our political system now offers our people no effective personal link with the institutions of government which determine their daily lives.  That is alienation.  In understanding the decoupling of community, and the resulting personal stress, crime and social disorder, there is no factor more important that the harm we have inflicted deliberately on ourselves, by dismantling community government.

It does not need to be like that.  The London Community Alliance does public today to promote community government.  Even if restricted to the most basic neighbourhood functions, it would create a new structure for our communal life and its many expressions.  Invaluable experience has been gained outside London, with community and parish councils - even though they too have been weakened.  In Wales, three million residents elect 700 community councils, with more than 5,000 councillors.  In London, we could build on - and better - that experience.

We still hope that the Government, in its forthcoming London Government Bill, will provide for the creation of local community assemblies, in parallel with the Greater London Assembly.  Their boundaries would be defined by the Local Government Commission following local consultation, and each would have an average size of 15,000 residents.  Once the legislation was in place, citizens in each community would have the right to hold a local referendum on whether or not to set up a local assembly.   And if the option was exercise, the Assembly would be set up.  The members would be the ordinary citizens of London, unpaid volunteers, not the professional politicians.

Some London Boroughs have experimented with local "delegation", but local government law has blocked any real reform.  Londoners should now be given the opportunity to develop a full, local communal life, and to decide within each community matters of key local importance to them.  This change would enrich the lives of Londoners, without diminishing the efficiency of government.  The new Clause IV of the Labour Party put it well - "The Labour Party will work for a society," it asserts, "on which decisions are taken by the communities directly affected by them".

Let us now show that to be in earnest.

• Footnote  But Labour ducked out.  Michael Young had fought all his life for this cause, only to be disappointed in the end.  His other marvellous lost cause was the cooperative movement - mutual aid, as it was known between the Wars - its promise was never matched by its delivery.  I do not share his enthusiasm for the principles of cooperation, but I hope that I too will be privileged to carry the flag of democratic localism for many years to come...