Response to; A registered elector and taxpayer of Preston 1.

We would just like to remind readers, this blog is not run by any one person, it has a number of residents as members and we work as a team, no single member has full control on what appears. If you wish to comment on anything on this blog you should either comment through the normal channel or email us direct, If you would like to join our group please email us, thank you.

Response to; A registered elector and taxpayer of Preston.

Your comment was far reaching and we have assumed you wish to take steps leading to a Parish Poll on the subject of the Preston Play Park to make the council more open and accountable for it's actions. This outline is lengthy so we have broken it down into 3 Parts, those are,

1.     Response to a Registered elector and taxpayer of Preston.

2.     Example of steps needed to successfully demand a Parish Poll.

3.     Some Suggested Documents for your campaign.

A Parish Poll is a relatively simple thing to arrange but you do need to be organised and approach your goal in a step by step fashion, with contingency planning in place along the way to ensure you achieve your objective, that we assume is a Parish Poll with a positive outcome from your point of view.

This post is entirely written to assist the commenter and is not meant to express our views on the Pay Park. The post is written as guidance to a resident with the caveat that we are not experts in Local Government Administration so all care should be taken to ensure the correctness and accuracy of this post, we have listed much of the legislation relating to Parish Polls so the requestor is able to check the legislation for themselves if they wish.

Having considered this route ourselves we have already prepared documents in line with the requirements of the legislation, we have made them available here with adjustments to fit your purpose.

You must bear in mind that the cost of any poll is the responsibility of the Parish in which the Poll is held and as such will represent a financial liability to Preston as a whole. Preston is made up of 2 Wards, Preston North and Preston South so that cost will be borne by residents in South Preston as well as North Preston. There may be a need for 2 polling booths increasing the overall cost which would be set as a liability against the precept. You must also remember that neither East Riding or the Parish Council are legally bound to act on the end result.

Because the project is put forward as a benefit to “the whole of Preston” it presumably means that residents in Preston South have been canvassed and their support recorded and documented, if not there may be much support for your poll from that quarter.

The proposer requesting the poll will need to make a speech outlining the proposal and its aims, we have included a possible text of that speech and have taken a certain license in doing so. We accept that may not be what you intend to say and leave you to adjust or discard as you see fit, it is meant only as a guide to assist you. Please remember the proposer must also be a Registered Elector of the Parish.

Parish Polls– The Legislation.

There are a number of pieces of legislation that covers Parish Polls including Representation of the Peoples act 1983, The Parish and Community Meetings (Polls) (Amendment) Rules 1987 and the Legislation listed below.

The Local Government Act, 1972 (LGA), Schedule 12, part 3 makes provision for parishioners to call a parish meeting in order to vote on a ‘question’ or 'issue' relevant to the parish which must then be the subject of a parish poll. In brief the legislation is as follows.

Under section 15(1) of the above LGA ‘A parish meeting may be convened by any six local government electors (parishioners on the electoral roll) for the parish’.

Section 15(2) stipulates that the meeting shall take place within “not less than seven clear days” of any Notice being posted, we would advise you aim for at least 8 to 10 clear days notice. Under 15(4) ‘public notice’ of a parish meeting shall be given by posting a notice of the meeting in some conspicuous place or places in the parish and in such a manner as appears to the person or persons convening the meeting to be desirable for giving publicity to the meeting’.

Section 18(4) states ‘A poll may be demanded before the conclusion of a parish meeting on any question arising at the meeting, but no poll shall be taken unless either the person presiding at the meeting consents or the poll is demanded by not less than ten, or one-third of the local government electors present at the meeting, whichever is the less’.

Subject to all the above being complied with East Riding County Council would then be obliged to organise and run a poll within 14 to 25 days. The costs for the poll are borne by the parish council in which the poll is held.

A number of important points are worth emphasizing.

All the persons involved in a poll must be ‘local government electors’, in other words parishioners from Preston Parish currently listed on the electoral roll. This is especially important when complying with Section 15(1) and when voting takes place under Section 18(4).

Note that the Act states that a poll may be demanded on “any question” arising at the meeting. The Act does not define ‘any question’.

In each parish where a poll is planned, one person needs to be the ‘organiser’. In most cases it will be someone like you.

The suggested documents contained in this post (3^rd section) had been prepared for our own consideration, we now make them available to make your task as simple as possible, should you decide to continue.

Preparation.

Someone has to be the organiser of the poll and it will probably be the person requesting this information.

Whoever that person is, he/she must be a local government elector in the parish. It is also vitally important that, before starting, you have at least ten other like minded individuals who are parishioners in the parish. Remember, you require six parishioners to sign the ‘Notice of Meeting’ and ten (which can include the original six) parishioners to vote for the motion at the parish meeting.

In addition, as you will see, you need at least one other person to work on the door of the Parish Meeting checking and keeping a permanent log of those entering the meeting.You may also need someone as Chairman and another as Secretary. Be aware of exactly the number of personnel you need.

Make contact with other like minded groups or interested individuals in the parish and seek their assistance. There should be no secrecy about your intentions and the more support it receives from other sources the better.

If the parish council chairman and the parish clerk do not wish to be involved you will require two individuals to act as chairman and secretary at the subsequent parish meeting, those persons may be ‘elected’ as ‘Chairman’ and ‘Secretary’ as the first item of business on the agenda, these are responsible positions. The chairman needs to be able to control a meeting and the secretary should be able to take legible minutes. A poor chairman can ruin your meeting.

You are now ready to start.

If there are any residents with similar experience of the council do please contact us by comment or email. If you wish we will post on your experience without your identity being released, or not post anything if you simply want to share your experience it’s entirely up to you. We would love to hear your story, your not alone, there are a number of us, let us compare notes and grow as a group.