More and more people are making use of their Community Forum to try and improve local services and raise issues of local concern.
- Residents in Birstall were unhappy that the swimming pool in Longslade Community College was no longer going to be open to the public outside school hours. Discussion at the local Area Forum meeting resulted in the College working directly with local users to find ways the pool can remain open.
- Following the Government’s shortlisting of ‘Pennbury’ as a potential Eco-town, the ‘Have your Say’ meetings in Kibworth and Tugby were the first opportunity for residents in the surrounding area to find out how the District and County Council were planning to respond to this challenge.
- At the Blaby South Community Forum residents and Parish Councillors from Sapcote, Sharnford, Stoney Stanton and surrounding villages expressed their concerns about the volume and speed of Heavy Goods Vehicles travelling through their villages. In response officers promised to look into a range of measures to reduce the impact of traffic and improve road safety in the short term, while explaining how they were looking to provide longer-term solutions.

Community Forums give you the opportunity to discuss local issues with your local Parish, District and County Councillors and representatives from the Police and the Health Service. There are 27 Community Forums across they county. To find out more about forum meetings in your local area, please visit www.leicestershireforums.org

Contact: Derk van der Wardt, 0116 3057581

A parish meeting consists of the local government electors registered for the area for which it is held. In a parish in England where no parish council exists, the district or unitary authority must establish a parish council if the population includes 200 or more local government electors.
If the population includes more than 150 but less than 200 electors, the district or unitary council must establish a parish council if the parish meeting resolves that one should be established. This power is discretionary if the parish is already grouped under a common parish council.
Where the population includes not more than 150 local government electors, the district or unitary council may create a parish council if the parish meeting so resolves.
A parish meeting is not a corporate body and is therefore unable to own property or sue or be sued.
Generally speaking it is not a local authority, though for certain limited purposes it may be regarded as one. Its lack of legal personality has not prevented Parliament from enabling it to exercise functions.
Its powers are not as extensive as those of a parish council, although on application the district authority may by order confer on the meeting any or all functions of a parish council.
The parish meeting should assemble annually between 1 March and 1 June and on at least one other occasion during the year.