Parish Councils Refuse Review, Cite Nineteen Years Of Momentum

At twenty past seven on Tuesday evening, in a room in Aylesbury with the heating set for a warmer county, councillors declined to review the way community governance works across Buckinghamshire, on the grounds that it has been working this way for nineteen years and that stopping it now would be like braking on ice. Boundaries will stay where they are. Parishes that make no sense will continue to make no sense, with confidence. One ward that exists chiefly as a shape has been formally congratulated on its longevity.

The argument that carried the room was momentum. Nobody could say what the arrangements were originally for, but seven in ten of those present agreed that something which has survived this long without anybody understanding it has probably earned the right to be left alone, in the manner of an old boiler or a marriage.

"A review invites opinions, and once you have opinions you have a map, and once you have a map somebody in Cuddington wants a bit of Haddenham," said one member of a parish council east of Thame, who added that the whole county is nine days away from a night when residents dress as things they are frightened of, and that he did not fancy his chances in a costume made of boundary lines.