Queen’s Park petitions for ‘community council’

Published: 6th May, 2011
by CONRAD LANDIN

A PETITION with 1,500 names is to be handed to City Hall calling for Queen’s Park to be transformed into the capital’s first “community council”.

Council leader Colin Barrow will receive the petition that calls for an establishment of a body similar to rural parish councils.

Campaigners, who stress the project is not politically motivated, have said the body would be a successor to the elected Queen’s Park Neighbourhood Forum – the funding for which was cut by central government last year.

Angela Singhate, chair of the Campaign for a Queen’s Park Community Council, said the community council would focus on local campaigns, improvement schemes and attracting investment to the area. She said: “The area’s gone downhill and has been really neglected. 

“The neighbourhood forum has been cut but no doubt they’ll be talking about regeneration and renewal again before long, and we want something that can sustain. It would be a statutory body, there would be an obligation for the authorities to consult the community council on any plans for the area.” She added that the campaign hoped the community council, which if approved would be the first of its kind in London, would strengthen local democracy in Westminster.

“It would be an elected body with a mandate to represent the real local interests of Queen’s Park residents,” she said.

“Here in Queen’s Park we’re right at the tip of Westminster, on the border with Kensington & Chelsea as well as Brent.

“I think it’s fair to say that all three boroughs can forget and neglect the area – we feel we’re out on a limb: we’re not Soho, we’re not Oxford Street but we still come under the Westminster authority.”

Outside London many areas are covered by similar bodies, known as parish and town councils, which deal with planning applications as well as holding general responsibility for the towns and villages they represent. 

A 2007 change in the law means that London residents, too, can petition for a parish council. 

A “governance review” and a further round of consultation will follow.

Campaigner Julia Harrison said: “Volunteering in Queen’s Park, collecting signatures, meeting neighbours old and new, realising that we all care and have something to contribute has been a fantastic experience. 

“We are a unique and committed community.”