Parish councils like Streatley form the bottom
tier of the local government system in rural areas which in
general has three layers (County Council, District Council and
Parish Council) but in the former county of Berkshire has only
two layers since it has been split up into a number of Unitary
Authorities which combine the functions of a County Council
and a District Council. Streatley parish is within the area
of West Berkshire Unitary Authority.
Parish Councils have a small number of duties which they are
bound to carry out and a much greater number of powers, which
are defined in Local Government Acts and many other statutes,
which they may choose to employ where they are suited to a council’s
circumstances but which they are not bound to employ. On the
other hand, since parish councils are statutory corporations,
they can only in general do things which they are expressly
permitted to do by statute with a minor exception in that they
are empowered (under Section 137 of LGA 1972) to spend up to
a prescribed amount in any one year (currently about £5
per elector) for the benefit of all or some inhabitants of the
area.
This situation is changing with the introduction of the power
for ‘eligible’ parishes to promote well-being
as set out in LGA 2000 Section 2, but this is not likely to
be of much benefit to small rural parishes such as Streatley.
Many of the powers permitted by statute are not relevant
to Streatley and the Parish Council has employed only a relatively
small subset of those powers, the main ones being related
to the running costs of the Council (Clerk’s salary,
office costs, insurances, hire of meeting rooms etc); provision
and maintenance of street lighting; grass cutting and maintenance
work at the Recreation Ground and other public open spaces;
maintenance of play equipment, notice boards, signs and benches
and the provision of new or replacement equipment as appropriate;
and making grants towards the upkeep of the Morrell Room and
the Graveyard and towards projects brought forward under the
Parish Plan.
The Parish Council is a statutory consultee as regards planning
applications - it investigates all applications and makes
recommendations to West Berkshire Council and this important
function does take up a considerable amount of Council time.
However, the decision on planning applications rests with
WBC rather than with the Parish Council.
The Parish Council is also active in promoting the case for
improvements to roads and highway safety but once again the
decision on what is to be done rests with WBC rather than
the Parish Council
In the last few years a new source of income has become available
to the Parish Council by way of transfers from WBC to the
Council of developers’ contributions for work to public
open spaces and this has been supplemented by grants from
WBC and external bodies for work under the Parish Plan.
This has also involved the Council, in conjunction with the
Parish Plan/Action Plan Team, in a great deal of planning
and management activity. |
