What do you do when your parish council ignore your requests for consultation over local housing needs?

Question

Our parish is a small hamlet in rural England. I and my family are classed as a local person(s) under our local district council's planning policy in terms of local needs housing. Our current property is on the market as its no longer suitable as we have a disability and need to build a home that is suitable. We own land next door to our property and wish to self build on it.

Many parishes in the district have neighbourhood/ parish plans and have carried out housing needs surveys. As our parish have done none of these things, in our district, local needs housing when identified is supposed to be communicated to the parish so that they can facilitate open communication and consultation.   However in our case we have contacted our parish 5 times over the last 12 months to request such a consultation and they have ignored us and even when we put letters in every letter box inviting people to a consultation meeting at our house no one turned up. A few people (non parish councillors) were going to but they were boycotted by our next door neighbour who is on the parish council. Prior to the arranged meeting, the next door neighbour phoned and spoke to people and asked them not to attend, even threatening them with withdrawral of work etc if they dare to attend.

The reason the neighbour did this was because the land we own is behind their house, be it over 20 meters away and tucked behind their outbuildings so cant even be seen from their house.
I have also contacted my local elected councillor twice but he has also ignored me. Next election I wont be putting his sign in my window in support of him!!!

I have now put in my planning application regardless and notified the council of whats happened.

I feel like our parish are a joke. The chair and another member of the council dont even live in the parish. No one new is ever allowed to become a elected member and no local people are ever asked to vote them in as they just re-elect themselves.  Their meetings are often secret and not advertised and when asked if you can attend they refuse.
Is this behaviour acceptable? and is not what can I do to challenge it?

Answer 1

There is a limit to what you can expect from the parish council. A local council (parish or town) does not have a duty to do anything in relation to housing (although it can do certain things if it wishes). It has no control over planning decisions although it has a statutory right to be consulted by the planning authority. Parish plans no longer have any grant support. Creating a neighbourhood plan can be effective, but is a costly and time consuming business and many small towns and parishes will not find it worthwhile.

So I think your main effort needs to be directed to your planning application, which should be granted if it conforms to local and national planning policies. Most planning decisions are made by officers, so you may have limited ability to influence the decision by contacting councillors. You should be able to get some help from local planning officers.

The rules for eligibility for parish councillors do allow someone who works in the parish or owns land in the parish to be a councillor. Nobody can stop any local citizen from standing for election to the parish council. Prior to an election, you can obtain nomination papers from the local election authority, usually the District Council or unitary authority. Officers will help with the process, which is quite simple. Once nominated, you will be included in the poll if there are more candidates than places, or you will be automatically appointed a councillor if there are too few candidates for a poll. It is usually the lack of candidates that prevents a poll.

A council cannot lawfully make decisions except in a formal meeting, for which an agenda has been made public at least three clear days (Sundays don't count) in advance. Only matters clearly identified in the agenda can be decided. The public can attend any council meeting. It is possible for a council to exclude the public during a meeting, but there must be a vote to do this, and a reason must be given, such as the need to deal with information whose publication would breach a duty of confidentiality. This should not happen often. You also have a statutory right to inspect the minutes that must record all decisions made by the council in your parish. If decisions are not being made lawfully you are entitled to complain to the external auditor.