What are the rules about who can be a Councillor?

Question

Is there anything to stop a partner of an existing Councillor joining the same Parish Council? If a Councillor qualifies to be a Councillor by owning a business in the parish (rather than living in the area), does their partner also qualify if they cite owning the same business?

Answer 1

If they are also owners of the business, then presumably they can also qualify.  The qualification is a personal one and is not dependent upon any "rights" acquired from other links or relationships.  Lots of parishes have members of the same family as councillors.

Comments

Thanks so much for prompt response. I just needed reassurance that what our PC was doing was okay.

Answer 2

No problem, I know a local Councillor who rented a domestic garage off someone to qualify and they were reported to the Police who actually visited the premises seeking proof it all fizzled out in the end

Comments

Could be more common than you think as I am aware of a councillor who rents a shed and claims its their place of work, thus qualifying as a councillor.  I guess if no one points it out to the elections office, they continue to hold office.

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To be honest I don’t see why we have the resident / work provision in the first place we have a small civic parish next to us and quite often we have residents elected to our Parish so they are making decisions about funds they haven’t contributed to
Plus they pay a far lower rate themselves

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Like a lot of things, its not a perfect system and I suppose that's the "3 miles from the boundary of the parish" issue.   A friend of mine is councillor for a grouped parish and constantly complains that money is spent in the other wards rather than the one she represents.