The Sustainable Communities Act
Dear Local Works supporter
The Sustainable Communities Act recently became law due to a huge campaign effort by the Local Works coalition, of which your organisation is a member. Now that we have this fantastic new law a ‘bottom up’ process has been set up and can be used by communities and councils to protect and promote local services, shops, trade and the environment, devolve powers and potentially even trigger new legislation. However, councils must choose to use the new powers before communities can and in London so far only a handful of councils have done so. Please come to our public meeting and hear how the Act works and how you can help ensure all London’s councils choose to use it!
Date, time: Tue 10th Feb 2009, 7-9pm
Venue: The Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House, Parliament, Victoria Embankment, Westminster SW1A 2LW
Speakers:
INVITED - Haze Blears MP (Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government) - INVITED
Oliver Letwin MP (Chairman of the Conservative Policy Review)
Julia Goldsworthy MP (Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government)
John Wright (Federation of Small Businesses National Chairman)
Hugh Lanning (Public and Commercial Services Union Deputy General Secretary)
Ron Bailey (Unlock Democracy Campaigns Director)
Chair: Mike Benner (CAMRA - the Campaign for Real Ale Chief Executive)
ACTION – please help publicise this meeting by forwarding this email on and by distributing our flyers and posters, contact me on steve@localworks.org or 020 7278 4443 and I’ll send you as many as you wish.
This is a free, public event and no booking is required. More information – www.localworks.org
Background
The Sustainable Communities Act’s process started on 14 October when central government invited all councils to choose to use the Act’s new process by submitting proposals to government for help and action.
The Act gives government a legal duty to “co-operate” and “reach agreement” with communities and councils. This is a wholly new form of governance - it is not the top down decision making we have always had.
In the words of Hazel Blears, when she launched the Act’s process on 14 October, this Act is about “turning power upside down in this country”, and she added that it is about “reaching agreement where you say ‘I can do this and I can’t do that’ and then have a dialogue about the final decision to be taken together.”
Yours sincerely
Steve Shaw
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