The average age of a parish councillor is 60.2 years!

How the Localism Act hands power to older generations.

An interesting report was published in September 2012 by the Intergenerational Foundation, an independent, non-party-political charity that exists to research fairness between the generations in order to protect the rights of younger and future generations in British policy-making. 

Its findings were:

•  that councillors are getting older 
• few young people become councillors
• older people are heavily over represented on local councils
• councillors live in properties which are more valuable than average for the area they represent
• the age bias amoung councillors exacerbates the housing crisis facing younger people
• the Localism Act hands more power to older people.

While some of the conclusions are debatable, it is correct there are very few town and parish councillors under the age of 30. 

Has your council tried to actively recruit younger councillors? If not, why not?