Hayling Island Town Council Petition
- A. Skennerton
- May 28
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 14
Hayling needs its own local Town Council before Havant Borough Council gets absorbed into a bigger, more remote Unitary Council in 2027/2028. Hayling’s Havant Borough Councillors (of all parties) think that, as do many others on Hayling and Hayling Residents Association (HIRA).
Why?
To speak up for Hayling and give us a louder voice.
To manage and protect Hayling’s precious assets - our open spaces, our beach, our allotments, perhaps our community centres.
To protect those assets from being run-down or sold off.
How?
A Borough Council can, at their discretion, agree to set up a Town or Parish Council, and hand over some specific local services and assets.
Your current Havant Borough Council wants those services and assets protected in the long term, and is currently likely to agree.
A Town Council is effectively the same as a Parish Council, but with 18,000 residents, Hayling Island easily qualifies as a Town, and we think this better represents who we are.
Why so urgent?
Setting up a Town Council is a complex issue, and will take time.
If 10% (possibly 7.5%) of Hayling’s voters sign a petition, Havant MUST, by law, decide within 12 months.
If Havant starts that process on its own, there is no time limit, and with all the other priorities, it could get delayed.
The Government may see valuable assets being ‘stolen’ from the new Unitary Councils, and may put a stop to it, which is why this is urgent NOW.
Would it increase Council Tax?
Any extra cost for a Local Council should in theory be cancelled out by savings for the higher Council, but this may be hard to measure, and even harder to achieve.
But Local Councils can often find cost efficiencies and volunteers that would not be available to a bigger, more remote council.
The biggest benefit is that funding for local services, open spaces and other assets would be ring-fenced and protected, and not swallowed up or sold off to maintain social services, as is happening to Hampshire.
This is not about party politics. Most or all political parties support this, and being independent of the party or parties in power makes it easier to hold the Unitary Council to account.
NOTE: please ignore the national scare-mongering regarding annual charges. These are determined locally, moreover HBC and HCC will have 'disappeared' so by having Hayling's own council we could at least manage our affairs 'in house' rather than such decisions being made far further away by even more distant and less interested parties than currently. That is really the point.
We can further discuss this at our public meeting June 11th.
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