Category: parish council
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Sign of the Times?
I was bemused by the amount of enclosures in the envelope containing my Validation of Nomination for the upcoming May local elections. Nearly all of them were about personal security! How to stay safe from ones constituents, how to avoid confrontation and how to deal with harassment, intimidation and threatening behaviour. I guess I’m free…
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Pedestrian
We’ve not really been out much over the past few days… the brief snowfall earlier in the week and then the consistently below zero days (it’s currently minus six and destined to be minus nine tonight) has meant walking is more hazardous than driving – and driving on minor roads isn’t great. But just look…
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Voter ID
Currently, in the USA, the votes are being counted. This post is not about them. In the UK, a Bill was published in late October describing the way in which Voter ID will be implemented in the Election Act 2022. The first use of Voter ID is declared to be in the local elections of…
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Under the Oak
Under the oak we met, and played. When Sun was hot, in shade we stayed. It cooled the breeze, and branches swayed. It served us well, and all unpaid… But now today I look, dismayed. This gorgeous tree has been betrayed. Who felt they could, this oak, degrade; Who’s moral code has been mislaid? Now…
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Hail to the King
I spent all morning getting ready for the thing itself. Tested the parish council web site in a black theme I’d prepared some time back… made sure the vicar was managing the Book of Condolence… checked we still didn’t have a flagpole… The London Bridge plan has long been in place, but then I went…
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It (still) isn’t easy being green
A lot of my time at the moment is occupied by an impending planning application in my village. It’s for a new railway station, and there is a large part of me that goes, yes! Public transport, accessible in the village, has got to be ‘a good thing’, right? Buses come and buses go, and…
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The Privatisation of Place
There are approximately nine thousand parishes in England, and their history goes back to the Local Government Act of 1894. Some sixteen million people in England live within parished areas, and the local taxation of precept that they raise (a listed part of the Community Charge) is in the order of six hundred million pounds.…
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Parish Council Meetings in Covid Times
As I type we are one week away from the expiry of the 2020 Coronavirus Act provision that allows Parish Councils to meet remotely. After May 6th, Parish Councils are expected once more to meeet physically in a public venue. This is to comply with laws that were written long before teleconferencing was even a…
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Lockdown Remembrance
Well, that went ok. You cannot imagine the number of conversations, video meetings, guidance emails from national and local government, local government associations and British Legion, risk assessments and “informed commentary” we’ve dealt with over the past months… Our parish clerk has kept up to date with the vacillating and often contradictory pronouncements from various…
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Videoconferencing
I’ve just completed chairing our first ever Online Parish Council meeting and gone straight into the second half of a live Facebook concert by my good friend Talis Kimberley… I can’t help thinking she can see me as she sings, like I could see my Councillors during the meeting. Or some of them. More on…
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