Talk:Civil parish/Archive 1

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Links

I changed the links for community council UK back to community council - there's no need to disambiguate the links if only UK pages currently link to the page. Also, it's not necessary to link a page every time it appears - once or twice an article will do. Thanks. sjorford 13:50, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Scotland

I am thinking there is a sense in which the civil parish exists or has existed in Scotland, that traditional counties were sub-divided into parishes (but these lacked their own councils). I seem to remember boundaries appearing on inch-to-the-mile OS maps. A quote from The Standing Stones of Caithness: "Myatt groups sites also with respect to the traditional parishes of Caithness, following perhaps the practice of the Royal Commission in 1911." Laurel Bush 12:18, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC).

Sorry, but this looks pretty nonsensical: In Scotland, parishes - formerly akin to those of England - have lost the majority of their status, although are still in existence. As in Wales, a new system of communities has arisen which have come to take on some of the roles of parishes. However, unlike in England and Wales, the Scottish community council has no statutory powers, although in some cases local councils have a legal obligation to include them in consultation exercises.
Parish councils were abolished by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929 and, as areas defined by statute, parishes themselves seem to have been abolished by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, under which communtity council schemes were created by local authorities. (Community councils have not simply "arisen", either in Scotland or Wales. In Wales I believe a community council is essentially a restyled parish council, with status and powers very similar to an English parish council.) Parish areas may still be used for some statistical purposes, but they seeem to have no statutory status. Also, there is, so far as I know, no statutory obligation for the inclusion of community councils in local authority consultations, except along with the general public as regards proposals to change a scheme by which community councils themselves are established. If there are legal obligations, then these must be as a result of contracts between specific commuunity councils and specific local authorities.
Laurel Bush (talk) 16:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

On matters of the duty to consult Community Councils, the Scottish Executive 'discussion paper' Can We Do to Help Community Councils Fulfil their Role? addresses the issue:
"There are various statutory powers which specify that community councils must be consulted e.g. local authorities have a statutory duty under the Town & Country Planning (General Development Procedure) (Scotland) Amendment Order 1996 to consult community councils on planning applications affecting their area; Section 15(1) of the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 requires local authorities to consult and co-operate with community bodies as appropriate in the Community Planning process; and under the terms of the Licensing (Scotland) Bill, which was introduced in Parliament earlier this year, it is proposed that local authorities will be obliged to notify the local community council of all liquor licence applications made within their area."
I think it'd be rather a waste of time to determine exactly how statute refers to Scottish civil parishes at this point: the fact that they are used officially (as you say, for statistical purposes) is quite enough to demonstrate their existence. Their former political significance also gives them a level of cultural recognition which I it seems evidently survives to this day.

Delete

Apologies but I have inadvertently deleted this page and copied Civil parish over the top. I will rectify asap but Wiki is slow this afternoon and I am having trouble getting into undelete. Cutler July 9, 2005 14:53 (UTC)

What exactly was the point in moving this when at least 95% of the links to "civil parish" refer to those in England? [1] somebody went and redirected civil parish to a useless disambig page without fixing the links (something which gets me extremely annoyed) :( G-Man 21:35, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
Pardon me, but the article Parish/Geographical Subdivision, about civil parishes in general which was split off from Parish, is not a useless disambig page. Man vyi 08:35, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
And now it's been moved to Parish (subnational entity). Talk about a moving target... Bring back the old days when everything just pointed to Parish and we only had one article to worry about! Man vyi 19:15, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
slash disambig is not used on en-WP. Other subnational entities also have the name "X (subnational entity)". But where are they called "Civil parish"? Only in England? Or would this term apply to the non-England as well? -- Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Redirect

Why does Civil parish redirect to "Civil parish (England)"? Either it exists only in England, than the article should go to "Civil parish", or it does not, than an article at "Civil parish" should be created to explain where it is used. I will turn "Civil parish" in a dab page otherwise. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:24, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Good point I've moved it back to civil parish, seem as all the links come from places in England. G-Man 21:59, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Town parish?

What about town parishes? Some towns have town parish councils.

