Comments below taken entirely from Nigel Martin (Neville’s Cross Councillor) blog. regarding possibilities regarding future of town and parish councils in Durham area. These are therefore not my personal views, though I may agree with some of Nigel’s views. Once I have gauged opinion in Fram area, and seen the result of the first round of consultation i will report back on this.

Council paper July 2011.

At the last meeting of the County Council (27 July 2011), a full timetable (below) was agreed for the Community Governance Review that will hopefully lead to the establishment of a Town Council for Durham City.

ACTION	TIMESPAN	DATES
Publish Terms of Reference		1 November 2011 after approval by Council
Submissions are invited	Two months	1 November to 31 December 2011
Draft proposals prepared	Two months	1 January to 28 February 2012
Draft proposals published		28 February 2012 after approval by council
Consultation on draft proposals	Two months	1 March to 30 April 2012
Final proposals prepared	Two months	1 May to 30 June 2012
Publish final proposals		31 July 2012 following approval by Council
Preparation and publication of Reorganisation Order	Two months	30 September 2012 after approval by Council
Election date		May-13

So everything should kick off formally in November. The first two months is pretty important as this is the opportunity for anyone to suggest the sort of structure for one or more parish councils to cover the City area.

There are lots of possible options:

• A single Town Council to cover the existing unparished area (equivalent to the Elvet, Gilesgate, Neville’s Cross and Newton Hall county council divisions).
• Two councils, one for Newton Hall, and one for the rest of the area.
• A greater Durham Town Council with some of the existing parish councils joining in with the unparished area to make a single locla council.
• Newton Hall joins with Framwellgate Moor parish and the other unparished divisions become the Durham Town Council.

This list is not exhaustive and there may well be other ideas that people have. The really important thing is that whatever comes out of the process has the backing of the local people of the City  and is not seen to be any sort of party political stitch up.

Also, the consultative process really has to work properly this time. We have seen too many Council ‘consultations’ recently that are not worth the name – the market square, sports centres, the tourist information centre – the list goes on. We have to get this one right so that the community in our great City can take more control of its life and and its future.

My own view is based on some simple principles:

• Any local council for Durham City needs to be large enough to make a difference. Splitting the area into several small parishes will just dilute the impact that any of them can have.
• The Durham Town Council will take over the mayoralty, so it needs to have the capacity to cope with that important job.
• Durham City is more than just the castle, cathedral and the inner areas, important as they are. Any future local council must pay equal attention to its wider area and make sure that if it decides to spend money, then everywhere gets its fair share.

If you feel as passionately as I do about the civic future of our City, please get involved in the coming process.

A number of people I know are wanting to set up a steering group to campaign independently for a Town Council. Let me know if you too can get involved and I will put you in tocuh with them.

You can read the full report to Council here: Community Governance Review Paper