Your HCPC
Your Parish Council
Each town and village in the UK has a Parish Council (PC), volunteer local people who invite feedback from their communities to inform their Authority of the local needs and issues. Some are very large, Hinton PC isn’t!
Hinton Charterhouse PC is part of B&NES – you can see the boundaries here
Structure
Hinton is allowed nine Parish councillors, and has two paid (part time) employees, the Clerk and the Village Steward. There is a nominated Chair and Vice-Chair for meetings.
Currently there are five active councilor volunteers (the Clerk is not a councillor and cannot vote)
Anyone can volunteer to join the PC, the requirement is a UK Passport, a note of interests in the parish (land, business etc) and agreement to abide by the Code of Conduct here.
The PC is also the Trustee for the Millennium Green charity (there is a separate management committee for this).
Meetings are currently monthly, 1st Wednesday of the month, 7.30 pm in the Village Hall. The council can change this to suit volunteers, for example we are considering meeting once every 2 months. There is no meeting in August.
Meetings are short, rarely more than an hour and a half.
Our direct liaison with B&NES, District Councillor Fiona Gourley, joins most meetings.
Scope
The clerk will accept agenda items up to the week before the meeting. Anything that the local community is concerned about; planning applications, pathways, roads, lighting, noise, anti-social behaviour, fly tipping etc can be discussed.
The PC does not have any powers, it is simply a conduit for local knowledge and sentiment which B&NES do take seriously, we are their eyes and ears in local issues. However, any request involving major costs and planning decisions will be down to B&NES.
Funding
Every Council Taxpayer in the parish pays for the PC’s activities, you will see this as a line on your Council Tax bill called “precept”. The PC must maintain certain contingent balances and be able to fund its projected costs in any year. Hinton PC is unusual in that it owns and runs all the streetlights in Hinton, it provides grants for village organisations and other running costs, and a budget is carefully prepared each year to meet these. You can see how this is broken down here.
How can I help?
Please consider volunteering! You can make a difference, especially if you have particular social or professional skills that you are prepared to offer occasionally to support your community.
Plus – it’s good fun, and you learn lots about your community and the surrounding countryside! And there is always a pub open after meetings for socialising!
