Parish Council v Community Partnership
Posted by DW on Sunday, 30th November 2008, 11:05
Hi,
Could somebody please tell me why there is a Northwood Community Partnership and a Northwood Parish Council? I just read the Community Partnership minutes and came away very confused. First of all the matters being discussed appeared to be those a Parish Council should be discussing and secondly I realised that a lot of the Community Partnership members seem to be Parish Councillors!
I am sure somebody will have an explanation, but while they are at it maybe they can explain why the residents are being charged £10,000 by the Parish Council when it appears the Community Partnership do things for free?
Cheers
DW
6 Responses to “Parish Council v Community Partnership”
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Village
- - Cowes Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society
- - Cowes Amateur Winemakers
- - Cowes Heritage
- - Cowes Radar Ex-Employees Association
- - Cowes-Deauville Twinning Association
- - Friends of Northwood Cemetery
- - Friends of Northwood House and Park
- - Medham W.I.
- - Newport Rowing Club
- - Northwood Floral Art Group
- - Northwood Village Produce Association
- - Northwood W.I.
Parish Council
Dear Mr. Cotterill, thank you for so interestingly expressing your opinions through the village forum.
You seem exactly the intelligent and thoughtful local resident we need to help us get things done in the village.
With this in mind,would you please consider joining the N.C.P?
Indeed anyone else who has been so actively contributiong opinions to this site would be so very welcome to join us.Why not come along to our meetings at the W.I.Hall.
The next Community Partnership meeting is on 24/2 at 7.45pm and the next Parish Council is at 8pm on 3/3.
You have nothing to fear but fear itself!
Roger Mazillius
Unlike the PC which is burdened with (duplicated) admin, I think the CP was effective and harnessed local good-will and volunteering to make the place look attractive, at a fraction of the cost (e.g. raw materials such as seeds, bulbs, timber) compared with getting council contracters to do similarly.
Have we not really got two organisations locked in battle? The Parish Council generating new procedure after new procedure, unelected, unwanted but with the power to charge the community for their limited yet costly ambitions. On the other side the Community Partnership, spurned from official office and representing the older members of the community strive to spend grants of public money on their hobby of gardening. Both organisations trying to better Northwood at the expense of the other. Both a minority spending the communities cash at the expense of the majority.
Nobody voted for you and nobody wants to come along to your silly meetings. Instead we sit at home and voice our opinions through the only channel our community has, this forum. The suggestions voiced in the current threads seems sensible and cost effective to combine into one larger organisation covering Cowes, Gurnard and Northwood, but I fear your self-interest will force you into believing that the people are wrong and you, of course are right! After all you have the mandate of all those people who voted for you, not!
NLO.
Voluntary Community Partnership representatives are focused on the problems and aspirations of the local community that they live in and try to understand the neighbourhood needs. They have no political Agenda, or at least shouldn’t have, and are a body that are doing the best they can for the people in the immediate local area and can apply as already stated for grants for that purpose.
Parish Councils are, I think, much more a tool of “Local Government” and you don’t need to be a “rocket scientist” to realise that they are only given so much authority and credence by their Masters, and as the IW Council is elected by the Island tax payers to do the job, why should they. Parish Council Meetings are now a platform for Local Government to use and yes they can come and present a well practised Q&A session and give a rehearsed speech to 20/30 parishioners at the local halls on the Island just a few months before election time but thats just Politics to me and has little to do with being a Parish Councillor, at the moment.
Much talk has been made recently of the empowerment of Parish Councils and how they will take on more and more of the IW Councils current responsibility’s, and am I being unkind if I say probably the bits they don’t want. I find this staggering as its extremely difficult to fill the seats of the majority of the Island Parish Councils now and thats with the not very local, agendas they run with now. Maybe its not to far away when prospective Councillors will have to nail their political colours to the mast, even for Parish elections, and I can see in the not to distant future positions will be taken by more and more politically active councilors, what ever their party, or am I being stupid in thinking Politics plays a role in Local Government and this is an easy way in. Not so good for the CV.
A very good question, the only way I understand that the NCP remains in existence is because this type of organisation can apply for grants to carry out projects within Northwood. The Parish Council however is restricted in ways it can raise monies, mainly through ‘precepts’ and the Budget from the IOW Council. The rules and legislation that controls these matters is so convoluted as to be totally unintelligent. Why when the Parish Council was formed was the NCP not disbanded and any monies left put to community use?
This is yet another example of duplication within local government, though some members of the new Parish Council have resigned from the NCP due to conflict of interests.
There is only one solution as I see it, to the ever increasing plethora of councils and other ‘interested’ groups ruling our lives; that is to go back several years and seek through existing legislation a reduction of parish councils to form ‘District or Community Councils’
G R Cotterill Northwood.
I think that the NCP was previously the favoured body and was seed funded by IW council to make the place look attractive and be a representative voice. Then came (former leader) Cllr Andy Sutton who thought everywhere should be parished, told everyone it would cost a few pounds but allow lots of grants into the area.
NCP still seem to do much the same, voluntarily(?), whilst NPC seems to write lots of policies.
Hope that helps.