Councillors unanimously refuse permission for 42-storey block of flats on top of former residence and hospital

Councillors in Birmingham have unanimously refused to grant planning permission for a controversial 42-storey skyscraper on top of a Grade-II listed former hospital.

The proposal for the city centre site included a large glass tower block, including more than 300 flats and a cafe and roof terrace, erected on top of a Georgian building that has stood there since the early 19th century.

Continue reading...

Devolution has been too cautious, and England has less say about community affairs than almost any other democracy

• Tony Travers is a visiting professor in the LSE department of government and a director of LSE London

All the bigger British political parties are in favour of devolution, yet it proves oddly difficult to deliver. England is a remarkably centralised country, with the UK government responsible for setting every tax, including the annual cap on council tax. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are also, despite their devolved status, heavily centralised within their own national systems of government.

It is exactly 50 years since the major reform of local government structure in England and Wales. Prior to the 1974 changes , there were 1,245 councils in England; after the reforms were implemented, the number of councils was slashed to just 412. Today there are 317 councils, and the number continues to fall as the result of a near-continual reorganisation, which has turned two-tier counties – where there were county councils plus districts within them – into one or more unitary councils, where a single council provides all municipal services. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, after more recent reforms, now have a single tier of large municipalities.

Continue reading...

Schools say increasing numbers of children are turning up sick because of dire housing conditions – if they turn up at all

Some children living in dire housing conditions have been woken up by chesty coughs caused by damp, others by the smell of sewage leaking down their walls. Toby* was woken by rats on his chest.

“It was midnight and he came to me crying,” said his mother, who does not want to be named. He is one of more than 3,800 children living in temporary accommodation in Lewisham, the council with the 10th highest number of children living in such housing in the UK.

Continue reading...

Ronnie Hinds has a proposal for managing local authorities, John Clark says large city-based unitaries do not work for rural areas, and John Bullock believes that anyone standing for parliament should have a decade of local experience

Your editorial on local government ( Editorial, 14 April ) concludes by pointing up the tension between the economic benefits of scale claimed by proponents of large councils and the community benefits of small councils closer to those they represent and serve. After a lifetime career as an officer in local government, and having chaired two commissions overseeing council finances and electoral boundaries, I have come to wonder if the answer is to separate the council (ie those elected to represent their constituents) from the organisation that is responsible for delivering local services to people and communities (ie the council employees).

The present system treats these as one and the same, but their functions are different. I believe it would be possible to create a different relationship, whereby the elected, political body effectively commissioned services from the delivery organisation, run entirely on managerial lines. This would sever the current one-to-one relationship between them and allow a number of elected councils to be served by one delivery agency, holding out the prospect of achieving the economic benefits of larger operational scale and the political benefits of closeness between electors and elected.

Continue reading...

Residents say they are not nimbys but village lacks infrastructure for new homes most cannot afford

If the age-old story is correct, the Hampshire village of Little London gets its evocative name from the flight of fearful residents from the capital during the Great Plague of 1665-1666.

But today’s inhabitants are up in arms at the prospect of a 21st-century exodus from London to their tucked away settlement.

Continue reading...

Democracy’s link to the places that matter to people are being eroded, a concern given next month’s elections

The phrase “ all politics is local ” is most often associated with Tip O’Neill, former speaker of the US House of Representatives. But such sentiments come to die in England, where decision-making is concentrated in Whitehall ministries. With English council and mayoral elections in May, local government is increasingly that in name alone. Westminster’s creeping preference for single-tier authorities and austerity has seen bigger councils and smaller budgets. Crucially, local government is losing its link to places that matter to local people. Fifty years ago, a more grassroots approach meant people would know their councillor. Now most voters couldn’t name them .

With budgets set by central government, local authorities are being drained of resources to safeguard and improve their area’s social, economic and environmental wellbeing. Years of shrinking finances have closed care homes, creches, youth clubs and libraries. Bin collections, bus routes and school crossing patrols have gone too. Councils are viewed in Whitehall as local service delivery agencies and expected to clean up any mess made in SW1.

Continue reading...

Campaign draws on performers and artists to encourage 300,000 more young people to register ahead of this week’s deadline

A last-minute drive to alert young British people to therisk of losing their say in how the country is run launches this weekend, spearheaded by many famous faces, including some not normally associated with politics or campaigning.

YouTubers such as Amelia Dimoldenberg, host of Chicken Shop Date, are lining up alongside singers and comedians, to join established names, such as Michael Sheen, Sir Stephen Frears, Es Devlin, Meera Syal, Billy Bragg, Paapa Essiedu, Emily Berrington and Ralf Little.

Continue reading...

The schemes must be voted on before introduction, but some say councils can in effect force local employers to fund them

• ‘It’s torn the town apart’: seaside shops rebel over Bid

As councils tighten their purse strings and strip services back to the basics amid a worsening local authority financial crisis , it is things such as flowerbeds, street cleaning, events and signs that go on the budget chopping block first.

That’s where Business Improve­ment Districts (Bids) step in – schemes funded by a levy on local companies on top of their business rates, with the money going to a private, not-for-profit company designed to help boost the attractiveness of the area.

Continue reading...

London mayor expected to criticise Susan Hall in speech launching panels on school roofs

Sadiq Khan will accuse his Conservative rival in the race to be London’s next mayor of being “Trumpian” over the climate crisis, as he announces plans for solar panels on schools.

Khan is expected to acknowledge resistance to his expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) in a speech on Friday but insist that he still intends to “go further”.

Continue reading...