Civil parishes in England Governance
 Every civil parish has a parish meeting, consisting of all the electors of the parish. Generally a meeting is held once a year. A civil parish may have a parish council which exercises various local responsibilities given by statute. Alternatively several small parishes can be grouped together and share a common parish council, or even a common parish meeting. Since 1997 around 100 new civil parishes have been created, in some cases splitting existing civil parishes, but mostly by creating new ones from unparished areas.