Parish councillors and planning

Question

Our chairman has been discussing with residents how to stop a development in the village?

Has he the authority in his own right or must he discuss it with the other parish councillors?

The parish meeting is this week and he has sent out a note to residents saying; "do you want this development"?
Is this not a bias towards the residents? It also appears he has been talking to the developers out of council! Does he have this authority?

Answer 1

The chairman has no special rights outside of council meetings, but is free to discuss matters with other citizens or with developers, like anyone else. He has no authority to act on behalf of the council without a properly passed resolution.

He can also solicit views for the parish meeting, but if expressing an opinion, he should make it clear that it his personal opinion and not the view of the council.

The council should decide its view in a council meeting (or planning committee meeting if that is how planning applications are handled) and submit it to the planning authority.

Comments

Thank you . How do you deal with a chairman who cares little about the Code of Conduct and continues to do as he likes with no regard or understanding of protocol, rules, regulation and the law? (with the help of his buddies) It must be time for the 'Standards' to be raised and these people be told that they are not doing it correctly. It's OK saying report him (them) but then all the 'good & decent' PC's will be blamed as well (compromised)

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There is no route to solving a problem of that kind that may not have unwanted repercussions. If the chairman is acting unlawfully, the option of court action exists, although it may be prohibitively expensive. If the council's financial affairs are being handled unlawfully, then a complaint to the external auditor is a possibility. If any councillor is obtaining pecuniary advantage from public office, then a complaint to the police is possible. If any councillor is breaching the council's code of conduct, a complaint can be made to the local Standards Officer. If any councillor is behaving badly in any way, it is possible to seek publicity through the local press etc. If vacancies arise, citizens can demand a poll to avoid co-option. At election time, citizens who disapprove of the actions of councillors can campaign against them - this is the ultimate solution and can certainly be successful. None of these routes is without difficulty though!