The Lemon Fool

Not sure whether we want to get into advocating for our pet cases, and if so whether this is the right Board, but this case has been flagged up by the Good Law Project - Jocelyn Maugham, the famous fox beater.
Much of his casework is too Left for me, but this one caught the eye.

Summary... Treasured public spaces across the UK are being sold off and lost to private interests at an alarming rate.
Now one community in Shropshire is going all the way to the Supreme Court to fight this - and to defend all of our public interest in our beloved green spaces.
Greenfields Recreation Ground, in Shropshire, has been a resource to local families since 1926; generations of families have played in it. Throughout that time, the land has been held and managed as recreational land by the council on behalf of the community. But in 2017 it was sold off to a developer - for high-end housing. The community was not consulted and the sale was not advertised, despite there being a legal requirement to do so.

I have no dog in this particular fight, but I think the generality is worthy of prosecution. With responsibilities increasingly loaded onto Councils without the necessary funding, the temptation to flog off public assets is obvious.

Here's the case page https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/public-spaces/?utm_source=NB&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ShropshireGreenfields170522 where one can contribute.

V8

I think it is a worthy cause and what they did was wrong. I would say though that don't councils raise their own funds through council tax? If so any lack of funding is a failure on their own part for not raising adequate funds for their operations or for mismanaging those funds that they did raise.

john10001 wrote:I think it is a worthy cause and what they did was wrong. I would say though that don't councils raise their own funds through council tax? If so any lack of funding is a failure on their own part for not raising adequate funds for their operations or for mismanaging those funds that they did raise.

AIUI by law councils cannot raise the CT (or maybe just their element of it) by 3%

So with inflation running at 9% there is clearly a gap to start with currently which still has to be covered somehow.

This is not a defence of selling off public assets "come what may"

One of the reasons why the bent elite wanted brexit.

john10001 wrote:I think it is a worthy cause and what they did was wrong. I would say though that don't councils raise their own funds through council tax? If so any lack of funding is a failure on their own part for not raising adequate funds for their operations or for mismanaging those funds that they did raise.

No, Council Tax is a fairly small portion of Council's income. Most of it is grants from central government, and business rates which also go via central government. And councils aren't free to increase Council Tax as much as they want, as central government limits the increase they can apply.

SteelCamel wrote:

john10001 wrote:I think it is a worthy cause and what they did was wrong. I would say though that don't councils raise their own funds through council tax? If so any lack of funding is a failure on their own part for not raising adequate funds for their operations or for mismanaging those funds that they did raise.

No, Council Tax is a fairly small portion of Council's income. Most of it is grants from central government, and business rates which also go via central government. And councils aren't free to increase Council Tax as much as they want, as central government limits the increase they can apply.

Can you imagine the council tax increases that would happen in some places if councils were free to charge whatever they could?

didds wrote:
AIUI by law councils cannot raise the CT (or maybe just their element of it) by 3%

sorry - I omitted an important word (or two!)



That should have read

AIUI by law councils cannot raise the CT (or maybe just their element of it) by MORE THAN 3%