English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2025 – Ensuring a Voice for Town and Parish Councils
The information below is extracted from an e-mail sent out by HALC (Hereford Association of Local Councils) to all member Councils, asking them to take action by e-mailing Peers and MP’s in the area regarding the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill. Both Mathon Parish Council and Cradley & Storridge Parish Council will be e-mailing those suggested by HALC. If you want Town and Parish Councils to have a say in future developments which may affect you, please take part in this action by following the format put together by HALC (amended for individual representation).
Diana Taylor (Clerk to Mathon Parish Council) & Richard James (Clerk to Cradley & Storridge Parish Council)
The Bill is mostly about creating regional English mayors and handing them significant powers.
However, it does not guarantee town and parish councils a say in the big planning decisions that concern them.
For instance, there is a serious omission on “planning applications of strategic importance” – a category that currently means plans for 500 plus houses, but may soon mean 200 plus. The Bill allows regional mayors to decide who is allowed to submit written representations in the run-up to a decision. Why no guaranteed voice for parishes analogous to the existing right to be consulted? Section 32 and Schedule 12 of the Bill are good examples of the way the parish voice has been marginalised, and they need to be amended. If it can’t be amended, we need assurances the parish voice will be heard. All in all it looks like another unwelcome challenge to the significance of Neighbourhood Development Plans.
What you can do
The Bill is now in its committee stage in the House of Lords – this is the stage most likely to be sympathetic to changes. A draft letter is attached for your urgent attention. To be most effective, it should be emailed – with appropriate amendment – to the peers most closely involved in consideration, and to our Herefordshire MPs:
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (the Minister) taylors@parliament.uk
Lord Lansley lansleya@parliament.uk
Baroness Mcintosh of Pickering mcintoshac@parliament.uk
Baroness Freeman of Steventon freemana@parliament.uk
Lord Shipley shipleyj@parliament.uk
Lord Jamieson jamiesonj@parliament.uk
Lord Best best@parliament.uk
Background
The government’s background note can be viewed online.
HALC is working to influence government and parliament in alliance with other county associations of local councils in the West Midlands.
Model email
Dear [Lord X/ Baroness Y]
English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2025 – Ensuring a Voice for Town and Parish Councils
I am writing regarding the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, now in the House of Lords.
The Bill offers some real benefits for parishes – the tier of local government closest to local communities – but at key points on planning issues the voice of parish and town councils appears to have been forgotten.
For instance, Clause 32/Schedule 12, on planning applications of potential strategic importance, allows mayors to determine who may make written representations when they assume responsibility as planning authority. The local planning authority is guaranteed a voice, but parish and town councils are not (Schedule 12, paragraph 1(7)(b), for instance).
This appears to accidentally remove a right which is currently cherished by parishes – Town and County Planning Act 1990, section 293G, and article 25 of The Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015.
This is a serious omission: parish councils are responsible for neighbourhood development plans (NDPs), part of the statutory planning framework, which bears heavily on sites of potential strategic importance. To omit parishes is to disregard and marginalise NDPs, something ministers have insisted they do not mean to do.
Perhaps it is assumed the parish view will be transmitted to mayors by the local authority – but this is doubtful, Councils frequently disagree.
While I recognise the potential benefits of devolution and enhanced local decision-making, and very much welcome changes to rules on community right to buy, I am concerned that the Bill may not adequately safeguard the role and influence of parish and town councils within new governance arrangements.
I would be most grateful if you could promote amendments to probe the apparent omission in Schedule 12, to seek assurances to ensure meaningful consultation with parish and town council, protect neighbourhood-level decision-making and recognise parish and town councils as statutory partners.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.