Great Longstone Parish Council

The Parish Council is the lowest layer of local government and most closely in touch with local people. The Councillors are all required to live or work in the village and are thus accessible by the community at any time. (Find out more about what a Parish Council actually is here.)

(You can watch some video of the Parish Council - in action - here)

The Council is linked formally and informally with Derbyshire Dales District Council, Derbyshire County Council and the Peak District National Park Authority. There are links on this site to these authorities.

One function of the Parish Council is to represent the views and requests of local residents to these other levels of local government, to act as a channel of communication to these authorities and other statutory agencies (e.g. water authorities) and to be consulted by them on issues which affect the development of the village, e.g. planning applications

The Parish Council’s many statutory powers and duties are laid down in a number of Acts of Parliament and confer a variety of powers to, amongst other things,

• maintain open spaces & burial grounds;
• provide and maintain bus shelters;
• make by-laws to maintain playgrounds and pleasure gardens;
• manage village greens;
• support organisations encouraging tourism;
• maintain war memorials;
• provide and maintain community centres & public buildings;
• incur any general expenditure where a direct benefit to the locality can be shown.

Members of the Parish Council are all elected to serve the community in a voluntary capacity - no councillor is able to receive any payment other than out of pocket expenses and they are served by a Clerk who is responsible for the day to day management of the Parish Council, the servicing of its meetings and the preparation of accounts to be submitted to the district auditor. The Parish Council’s income comes primarily from the precept raised from the District Council which is included and is detailed as a part of every householder’s council tax - the Parish Council is also able to seek finance from other government schemes & grants

The affairs of the Parish Council are held in public - you have a right to receive information on and attend meetings of the Parish Council and to do this you should contact the Clerk or any of the Council’s current members.