A settlement whose parish council calls itself a town council is a town. The area this council covers is still a civil parish. If you re-read the article carefully, you will see that this is all covered, with varying degrees of explicitness.  DDStretch  (talk) 23:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
The styles, Community Council, Village Council and Neighbourhoold Council are also now possible. Peterkingiron 17:07, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007

Has received Royal Assent and therefore civil parishes may be established in London Boroughs also. Now the only parts of England which a civil parish may not be established are the Isles of Scilly and the City of London. The article therefore needs updating. David 02:07, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Amendment made: I have not mentioned the exceptions. Furthermore the reference is NOT to the Act itself, which is not yet on legislation websites. This will need amendment when it is. Peterkingiron 17:05, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
It is not Greater London which the Act extends parish creating powers to, but London boroughs. This needs to be clear. David 17:33, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

The article still has some inconsistencies in what it says about London. I'd sort it out, but I don't know anything about the subject unfortunately. Northernhenge (talk) 10:19, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

No, as far as I can tell the article is accurate with respect to the situation in London. From 1965 to 2007 it was not possible for a civil parish to exist in London. From the passing of the 2007 Act civil parishes can now be established in London boroughs. Therefore only the City of London is now excluded (for obvious reasons). David (talk) 11:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

1974

I am greatly surprised to learn that all parish councils were abolished in 1974 and immediately re-created. My impression was that most parish councills had operated continuously without a break since the 1890s. Many district councils were of course amalgamated in the 1974 reorganisation, but I do not think there was much change to parishes, at least not in England. Peterkingiron (talk) 19:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Globalise tag

As a British wikipedian, I want to be able to have articles that relate to topics for my own country, without them being swampted by information from other countries. If some one wants a category on the issue worldwide, I have no objection to forking off the foreign sections into a new Civil Parish, with the present articel being renamed Civil Parish (Great Britain). This is what has had to happen with Toll roads, where there is a tree of different articles with different geographic or other scope. Peterkingiron (talk) 14:49, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with these sentiments. I had seen the template and was wondering how to respond, since I felt a response was required. The above response sums up my conclusions, since such an article would fit nicely into a general set of articles dealing with local government administrative bodies and local government areas in the United Kingdom.  DDStretch  (talk) 14:57, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Is the term civil parish (as opposed to just parish) used in countries other than those mentioned in this article? If it is then perhaps it is best to move this article to Civil parish (Great Britain) (or something similar). If it is not, then surely the need for a global viewpoint is covered by the article at Parish (administrative division). —Jeremy (talk) 20:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I tried asking this question, and got nowhere, in one of the CfDs about civil parishes and parishes that happened in the last month. First of all, this article clearly states that it is about entities in Britain and Ireland, and so countries other than these (if we ignore the inaccuracies and ambiguities introduced by using "Britain" and "Ireland") should be clearly relegated to footnotes or "see also" sections. Next, the sections in this article that use "civil parish" with respect to other countries either do not deal with the issue adequately (e.g., Portugal, where, whatever they are called, the name is almost certainly not literally civil parish and so we need to know what the Portugese term is, and how literal a translation of it "civil parish would be), or else they talk merely about "parishes" that seem to have a civil administrative function. Finally, in all cases other than the United Kingdom and Ireland, there is no verification, and more verification for the United Kingdom and Ireland is needed in places. One might therefore be quite justified in tagging it all and removing it if references are not forthcoming. Hence, the article then becomes purely a UK term by attrition. I suggest it needs cleaning up, and the globalisatioon tag simply removed.  DDStretch  (talk) 23:01, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
I went ahead and removed the tag. The opening sentence of the article describes the geographic limits of the term being discussed. If there are units that use the same name in other countries I think that they would be best discussed in separate articles. —Jeremy (talk) 23:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Ireland

I merged the two Ireland bits, since the only time civil parishes had much significance was before 1920.

