On 23rd October 2007 the Sustainable Communities Bill received Royal Assent and is now an Act or Parliament

After more than 5 years of campaigning the Sustainable Communities Bill has become law and is now and Act of Parliament. So - a huge thank you for all your efforts. This campaign was not won by professional campaigners, it was won by local people who continually urged their MPs to support the Bill. In the end, because of this effort the Government backed the Bill. Now it has become law, please use it! Here’s how...

How the Act can help you

By October 2008 the government must ask every council to submit suggestions of ways that it can help you and your council make your community more sustainable. Your council must ask your opinion of what these suggestions should be.

The usual meaningless consultation? – wrong! Your council now has a legal duty to set up citizens panels (drawn from all sections of the community – not just the usual suspects!) and then to try to reach agreement with those panels on suggestions you make and then submit them to the government; and the government has a legal duty to co-operate with local authorities and try to reach agreement on what action it will take on the suggestions. This is the first major reversal in the power structure (whereby all decisions are made in Whitehall) that has ever been enshrined in law. This is a new bottom-up process we fought so hard for, so that the policies to create sustainable communities will be driven by you and your fellow citizens, not by civil servants in Whitehall.

More detail on how the Act works locally

The above few words are a summary of how the Act will work. One of our leading supporters, Unlock Democracy has offered to put forward money and staff in order to kick-start the use of the Sustainable Communities Act at a local level. They are producing a detailed guide to how the act will work and how you can use it. More information is also available on Unlock Democracy’s website: www.unlockdemocracy.org.uk, or by contacting them, see details here.

Thank you again for your tireless and amazing efforts - and good luck on using the Act to reverse community decline.