Clause 10 - Non-money receipts
Local Government Bill
3:30 pm
Mr Robert Syms (Poole, Conservative)
I have a worry. I served on North Wiltshire district council and Wiltshire county council for several years. There are times, especially in rural areas, when it is extremely difficult to provide local services. In such circumstances, it is not unusual for parish, district and county councils to put resources together to make such a provision.
The county council owned bits of land that it sometimes put into a deal, although not for a receipt but for the provision of a local service that it deemed to be a good thing for the local community. I would be worried about the value of such land that the Government would presume.
If there are no unitary authorities, it is sensible for tiers of local government to work together, which is sometimes the only way for provision to be made, given authorities' sparse resources. A community centre or a leisure centre could be provided by a town or district council because of the gift or sale of land at a reduced rate by a county council that had county farms or a bit of land at the edge of a school. I hope that the Minister appreciates our worries that the Government's possible intervention might make it more difficult for authorities to be creative when making provision for the people whom all authorities are trying to serve, albeit at various tiers.