At a recent training session for parish councillors, a slide asked the question: ‘Where do you see yourselves – the lowest tier of government …or the tier closest to the people?’ There was a brief reticence that suggested the processing of a possibly rhetorical question, followed by the murmuring of what we knew to be the right answer. ‘Exactly. You are those who are closest to the people.’
Obvious though it may seem, it is still worth saying: parish and town councils matter. This is the level of government where those who serve their communities are the most connected and most in touch with those they serve. Councillors live locally; they understand the issues, can relate to them and are in a position to try to address them. Time was perhaps that the mention of the term ‘parish council’ evoked associations with the 1990s sitcom Vicar of Dibley: something endearingly parochial and with the capacity for getting overly tied up in the amusingly trivial. Or at least the stuff that mostly goes under the radar. We know what we’re talking about: allotments, bus shelters, park benches, summer fetes. That sort of thing. The kind of responsibility that might mean handling the most modest of budgets.
In a lot of instances, this is no longer the case. It will be even more so if, with devolution, power does shift down the administrative structure to the more ‘lowly’ town and parish councils. A good number of these corporate bodies now have to manage a hefty budget that could run into several hundred thousand pounds. Indeed, the council where I serve is currently exploring options towards a substantial community build project. That is not the point, however. Even small parish councils that perhaps only meet every other month, employing a clerk for a handful of hours, have a vital role to play. Decisions made in Parliament affect us; the workings of County and District councils have their impact. The tapestry of our actual lives is not woven, however, on the global stage or in the ‘Westminster bubble’. It is lived at the local level. If we didn’t have those features of our day to day lives that make up our local physical world, those things that enrich the geographical space we call home, then we’d notice it. Life would be poorer.
We’re now in a 24/7 world of rolling news, with all its reports of increasing instability and turbulence in affairs both national and international. We seem these days to be in an epoque where history just won’t stop happening (history as ‘one damned thing after another’) and where Francis Fukuyama got it somewhat wrong in assessing us as having arrived in the end of history. The past decade or more has seen – at least for news and current affairs junkies like me – people immersed in watching unfold all the `big stuff’: General Elections; Brexit; the Covid pandemic; war in Europe with Ukraine; Gaza; Iran; Venezuela; Greenland. One could on. Our local communities are a sanctuary, you could say, from all this.
In the late 1980s, in the days of robust, proud local newspapers, I was a young reporter who had five parish councils to cover for the news pages I had to fill. All those evening meetings, all those hours listening to all the ‘small stuff’ but where I needed to keep alert for any big headline local story! How terrible I thought, as I looked around the room – not only to be old (in your forties or fifties) but to have to sit through all this. At least I was young and only passing through….
Well I can say now, with a smile, and what I hope is at least a trace of wisdom gleaned over the years – it’s not terrible at all. In fact, it’s a privilege to serve your local community, to try and be a part of achieving things that make life just that bit nicer, that bit easier, that bit better for people. Parish councils are where that little bit of everyday magic can be made to happen.
Cllr Julie Lynn
January 2026
