This page talks about the job of a parish council, and in particular of Great Gransden Parish Council. There are separate sub-pages on

(The last item also lists the Parish Clerk’s contact details, and information on the district councillor and county councillor that cover this parish.)

This page also covers some things that are not the responsibility of the parish council, with links to the higher-level authority concerned!

Table of Contents

What is a Parish Council?

A parish council is a local authority that makes decisions on behalf of the people in the parish.  It is the level government closest to the community, with the district authority above it in the hierarchy. As it is the authority closest to the people, parish councils are invariably the first place people will go with concerns or ideas.  For this reason, they are a vital part of any community.

Great Gransden Parish Council has up to 9 councillors, who are unpaid.

What decisions do Parish Councils make?

Parish councils make all kinds of decisions on issues that affect the local community.  Probably the most common topics that parish councils get involved with are planning matters (they are statutory consultees), crime prevention, helping local groups, managing open spaces and campaigning for and delivering better services and facilities.

Whilst parish councils have limited powers to make decisions, they do have the ability to negotiate with, and the power to influence, those other organisations that do make the final decisions (such as the district or county council, health authorities, police etc).

What does Great Gransden Parish Council do?

The Parish Council has a wide range of powers which essentially relate to local matters, such as looking after community buildings, open spaces, play areas, street lighting and much more.  The council also has the power to raise money through taxation, the ‘precept‘.  The precept is the parish council’s share of the council tax.  The precept demand goes to the billing authority, the district council, which collects the tax on behalf of the parish council.

The Council meets monthly and considers finance matters, planning applications and other matters referred to it by local residents. All meetings are open to the public and there is a forum before the start of the meeting at which members of the public can raise concerns and ask questions.  All meetings are advertised on the council notice boards and on this website.  Residents can bring to the attention of the parish council anything that concerns them, either directly or through the clerk.  If matters raised are not the responsibility of the council, the clerk can bring them to the attention of the proper authority.

Please note that the Parish Council can only make decisions at advertised Council meetings, and even then only on items that were on the agenda published prior to the meeting. Also, Councillors are not allowed to vote – or even to speak at the meeting – on items on which they have a direct or indirect financial interest; at the start of each meeting Councillors have to declare if they have such an interest in an item on the agenda, and are expected to leave the room when the relevant agenda item is discussed by the Council.

There is also an annual meeting which all parishioners are invited to attend; as this is a village meeting, not a parish meeting, the rules are different!

The District and County Councils for the Parish

The Local Planning Authority for Great Gransden is Huntingdonshire District Council, but it sends details of every planning application within the parish to the Parish Council for comments and will take into account the Council’s views when coming to a decision. Some pages on the District Council’s website may be of particular usefulness to parishioners:

  • The HDC Planning Portal can be searched to find out about all the current applications, as well as ones that have been closed.
  • You can access the waste collection calendar for your home. NB: not all homes in the parish have their bins collected on the same day (and Little Gransden has different collection dates).
  • There’s a page you can use to report abandoned vehicles.

Cambridgeshire County Council is the highway authority, but it consults the Parish Council when it is considering any road scheme. There is a reporting portal that allows residents and others to report potholes and other such problems, and to the status of open problems. The County Council also handles certain types of planning applications, such as alterations to the village school (as it is owned by the County Council).

Great Gransden Parish Council provides the following services to the village:

  • Play areas throughout the village for all ages – including the provision, regular inspection and maintenance of play equipment;
  • Recreation facilities at the Sportsfield (managed by a committee);
  • Allotments – the council owns land for the provision of allotments which parishioners can rent (managed by a committee);
  • Litter and dog litter bins (the district council empties kerbside bins, but the Parish Councillors take responsibility for ones on the Playing Fields and in the Cemetery);
  • Salt bins;
  • Public seating;
  • Cemetery burial ground;
  • Maintenance of Mill Weir, the village pond;
  • Comments on planning applications;
  • The Reading Room, our village hall (managed and run by a management committee).

The Parish Council takes the lead in getting many things done in the village. For example, the Parish Council set up a Steering Group to prepare a Neighbourhood Plan for the village, and is currently leading the Plan through the adoption process.