Using the Sustainable Communities Act to change things......

Regulations passed in October 2013 gave town and parish councils the right to use the Sustainable Communities Act. Local councils can work with citizens to put forward proposals for particular actions from central government that would help reverse community decline. This is great news for local democracy!  Town and parish councils are uniquely placed to identify innovative local solutions to the problems their communities face. 

The scope for proposals is very broad and there are two criteria that make a submission valid:

(1) It must be for a specific action from central government, e.g. giving councils a new power, changing a policy, removing red tape or changing the planning rules;
(2) It must explain, with evidence and argument, why the specific action proposed would promote at least one of the following: local economic activity, environmental protection, social wellbeing or involvement in democracy.

Patchway Town Council, South Gloucestershire has put forward a Sustainable Communities Act proposal requesting the government  to give all parish and town councils the right to sell electricity that they generate from any local schemes.The council submitted the proposal to government in January. As required under the Act, the council sought the views of local people on the proposal but unfortunately, received no responses. On these grounds the DCLG will not accept the submission.

The pressure group Local Works will continue to support Patchway Town Council to help them gather further evidence of community support for the proposal. The intention is to then make a new submission to the DCLG after the General Election.

Local Works have also requested further guidance from DCLG on the duty to 'reach agreement' with local people as required under the Sustainable Communities Act. We have received a number of queries on this topic. You can find a short article on this here:

Local Works are still confident that this proposal has a decent chance of success and the support of your Council will of course help that chance.