Question: referenda on establishing town/parish councils

[matgb]

Before I start wading through loads of links, searches and similar, is there out there somewhere a simple guide on petitioning for a town council referendum? Brighouse is part of Calderdale Metropolitan Borough, but several local towns also have their own town council.

I know you need a petition and then you get a referendum, but I only tangentially followed the campaign in Brixham when it happened and local Govt isn't my area of expertise. But loads of you out there know a bit about this stuff, so if there are pointers I'd appreciate it.

Went to the Cabinet meeting this evening y'see, and the Cabinet agreed a 6-month stay of sale, partially on the grounds that a property slump isn't the time to sell off old buildings in need of repair, and partially because there're strong arguments that the people of the town would like to keep the town and possibly get a council again.

As getting a town council struck me as one of the best things we could campaign for when we reestablished our local branch, getting the legwork started ASAP strikes me as a good plan.

Oh, any other guidance, like ward boundary rules, etc would be much appreciated: odds of us getting STV for the council I'm guessing are minimal but if it's an option...

Comments

Create-a-council

[onehourahead.livejournal.com]

No doubt you'll find this anyway but...

http://www.nalc.gov.uk/Toolkits/Create_a_Council/Create_a_council.aspx

Cheers,

Andrew

Re: Create-a-council

[matgb]

Danke, that looks like the exact place I need, the NALC guidelines are more up to date than the regs I barely knew, didn't know it had changed last year.

10% of the local voters. Ouch.

Sustainable Communities Act

[http://www.theliberati.net/quaequamblog/author/james/ (from livejournal.com)]

I'd also recommend lobbying the council to set up a process for using the Sustainable Communities Act (but then I would, wouldn't I?). Losing a local resource would fit into the act's definition of sustainability and it would be a lot easier than finding 2,000+ signatures.

FYI - Bradford have already signed up.

http://www.unlockdemocracy.org.uk/?page_id=537