This Leicestershire parish council is said to be ‘paralysed’ and stuck ‘in limbo’

This story was written by the local democracy reporting service (LDRS), a BBC-funded scheme to improve the coverage of issues relating to local democracy. The Leicester Gazette has been a partner in the scheme since March 2024, and so receives some stories as part of it.

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This small council in Leicestershire has been left “in limbo” and remains uninsured as of April because, as the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) has been told by one source: “No one will touch them.”

Most villages have a parish council, run by unpaid but elected officials, which represents the most local tier of government in England. They manage parks, have a say on planning decisions and represent locals’ views on higher-tier council decisions.

Most importantly, residents who are covered by a parish council pay for them each year through a “precept”, as part of council tax.

However, for the last month, Witherley Parish Council has been unable to fully function due to an ongoing insurance issue, forcing Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council (HBBC) to take control of local parks and having officers intervene to help it find suitable insurance.

Leicestershire County Council has also since intervened to undertake grass cutting following the loss of its insurance.

Witherley Parish Council’s problems began in 2021, when two residents requested documents relating to the council’s Neighbourhood Development Plan under the Freedom of Information Act.

However, the parish council’s handling of the requests was so poor that, in May 2024, a tribunal judge ruled that the council had shown “casual disregard for the duties of a public authority”. The council was found to be in contempt of court.

Zurich, the council’s insurer, refused to renew the policy, branding Witherley Parish Council a “moral hazard”.

Insurer after insurer has declined to cover the parish council, including Clear Councils, James Hallam, Community Action Suffolk, and AXA, which have either declined to cover the council or provided no quote.

The situation got so bad that Julie Kenny, Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council’s monitoring officer, was forced to intervene, leading the council to lease the parks to HBBC in March this year and take ownership of four community defibrillators in Witherley, Fenny Drayton, Atterton and Ratcliffe Culey.

Without insurance, the parks would have closed.

As of the time of writing, the parish council is still uninsured, effectively preventing it from hiring staff to maintain green spaces or areas in nearby villages run by the council, and from protecting itself against potential injury claims over council-run areas like parks or buildings – forcing other Leicestershire councils to intervene.

After the tribunal, all elected councillors, except one, resigned in July 2023 in the wake of a pending tribunal finding. Their resignation letter stated they’d “spent hundreds of hours working on the case, despite the role of parish councillor being unpaid and none of us having any legal qualifications”.

Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council (HBBC) had to appoint three replacement councillors under emergency powers in October 2024.

Ever since then, councillors have continued to resign, leaving only four on the parish council out of a possible 11.

The council has also been embroiled in what previous councillors have called “aggressive communication” and “a lack of trust”, according to previous parish council minutes.

Meetings have recently been forced to be suspended because the council has been inquorate – meaning it’s unable to do any business – because all four councillors need to attend the meeting to meet the one-third quorum rule.

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Borough councillor for the area, Conservative Brian Sutton, told the LDRS the council was in limbo.

“What we need is half a dozen strangers to come onto the council to make it quorate, who don’t fall out when they’re on.

“The money is accruing, but nobody has the ability to spend it.”

The parish council’s situation led Stuart Bray, leader of Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council, to address “ongoing problems” and call for a full investigation into how it ended up in this situation.

“It is a disgrace, frankly”, the Lib Dem leader told a full council meeting last month.

One question is how the parish council will obtain insurance and whether it ever will.

Multiple sources told the LDRS they believe the council will never be insured unless it changes its name and becomes a new entity entirely, calling it “paralysed”.

Issues stemming from the parish council led to a petition from residents of Ratcliffe Culey and Fenny Drayton, asking for the villages to be removed from the parish area and new parish councils to be formed.

The community governance review, being undertaken by HBBC, will cover the entire parish, including Atterton, Fenny Drayton, Ratcliffe Culey and Witherley, with councillors set to make recommendations in June.

However, if new parish councils are formed, HBBC says the changes won’t take effect until May 2027.

Sources told the LDRS that they believe local government reorganisation could become a major issue with the plans, fearing the changes could be sidelined.

At the current moment, there is no direct national regulator specifically for parish councils, with many problems arising from parish councils being left to borough or district councils.

District and borough councils can be investigated by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO), but the law currently states that the LGSCO cannot investigate parish councils.

“If this was any other council in the country, the Government would intervene”, one source said.

In a statement to the LDRS, HBBC said it was “doing everything it could” to intervene with the parish council.

HBBC leader Cllr Stuart Bray said: “I share residents’ concerns about the ongoing difficulties at Witherley Parish Council

“We will continue working with parish councillors to keep services running; while our powers to intervene are limited, we are doing everything we reasonably can – including putting in place an arrangement to keep the playgrounds open.

“We have also commissioned an independent third party to support the parish council and carry out a review, with findings due shortly. With unitary government on the horizon, effective parish and town councils will be vital to keep services and decisions close to residents.

“Any changes arising from the Community Governance Review must be stable and financially sustainable, and we will not support proposals that simply replace one failing council with two or three that repeat the same problems.

“Once the independent findings are received, we will consider them alongside the Community Governance Review feedback and set out next steps through the council’s formal process.”

The LDRS contacted Witherley Parish Council for comment, but a member of the council said it would be “inappropriate” to issue a statement.

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