1st February 2012
All your Parish Councillors are unpaid volunteers, who give up their own time to work on behalf of their local community. Your current Councillors also decline to claim for any of their out of pocket expenses during their term in office. This means your Councillors actually cost you nothing. New Councillors may also be co-opted to fill vacancies that arise between elections.
Parish councils are essential to local democracy and have an important role in shaping the communities they represent by:
• giving views, on behalf of the community, on planning applications and other proposals
• undertaking projects and schemes to benefit local residents
• working in partnership with other bodies to benefit residents
• alerting relevant authorities to problems that arise
• helping the other tiers of local government keep in touch with their local communities.
Parish councils have a wide range of powers which essentially relate to local matters, such as looking after community buildings, open spaces, allotments, play areas, street lighting, bus shelters, car parks and much more.
They also have the power to raise money through taxation, known as the precept. The precept is the parish council's share of the council tax. The precept demand goes to the billing authority, the district council, which collects the tax for the parish council.
Huish Episcopi Parish Council also liaises with Langport Town Council in order to precept jointly to support facilities and projects that benefit both of our communities, such as: -
• The Memorial Playing Field
• Langport Information Centre
• Langport Youth Centre
• Town Centre Toilets
• Christmas Lights
• Community Links transport scheme
• New MUGA (Multi Use Games Area)
Currently about two-thirds of the Huish Episcopi precept is spent on these jointly supported facilities.
Huish Episcopi - please refer to 'Boundary map' under the 'Parish Council' tab.
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