What is HELP?

Initiated in 2008, “Help Eliminate Letchworth Parish council” comprises of Letchworth residents and tax payers who believe that the creation of a parish council was unnecessary in 2005, and has since proved itself unnecessary and an expensive waste of tax money taken from residents without limit. The parish council had cost Letchworth residents over £2,000,000 by the end of its first term (2009) with virtually nothing to show for it.

HELP has no political affiliation, nor political aims.

HELP exists solely to bring about the dissolution of the parish council and welcomes your support in achieving this aim. We know that dissolution is not easy to do. The route is long, largely untried and unpopular in Whitehall. Government policy places parish councils as a base for devolving power to local level, but then they did not appreciate that Letchworth already had two local authorities.

There is nothing in our civic life not regulated or controlled or monitored by the North Herts District Council and the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, and residents feel that in many instances this joint control is unnecessarily onerous and disjointed. Adding a third entity has not relieved this duplication, indeed it has exacerbated the burden and complexity of both the NHDC and the LGCHF, thereby adding costs which also have to be borne by the ratepayer.

When we have achieved our goal and the parish council has gone, we shall encourage our supporters to help The Heritage Foundation and the NHDC try harder to simplify their overlapping bureaucracy. For example, if you wish to prune or fell a tree, why should you have inform both parties separately and on different forms? Why can't both parties create a shared "Resident's Service" facility so when we are not sure who needs to know, one phone call or email will establish what needs to be done? We are sure this can be done without spending £½million annually.

We need your active support now.

Help HELP help you - Go to the contact page and tell us if you can deliver leaflets, canvass support, involve your friends and neighbours, use your media contacts to publicise our cause, or any other act to help.

Thank you