Media Watch | 56

Media Watch is a weekly round-up of the latest major stories on the local council sector.

BBC did a series of features on parish precepts and how they are increasing because of the changing role of local councils, where they are having to fill the gaps left by cuts in principal authorities’ spending. NALC’s chief executive Jonathan Owen gave a series of interviews on this. (via BBC, BBC Newcastle (24m15s - 31m44s), BBC Radio Humberside, Sunday Politics South (55m32s - 1h03m29s) and Sunday Politics North East and Cumbria (51m59s - 1h00m48s))

NALC’s chief executive was quoted in the Waitrose Weekend newspaper. This is a free newspaper, which is given out to five million customers every week. So has a higher circulation than some daily national newspapers. The article was looking at how the new Tree charter is uniting Britons in a campaign to preserve ancient woodlands and plant new forests for posterity (via Waitrose - NALC login required)

There are plans afoot for re-organisation of Oxfordshire’s principal authorities which, includes a proposal to create a new town council for Oxford City and disband the district council (via Local Government Chroncile Plus - £)

NALC claimed that the Spring Budget 2017 missed a trick by not being truly radical by missing out on putting communities and neighbourhoods at the heart of it (via BBC)

A look at how local councils are getting more involved in local transport schemes. The article is on p19 (via Surveyor Magazine)

NALC via its chief executive, Jonathan Owen, is calling for the creation of more local councils especially in urban areas (via Local Trust)

NALC’s chairman, Cllr Sue Baxter, wrote an interesting piece about being a councillor who sits at the same time on a parish and district council, on page 30  (via Local Government Association First Magazine)

An article from the director of Campaign for Better Transport, Stephen Joseph, highlights the increasing role of local councils who are plugging funding gaps in local transport services (via The Guardian)