Civil parishes in England

In England, a **civil parish** is a unit of local government.  Civil parishes are the lowest tier of local government, below districts and counties. It is an administrative parish, in comparison to an ecclesiastical (church) parish.

The parish council can decide to call itself a **town**, **village**, **neighbourhood** or **community**; and in a limited number of cases has city status granted by the monarch. Civil parishes only cover part of England; about 35% of the population.

There are currently no civil parishes in Greater London, and before 2008 their creation was not permitted within a London Borough.

## History
### Ancient origins
The creation of ancient parishes was linked to the manorial system.  The parishes often shared the same boundaries as the manor of the local lord. At first the manor was the main unit of local administration and justice in the early rural economy. Eventually the church replaced the manor court as the rural administrative centre and levied a local tax on produce known as a tithe. This was extended to London boroughs by the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 - with this, the City of London is at present the only part of England where civil parishes cannot be created.

If enough electors in an area of a proposed new parish (ranging from 50% in an area with less than 500 electors to 10% in one with more than 2,500) sign a petition demanding its creation, then the local district council or unitary authority must consider the proposal.

## 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. If a parish has fewer than 200 electors it is usually deemed too small to have a parish council, and instead will only have a parish meeting; an example of direct democracy. Alternatively several small parishes can be grouped together and share a common parish council, or even a common parish meeting. In places where there is no civil parish (unparished areas), the administration of the activities normally undertaken by the parish becomes the responsibility of the district or borough council. There are about 8,700 parish and town councils in England, and about 1,500 parishes with only parish meetings. 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.

### Powers and functions
Typical activities undertaken by parish or town councils include:

* The provision and upkeep of certain local facilities such as allotments, bus shelters, parks, playgrounds, public seats, public toilets, public clocks, street lights, village or town halls, and various leisure and recreation facilities.
* Maintenance of footpaths, cemeteries and village greens
* Since 1997 parish councils have had new powers to provide community transport (such as a minibus), crime prevention measures (such as CCTV) and to contribute money towards traffic calming schemes.
* Parish councils are supposed to act as a channel of local opinion to larger local government bodies, and as such have the right to be consulted on any planning decisions affecting the parish.
* Giving of grants to local voluntary organisations, and sponsoring public events, including entering Britain in Bloom.

The role played by parish councils varies. Smaller parish councils have only limited resources and generally play only a minor role, while some larger parish councils have a role similar to that of a small non-metropolitan district. Parish councils receive funding by levying a "precept" on the council tax paid by the residents of the parish.

### Councillors and elections
Parish councils are run by volunteer councillors who are elected to serve for four years and are not paid. Some councils have chosen to pay their elected members a small allowance as permitted under Part 5 of the Local Government Act 2000 The Local Authorities (Members’ Allowances) (England) Regulations 2003. The number of councillors varies roughly in proportion to the population of the parish. Most parish councillors are elected to represent the entire parish, though in parishes with larger populations or those that cover large areas, the parish can be divided into wards. These wards then return a certain number of councillors each to the parish council (depending on their population). Only if there are more candidates standing for election than there are seats on the council will an election be held. However, sometimes there are fewer candidates than seats.  When this happens, the vacant seats have to be filled by co-option by the council. When a vacancy arises for a seat mid-term, an election is only held if a certain number (usually 10) of parish residents request an election. Otherwise the council will co-opt someone to be the replacement councillor. Every Parish Council in England must adopt a code of conduct, and parish councillors must comply with its standards, enforced by the Standards Board for England.

### Status and styles
A parish can have city status but only if that is granted by the Crown. In England, there are currently eight parishes with city status, all places with long-established Anglican cathedrals: Chichester, Ely, Hereford, Lichfield, Ripon, Salisbury, Truro and Wells.

The council of an ungrouped parish may unilaterally pass a resolution giving the parish the status of a town. The parish council becomes a "town council". Around 400 parish councils are called town councils.

Under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, a civil parish may now be given an "alternative style" meaning one of the following:

*community
*neighbourhood
*village

The chairman of a town council will have the title "town mayor" and that of a parish council which is a city will usually have the title of mayor. As a result, a parish council can also be called a town council, a community council, a village council or occasionally a city council (though most cities are not parishes but principal areas, or in England specifically metropolitan boroughs, non-metropolitan districts).

### Charter trustees
When a city or town has been abolished as a borough, and it is considered desirable to maintain continuity of the charter, the charter may be transferred to a parish council for its area.  Where there is no such parish council, the district council may appoint charter trustees to whom the charter and the arms of the former borough will belong.  The charter trustees (who consist of the councillor or councillors for the area of the former borough) maintain traditions such as mayoralty. An example of such a city was Hereford, whose city council was merged in 1998 to form a unitary Herefordshire.  The area of the city of Hereford remained unparished until 2000 when a parish council was created for the city.  The charter trustees for the City of Bath make up the majority of the councillors on Bath and North East Somerset Council.

## Geography
Civil parishes do not cover the whole of England.  There are none in Greater London and very few in the other conurbations. Civil parishes vary greatly in size: many cover tiny hamlets with populations of less than 100, whereas some large parishes cover towns with populations of tens of thousands. Weston-super-Mare, with a population of 71,758, is the most populous civil parish. In many cases, several small villages are in a single parish. Large urban areas are mostly unparished, as the government at the time of the Local Government Act 1972 discouraged their creation for large towns or their suburbs, but there is generally nothing to stop their establishment. For example, Birmingham has a parish, New Frankley, whilst Oxford has four, and Northampton has seven. Parishes could not however be established in London until the changing of the law in 2007 and as yet none have been established there.

### Deserted parishes
The 2001 census recorded several parishes with no inhabitants.  These were Chester Castle (in the middle of Chester city centre), Newland with Woodhouse Moor, Beaumont Chase, Martinsthorpe, Meering, Stanground North (subsequently abolished), Sturston, Tottington, and Tyneham.  The last three had been taken over by the British Armed Forces during World War II and remain deserted.

### Detached parts and divided parishes 
Ancient parishes often had detached parts, exclaves and enclaves which were not joined to the rest of the parish.  In some cases the detached part was in a different county.  In other cases, an entire parish was in a detached part of the county to which it belonged.  There were also many examples of parishes divided between two or more counties.

These anomalies were mostly fixed in the 19th century.  Before civil parishes were introduced, the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 transferred many (but not all) parishes which were detached parts of a county to the county in which they were geographically located.  The remaining detached parishes were transferred in the 1890s and in 1931.  The detached part of the parish of Tetworth, Huntingdonshire, surrounded by Cambridgeshire, remained until the boundaries were changed in 1965.

Other laws, including the Divided Parishes and Poor Law Amendment Act 1882, eliminated most instances of civil parishes belonging to two (or more) counties, and by 1901 Stanground in Huntingdonshire and the Isle of Ely was the sole remaining example.  Stanground was split into two parishes, one in each county, in 1905.

## Related pages
*List of civil parishes in England

## References
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