THE people of Swindon need to be given the chance to say if creating a parish council for their area of town is right for them, says the organiser of a new petition.

Old Town resident Colin Doubleday has launched a petition calling on Swindon Borough Council to create no more parish councils until the people who live in each proposed parish area are given a referendum.

The petition comes the council revealed earlier in the autumn that plans were being drawn up to devolve services - including grass cutting and graffiti cleaning - to parish councils. In areas where a parish council does not already exist, a new council would be created.

This would include areas such as West Swindon, Central Swindon, Old Town, Lawn, as well as Walcot, the Parks, Eldene and Liden.

But cabinet members have said nothing has been decided on the possibility of parishing the town yet.

Colin said he was not for or against the idea of parishing, but that he had set up the petition because it was vital that communities had the chance to make their own decision.

Launching the petition – which is available both online, and in a paper version – Colin wrote: “As residents we believe that such constitutional matters must be given to the people affected.

"The council should not treat all areas as one block and they should not vote on such constitutional matters on behalf of residents, but only if informed by a referendum.”

He said: “I believe that the consultation needs to be wide and the answers could be different for each parish. It may be a good thing for Old Town, but it may be bad for other areas in the town - but it should be up to the people involved.

“This is not like choosing the name of a civic building or changing bus time tables, this is not a trivial matter – this is something that fundamentally changes how we do business and how we manage our local community.

“The more normal route for starting a parish is for people who don’t have a parish to start a petition. It should come from the people. There has been no such request or petition. There is no obvious demand from the local areas. This is being imposed from above rather than being asked for by the community.

"If this is going to happen we need to prove that the community wants this.”

But councillor Toby Elliott, (Con, Priory Vale) Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning and Communities said: “There are no proposals as the council’s consultation has not started yet and I would urge all residents to let the council know their views on the merits or otherwise of democratically elected town, parish or community councils.

“The council will follow the law and government guidance in conducting the Community Governance review.”

The petition can be found at www.change.org/p/swindon-borough-council-give-residents-vote-on-parishes-or-no-parishes