Annual Parish Meeting (Annual Assembly)

Q: What is the Annual Parish Meeting (sometimes called the Annual Assembly)?

A: It might surprise you to know that Parish Councils and Parish Meetings are two separate legal entities! It is via convention that the Parish Council traditionally hosts the ‘Annual Assembly of the Parish Meeting’.

A Parish Meeting is a type of local authority – it is a post-1894 survival of the annual meeting of the 'vestry' of the ecclesiastical parish, which elected churchwardens and conducted various other business (so called because it met, or once met, in the vestry (robing room) of the church).

Parish Meeting membership consists of all parishioners who are on the electoral role for the area.  Local electors do not need to be invited, or apply to become members, they automatically are members of their Parish Meeting as a result of LGA 1972 s13(1).

Parish Meetings have no legal decision-making powers, consequently no “decisions” / votes conducted at the meeting can bind the Parish Council, or anyone else.

The law requires Parish Meetings to assemble annually between 1st March and 1st June (LGA 1972, Sch 12, para 14). The meeting can be convened by any six electors, or any two Parish Councillors, or the Chair of the Parish Council. The meeting (date and time) shall be held as fixed by the Parish Council.

If the Chair of the Parish Council is present at the meeting, they must preside. The meeting is open to the public (any member of the public, whether from the parish or not), but only registered electors can vote at the meeting. 

The only business that is legally required to be considered at the meeting is to approve the minutes of the previous Parish Meeting (LGA 1972, Sch 12, para 19). Thereafter, it is up to the parishioners in attendance to decide what they wish to talk about.