Please read on for the legal update from NALC:
There was a case of a parish council successfully applying to the Upper Tribunal under section 84 (1) of the Law of Property Act 1925 to modify a restrictive covenant on the council’s land. The facts, in summary, are that the council was gifted a piece of land in the 1980s for use as a doctor’s surgery. A covenant restricted the use of a building to a doctor’s surgery. In 2022, the medical practice that had operated from the surgery moved out, and no doctor(s) could be found who wished to use the building as a surgery. The council was successful in widening the scope of the covenant to “medical and health uses”. There may be times when a parish or town council feels it is bound by a restrictive covenant that no longer serves a purpose. This case provides a positive example of a council finding a practical solution to benefit its area. Read more about the case
We have had queries on the statutory provisions around calling an extraordinary meeting. It concerns chairs calling meetings and members wishing to hold their own meetings. The power to call an extraordinary meeting is given to the chair of the parish or town council by virtue of Paragraph 9 of Schedule 12 to the Local Government Act 1972. Two councillors can give the chair a signed request for an extraordinary meeting, and the chair must call the meeting within seven days, failing which the two councillors can call an extraordinary meeting. In the cases we advised on, the chair had called the meeting within the relevant seven days of receiving the request. The seven days relates to the calling of the meeting, not when the meeting must occur. The extraordinary meetings had been validly called, and there was no power for the two councillors to call a meeting.
We have been asked about the legal status of city councils. The advice was that a parish council can have the style “city” if the parish is the area granted city status by the ruling monarch rather than a grant by way of legislation. City status belongs to the relevant city area, and legally the councils have the status of parish councils. Parish councils with city status are rare. We understand that a city council chair can use the term “mayor”. We give the following advice in our advice note on alternative names and styles for parish councils: “Very few parish councils have, by the royal prerogative, the status of a city, and they are entitled by such grant of the royal prerogative to be called and styled a royal town”.
We were asked whether a vote of no confidence in a parish council can trigger a parish poll and whether the principal authority is obliged to carry out the parish poll if all statutory requirements are met on a vote of no confidence. In short, the answer was no. The request raises two separate points. Firstly, the vote of no confidence (VONC). VONCs have no effect in law, and a VONC does not bind a parish council. The next issue is the parish poll. The following guidance is contained within our advice note on meetings of parish meetings and quotes Paragraph 18 (4) of Schedule 12 to the Local Government Act 1972: “A poll may be demanded before the conclusion of an assembly on any question arising at the assembly; but no poll shall be taken unless either (i) the person presiding at the meeting consents or (ii) the poll is demanded by not less than ten, or one-third of the local government electors present at the meeting, whichever is less”. A parish poll has no connection with a vote of no confidence
Section 138B (1)(b) of the Local Government Act 1972 provides that a local authority in England may support or facilitate, or make arrangements to be represented at an event with a religious element. In our view, this would enable a parish or town council to support or facilitate a religious element of a Remembrance Day event, for example, a church service. We understand that the legislation was introduced for the purpose of clarifying that local authorities can participate in events with a religious element
We have updated our advice note on data protection following statutory changes to data protection complaints handling and our advice note on members’ conduct and the registration and disclosure of their interests in England, further to a legislative change to the Localism Act 2011 introducing a requirement for councillors’ residential addresses not to be published in the public register of interests. We have also updated our advice notes on celebrations and similar events, easements over common land and village greens, helping village halls, local council powers to provide parking spaces, meetings of parish meetings and responsibilities of councils as landowners to remove outdated references and improve readability. Our legal manager and senior solicitor, Jane Moore, attended the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Association of Local Councils’ Annual Conference on 18 September 2026, where she delivered a legal update*.
If you have any queries relating to the legal update, please do reach out to us.
*Jane will also be joining the DALC Conference on 7th October to give a legal update.