The Case for a new Local Democratic Order

by Roger Warren Evans  1996

part of "Building a New Britain"
an alternative approach to devolution and local governance. 
Published by the City Region Campaign                                                    Page 3

Pages One - Two - Three - Four - Five - Six - Seven

New Neighbourhood Councils

The second major innovation for which we contend is the creation of Neighbourhood Councils.  We argue that certain limited functions currently performed by District Councils should be assigned to a new type of directly-elected Neighbourhood Council, elected by the smallest appropriate local electorate.  To these councils should be entrusted the guardianship of the local physical environment: they would be responsible for development control (working within the framework of a Regional Plan), deciding all planning applications and dealing with conservation and preservation orders, local public nuisance, public open spaces and footpaths, street cleansing, domestic recycling, and local traffic management.  In all cases there would be a single administrative appeal, either to the Region or to the Courts, ordinarily not the District.  And in exceptional cases, the Region would have a calling-in power (enabling the Region to intervene, for example, where a Neighbourhood was proposing to grant a planning consent contrary to the Regional Plan, just as the national Government has, under present legislation). 

Neighbourhood Councils would therefore not constitute, in any meaningful sense of the term, a further "tier" of local government: Districts and Neighbourhoods would operate alongside each other, in parallel, with appropriate appeals lying in each case either to the Region under the new arrangement, or to the Courts under existing legislation.

Neighbourhood Councils would need professional advice and services.  It is envisaged that they would  be free to procure that advice locally, either by grouping together for the retention of consultants, or by the retention of their own part-time or full-time staff, depending on size and resources.  A parallel is to be found in the procurement of services by individuals schools, using the powers conferred on Governors by schemes for the Local Management of Schools, or those with grant-maintained status.  A further possibility would be the procurement of services from the District or Region, by way of "service level" agreements: as a result of the experimentation of recent years, local authorities have experience in the outsourcing of professional services, and the new Neighbourhood Councils would be able to draw on that experience.

Community and Parish Councils

This embryonic jurisdiction is already operating, admittedly in a most rudimentary form, throughout the community and parish councils of the UK: it excites interests, and mobilises enthusiasms, which should all be captured by the mainstream political establishment and used as the foundation for a new arm of local government.  The  Boundary Commission would, after local consultation, advise on the size and configuration of those Neighbourhoods, before final determination by the regional authority.  In terms of connecting the citizen with the State, such a reform would have the most positive and constructive effect, with profound political significance.  We estimate that there would be about 10,000 such Neighbourhood Councils throughout the UK, opening up for perhaps 250,000 citizens a new range of opportunities for real participation in the day-to-day government of our society, a new way into public life.

How would the new system be financed?   >>  More