The government’s failure to enable local politicians to meet virtually is hampering councils, worrying older councillors and shutting out new participants, according to Jackie Weaver, who shot to fame thanks to a video clip of an ill-tempered council meeting 10 months ago.

Weaver, who became one of the most unlikely breakout stars of 2021 after footage from the Handforth parish council meeting she was attending went viral, has issued the rallying cry amid fears that current high infection rates could hit participation in local politics hard.

In April the high court ruled that from May council meetings in England must take place in person – after coronavirus restrictions which allowed virtual meetings lapsed.

“It is completely unreasonable that we are having to cancel council meetings or hold them only in emergencies for goodness knows how long. Where is democracy?” said Weaver in an interview conducted, inevitably, over Zoom.

This week Lawyers in Local Government the Association of Democratic Services Officers (ADSO) launched a petition calling for councils to be allowed to meet remotely because “they know best” what type of meetings work in their area.

After a tumultuous 10 months in which Weaver, the chief officer of the Cheshire Association of Local Councils, has played herself in the Archers, opened the Brit awards as “Weaver the Cleaver” and featured on Celebrity Mastermind, she is also calling for legislation that will, once again, allow council meetings to be held online.

The public can only hope that it will lead to more filmed exchanges like the Handforth meeting that gripped the nation in the dark days of last February’s lockdown, when Weaver was commanded by Aled’s iPad to: “Read the standing orders, read them and understand them!”

A couple of years ago, local residents in Queen’s Park (London) voted to create the first urban parish council. Since then the parish has hosted a number of seasonal festivals, fireworks displays, gardening projects and grants schemes to help the local community.

“Local solutions are best for local problems,” says Angela Singhate, clerk of Queen’s Park parish council. “After we started up, we have been contacted by groups in areas such as Barking, Hackney and Holborn – all wanting to find out if the parish council model is a viable option for their communities.”  In both Salisbury and Shrewsbury, similar urban parishes have been set up to give back control to local residents. “This growth in parish councils shows people’s growing desire for decisions to be made at a local level,” says Helen Ball, clerk of Shrewsbury town council.  Meanwhile Reg Williams, clerk of Salisbury city council, says the desire for urban parishes comes from people feeling their voices aren’t being heard by larger authorities. “And people in general want decisions made at a more grassroots level,” he says.

“There’s an irony in all this, given that the two parties in power – Conservatives and Liberal Democrats – have their traditional heartland in the countryside. Financial woes are cascading down to the parish and town councils who, only a month back, communities secretary Eric Pickles lauded as localism’s “magic wand”.

How are local authorities across the tiers, or their communities, to run services such as libraries, planning and economic regeneration, on a rapidly withering budget? Take the parishes: one in Cambridgeshire reports that as a result of a reduced council tax base its precept (local tax) will reduce by £19,524. This is the result of central government “localising council tax” – it strikes at the heart of local service funding and there is nothing the parishes can do about it.

“Our borough council has confirmed that we will receive an amount as a compensatory grant this year but I don’t think there will be any grant forthcoming next year; this is the typical position in 2013,” said a local councillor. Other authorities have considered not passing on the government grant for small councils at all. Swindon borough council has taken on the ultimate anti-localist stance, failing to pass on any grant to their parishes. Stratton St Margaret parish council’s budget has haemorrhaged by £74,975.36 (or 9.10% of the tax base) as a result.

With the government’s own rural quango set to breathe its last at the end of March, leaving the London-based Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to deliver localism across England.”

Now notwithstanding James’ accurate portrayal of the problems facing the most local tier of local government I would still exhort those local authorities with unparished areas, even in their cities, to get on and fill up the gaps with new parishes. Ultimately they give real power and tax raising power at that to local people who want to do things locally.

I know the idea of mayors is not everyone’s cup of tea but as this story demonstrates there is scope for them to generate real interest in local democracy and for them to draw new people into local politics.

In France mayors at the Parish Level have real clout – I wonder if there is some value amongst all this talk of localism in replicating that idea in terms of English Local Government?

As for the article itself it tells us of the independent candidate Sioahn Benita:

“Last October, she left her job as a civil servant in the Department of Health to embark on a new “career” as an independent candidate in this year’s election. She had no money, no staff, no party and, frankly, no hope against the political juggernauts of Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson. Today, six months on, her chances of winning may still be tiny but her campaign is generating excitement. Her odds of success on 3 May have fallen from 500/1 to 50/1 and she stands a decent chance of pushing the Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick into a humiliating fourth or even fifth slot. His odds of winning are now 100/1.”

A benefit of the localism bill, currently wending its way through parliament, is the fact that those parish councils meeting basic eligibility criteria will be able to exercise a general power of competence – to do anything that’s not illegal. This will simplify the capability of councils to act for their constituents. If you look around England you see parish and town councils funding badly needed affordable house building; community-run shops and buses; and in some cases they employ community development staff to support local groups and initiatives.

He goes on to signal a significant change in the political focus of Councils

A further issue for parish councils is the fact that traditionally independent councillors are giving way to a new wave of those elected on a party ticket. As Didcot’s town clerk, Dom Stapleton, showed in a 2011 study for the University of Gloucestershire, “in 1991, 10% of councils had members who declared a political affiliation. In 2011 the figure stands at 48%”. This raises concerns about local politicians who may be self-serving and put party above community.

Does this chime with your experience? and is it a good or bad thing per se. Part of me thinks the issues currently at the top of the Parish Council agenda are more likely to be about common sense and sadly although in many cases mundanity and provide less scope for high politics – I have even noticed this personally in terms of many District and even County issues. Some people however can make anything political!

What do you think?