2 Separate Parishes but 1 Parish Council

Question

I'm interested to know if anyone has any experience of 2 individual parishes under the umbrella of one PC.

My PC consists of 6 Councillors...3 from each Parish. In 2019 one Parish held an election the other didn't. There is one precept. On looking at Gov.uk both Parishes are shown with a 50/50 split of the precept.

Q) Should this set up be addressed to bring both parishes 'together'?

Q) There are issues surrounding monies being spent with one parish wanting to spend for their parish and the other showing defiance as they want to keep the precept low.
Q) Historically one member from a parish is Chairman for one year and the other parish has a member for vice chair. This is starting to get problematic as not all members want to step up. Currently one parish has members for Chairman and vice chair and is causing friction and taking advantage of the situation.

Advice welcome

Answer 1

It sounds like your PC is barely quorate and if each parish had it's own separate Councils neither of them would be.  I think the Principal Authority ought to undertake a governance review to remedy the situation. The normal route would be for 7.5% of the electors to petition the PA for one.  The review could be directed to increasing the number of Councillors and merging the parishes.

Comments

Thanks Graeme I never actually thought of it like that. Following an election in 2019 I am wondering why it wasnt flagged up then by the PA. Anyway we now have a new Clerk who is also a Town Clerk. I shall raise this with him. Thanks again

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Hi Graeme just wanted to let you know the outcome of this. Apparently our council is in the process of a governance review. This was never even an agenda item by the former Clerk. The review proposals have just been made public. It has been noted and proposed that each Parish will retain their independence but one Parish will increase to 4 Councillors following an election in 2019. A new Parish is recommended to be formed with a new name.