Your town is having its identity slowly eroded.
How much of it has already gone?
The amenities are closed or closing, buildings pulled down or redeveloped as apartments. The land, and that which they do not pull down, is being sold off in a private deal or auction?
Where is the money going?
Back into your town, or into Tameside?
But what can be done to stop and change the direction?
The answer, give the power back to the people.
Power to develop and grow your own town given back to the people who live in it, know it and need it.
It is time for your town, for Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield, to become your town. Not a suburb of Tameside, of Ashton.
Restore the Town Councils, as they should be.
Do you want your town to have a rebranded District Assembly or Legal Town Council?
It is time for Tameside to launch a borough wide Community Governance Review.
a) More of Tameside or
b) Your Town Council.
But what is a Town Council?
Well there are two versions.
The first is the legal, English version, as part of the Localisum Act which starts as a Parish council, the second is the Tameside Version which started as a District Assembly.
Aren’t Parishes linked with Churches?
A parish council is part of the local government structure of England.
Although the name had links to the local parish church in the past, nowadays a local government parish is the name of an area defined by law with boundaries which can only be established or altered by following specific legal procedures.
A parish council is a secular, nonreligious, body and its members can come from all walks of life.
Parishes are distinctive communities with their own sense of identity, in the case of the area now known as Tameside they could be the old Town centres.
A larger urban parish with a high number of electors (around 6,000+) can choose to call itself a town council instead of being called a parish council, but the term Parish Council is used exclusively in the relevant community governance legislation.
Both parish councils, and parish councils which have voted to be called town councils have the same powers and duties which are precept bearing for the resident of the designated area.
Last month Tameside Council voted in the full council meeting to change the constitution. This change means that Tameside will be able to establish Town Councils in each of the nine towns. This means, as seen later in the paper, that Mossley will have two Town Councils.
There is a designated pathway to elect a town council in your town.
You have to define the borders
The community decides to initiate a Community Governance Review by signing a petition.
This is submitted to the local borough council who have 12 months to engage with the town’s people for point 4
The borough council have to engage with the towns people to make a choice between continuing with the borough council or choose to change to a parish/ town council which has a wide variety of powers, and can apply to take powers from the borough council. In other words put the power back with the town.
Following this there is a referendum and the town decides.
This process cannot be rushed, unclear, confusing or hidden.
How can this be?
It is a simple conjurers trick of confuse and distract but this is not with cups and a dice but with the lives of the people living in each town. Mossley worked hard to Parish the land, have a community governance review and in 1999 established a Parish council, which voted to become a Town council. The Mayor of Mossley works hard every year to do their civic duty.
In 2014 Stalybridge Together was launched to start the road to parish the area of Stalybridge and in due course, the hope or Stalybridge people looking after Stalybridge again.
Now, in 2016 Tameside decide to introduce an illusion into the mix and stop the District Assembly meetings and make the required constitutional changes to re brand them as Town
Councils.
So what is the difference
Parish/ Town Council
+++++++++++++++
Area parished under Localism Act, and officially known as “Stalybridge” “Dukinfield” or “Hyde” (as Mossley already is)
Precept bearing Parish/ Town council
Statutory Powers to actively improve the Town
Ability to bid for new powers
Ability to raise funds not available to Borough councils
Town Mayor
Tameside Town Council
+++++++++++++++
The land is not parished and still officially known as “Tameside”
Your current elected and trusted councillors move closer to the community.
No extra funds for guaranteed local development
No new powers for townspeople.
No ability to raise additional funds
No Town Mayor
What is the benefit of a Parish/ Town Council?
Your town becomes, as much as currently possible, your town.
What is the benefit of Tameside Town Council?
Your town stays as a suburb of Tameside
One you will be having at the choice of the elected borough council?
One you will have to demand, as is your right?
It is one or the other.
The Choice, as they say, is yours.
First published on page 2 of the August edition of SHMD News
