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Welcome to Shalden Parish Council's website! 

If you are receiving email updates, the areas that we most regularly update are the news section and parish council meetings page which has minutes and agendas for our meetings, please have a look.

The first point of contact for the parish council is the Parish Clerk, Katherine Horton who can be contacted on 07866 443350 or email on clerk.shaldenpc@gmail.com. If you have any concerns regarding a community issue, please in the first instance contact the Clerk who will be pleased to help.

The document below answers the what?, how?, why? and who? questions you might have about parish councils

Introduction

Shalden Parish Council is comprised of five unpaid elected parish councillors who serve a four-year term of office. It also employs a part-time Clerk to implement the council's decisions.

Parish Councils are the first tier of local government and can be the first point of contact for anyone concerned with a community issue. They are democratically elected local authorities who have a wide range of powers including looking after community buildings, planning, street lighting and allotments. They also have the power to raise money through council tax.

Parish Councils act as sounding boards for local opinion and working with local voluntary organisations and other tiers of local government have an important role in providing and improving very local services and amenities. 

The Local Government Act 1972 is the one most often referred to when describing the modern powers and responsibilities of Parish Councils but it is augmented by many earlier and later Acts, such as The Criminal Justice and Public Order, Act 1994, which, on the face of it, would not appear to relate to Parish Councils but which gave them a long needed ability to pay for measures to combat crime and the fear of crime in villages.

Parish Councils are empowered to raise money for their activities through a tax (the “precept”) on the village residents which is collected on their behalf by the District Council, as an addition to the District and County Council Tax. This is then paid to the Parish Council in two equal instalments. 

Parish Councils may only spend public money on projects or actions for which they have a Statutory Power. There is still, as there was in 1894, only one power which the Parish Council must consider using and that is to provide allotments for the labouring poor, if asked for them. All other powers are voluntary – the Parish Council is not obliged to exercise them and indeed the majority would find it difficult to raise enough money to exercise them all on a permanent basis.

The link provides extra detail about what a parish council is, what its powers and duties are and provides a comparison with the district and county councils.

http://askyourcouncil.uk/governance-toolkit/powers-and-functions/#Introduction