Ribble Valley Conservatives will be invited to support proposals by the National Conservative Party to prevent future forced amalgamations of local authorities preserving the Ribble Valley Borough Council and South Ribble Borough Council preventing the break up of Lancashire County Council.

 Ken Hind Chairman of the Conservative Association and Longridge Councillor commented ‘A policy statement on ‘Localism’ issued by Conservative headquarters is calling for consultation amongst Conservative members, intending it shall form the basis of the policies of a future Conservative government and Conservative controlled local councils. It is designed to free local government from central government control and give local communities more say and increased accountability in decision making . It will protect the three tier system of local government in Lancashire , County, Borough and parish .(Parish including Town Councils.)

‘ The constant fear that a future government will amalgamate the Ribble Valley with Blackburn, Burnley, Pendle or Preston, or South Ribble with Preston ,to produce  super sized metropolitan authorities will be removed. The views of residents in smaller rural authorities will not be dominated by the interests of big towns .

‘Gordon Brown’s target-driven, top-down government has hindered strong local economies and discouraged civic pride. We support measures which restore many of the lost powers to local authorities, increase public accountability and bring councillors and their constituents closer to the levers of power. These policies will start to restore the trust that has been lost in our political system since 1997.’

The Green Paper main recommendations are paper :-

• Ending all forced unitary amalgamations of local authorities which have not already gone ahead – cancelling those already planned.

Election of commissioners to run the police , publication of crime maps and hold quarterly beat meetings .

• Abolishes all regional planning and housing powers exercised by regional government, returning powers and discretion back to local councils. Abolishes central government’s housing targets.

• Encourages local authorities to plan to meet local housing need , with consequent increases in council tax revenues being kept by them rather than it being placed in a pool and equalised away by Central Government .

• Local authorities will be able to establish their own local enterprise partnerships to take over the regional economic development functions .

• Where local councils promote local economic growth, they will be provided with an incentive by allowing them to keep the uplift in business rate revenues created by new businesses and expansion of existing ones.

• Giving local authorities a new discretionary power to levy business rate discounts, allowing local councils to help local shops and services , for example, rural pubs, or post offices.

• Increase the freedom of your council to act in the best interests of residents, by giving councils a general power of competence.

• Letting councils choose their own organisational structure, such as returning to the Committee system and abolition of cabinet system as at LCC.

• Abolishing Comprehensive Area Assessment ,the man Whitehall indirectly controls local government , and further curtailing the number of central targets imposed on councils, estimated savings £1billion of council tax payers money .

• Empowering citizens, not Whitehall, to ensure value for money by requiring more detailed information on local (and central) government expenditure to be published online. Referendums on major issues, including excessive council tax increases.

• Abolishing Labour’s new Infrastructure Planning Commission quango so Local Planning Inquiries are not by-passed.

• Scrapping the Standards Board and repealing the flawed ‘pre-determination’ rules that prevent councillors from standing up for constituents’ views on local issues. Local Councillors should always be allowed to speak up for their own constituents on every issue.