I deleted the Local Government Act 1941 reference; I don't see how it's relevant since the Act doesn't mention parishes at all. jnestorius(talk) 22:14, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Would it be worthwhile creating a Civil parishes in Ireland or List of civil parishes in Ireland article? I ask because at the moment I'm working on supplying information for all the the civil parishes in Dublin (which in most cases means adding the parish information to the parish church article or creating the church/parish article where this doesn't exist (about 6 to go). I also created a Civil Parishes in Dublin category. Would appreciate feedback on this. Hohenloh + 17:39, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
I've just discovered that there is already Category:Parishes of Ireland. I'm going to propose that it be renamed. I'm not sure about Category:Civil parishes in Dublin, since the articles are named after the churches rather than the parishes. Perhaps a series box would be better. See Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates. jnestorius(talk) 19:13, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
Parishes of Ireland is ambiguous - could be Catholic or Protestant. Civil parishes is clearer. In fact references to these parishes in the 19th century alluded to the (Church of Ireland) church, as much as to the parishes - they belonged together. You will notice that in practically every Wikipedia article on the Dublin churches there is also a section on the parish, which is why the "civil parish" category is used. There is also a section on Notable Parishioners and Cemetery, again, belong together. I don't see the point in creating a new series of articles on each civil parish. Hohenloh + 06:26, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
I'm not proposing a series of articles, I'm proposing a navigation box added to the existing articles, similar to {{Dublin Liffey Bridges}}. Regarding the ambiguity of "Parishes": I agree, which is why I've just proposed a renaming; see the discussion. jnestorius(talk) 09:06, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, misunderstood - your proposal of a navigation box is good. Thanks for pointing me to the Categories Discussion - I've put in my two cents worth. Hohenloh + 10:51, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

About box contradicts article?

{{about}} currently displays This article is about civil parishes in Britain and Ireland. For other types, see Parish (disambiguation). The article discusses Parishes in other countries which seems to me to contradict the about statement. I am reluctant to change this as parish seems to me to be a bit complex:

In religion
In government
In other uses:

I note as a relevant aside, List of civil parishes in England uses civil parish not Civil parishes in England

--Senra (Talk) 21:25, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

You are right. The lead to this article and the "about" need changing somehow. Either the "other countries" section needs to be removed and replaced by a cross-reference or a new, more global, lead is needed. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:24, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Parish Law Today

Is it theoretically possible for modern-day parishes to span district and even county boundaries? Or must a parish exist solely within a single district? 98.221.141.21 (talk) 08:08, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

New article

I created this article by removing the England-related sections from Civil parish. I think it needs a fairly ruthless edit, for example reducing overlap with Parish councils in England. MRSC (talk) 07:56, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

  • I think it needs merging with Parish councils in England. --Kudpung (talk) 14:01, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Strongly disagree with merger proposal. The "Civil Parish" article had become severaly cluttered with globalisation material, whcih was swamping the material on England. Conceivably, the scope of the English article should be "England and Wales", but they are now communities in Wales. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:06, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Agree no merger as outlined on the other talk page. MRSC (talk) 14:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Numbers

I'd like to get some accurate numbers about the parishes:

  • How many exist
  • How many have councils
  • How many have parish meetings instead
  • How many are grouped
  • How many have each alternative style
  • How many are deserted
  • How many are 'dormant' (thinking of Byfleet) [2]
  • How many are members of NALC

Is this information published regularly, or is it scattered? MRSC (talk) 08:17, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that some of this information may be in the 2001 census. Another source might be the website of the National Association of Local Councils. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:53, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Vacant seats

Since being a parish councillor is an entirely unpaid post, it is not uncommon for their to be unfilled seats. Some one tagged a statement about this for citation, but if there are 8 candidates for 10 seats, it is inevitable there will be an unopposed election and vacancies afterwards, whcih can be filled like any other vacancy. This applies to my own parish council. On a previous election when this happened, the returning officer provided details of invalid nominations (probably submitted too late), and a cooption took place. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:17, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I tagged the sentence which until your revision just now read It is common in rural parishes for the number of seats available to exceed the number of candidates.' Although I can also draw on anecdotal evidence in this area I was not aware of this being a commom / widespread phenomenon or that there are any readily available statistics and suspect that no sufficiently robust ones could be unearthed on this but you never know some may have existed to enable a source to be provided. The statement was not self-evident, and the implication it was a common occurrence needed to be challenged by requiring verification. The term 'rural parishes' was also vague and needed qualification or removal. In the event if it could not be verified it would have to be revised or removed. By effectively eliminating the dubious statement completely with your revision you presumably also think this. Although I was open to someone finding some stats I also think your revision and the use of the word ‘sometimes’ is neutral in my view and properly addresses the issue.Tmol42 (talk) 18:22, 5 November 2009 (UTC)