Harborough District Council backs plans for new 'town council'

Results from a non-binding referendum held in April showed that 86 per cent of the 4,935 residents who took part voted in favour of establishing a new parish council for the Market Harborough area.

And at an extraordinary council meeting on Monday, June 8, HDC voted unanimously in favour of a parish council (which effectively is the same as a town council) for Market Harborough.

A council spokesperson added: “This was on the basis that it would reflect the identity and interest of the local community and deliver effective and convenient local government”.

HDC also agreed to proceed to a second phase of consultation.

"The consultation will focus on the technical aspects of setting up a new parish council, including how many councillors it should have and how the council should be split up into areas (wards) which councillors are elected to represent," HDC added.

"A consultation open to all residents will start next week and further details will be shared by the council shortly."

The proposal for a new town council were first aired following the announcement of national local government reorganisation plans, which could see the end of district councils. Many district councils around the country have been looking at whether to create or change new parish councils in the unparished parts of their area.

Market Harborough does not have a parish council, meaning that the district council provides services such as parks, play areas, cemeteries and bus shelters that in other parts of the district would be provided by a parish council.

The referendum was triggered in November 2025 when Harborough District Council received a petition, signed by more than 1,800 people, calling on them to look into whether Harborough should have its own parish council.

Speaking at the extraordinary meeting on June 8, Cllr Paul Dann said the recent poll of nearly 5,000 people, undertaken by the council, showed a “significant level of support” for establishing a parish council in Market Harborough.

In the poll, HDC noted that from an electorate of 20,544 residents, just 24 per cent took part in the consultation.

Cllr Dann added: “One of the key themes emerging from consultations has been the likely impact of local government reorganisation. At this stage, we do not know what this will mean.

“Another concern is the cost. That argument will be for an elected parish council.

“Nonetheless, when considering the arguments put forward from a community governance perspective, I recommended to support the creation of a parish council in principle.”

Cllr Dann said the second phase of consultation on the parish council would establish the numbers of wards, councillors, transition, and precepts required.

“The community review group will meet in the coming months and bring a final report to council in September,” he said.

Referring to the outcome of the poll, Cllr Simon Galton said the case for the parish council was “overwhelming”, adding “we could have done this six months ago”.

He said “It is inextricably linked to local government reorganisation and what presumably we’re going to find out in a matter of weeks in terms of the government’s intentions.

“So I am concerned about the delay [the decision] has caused and some of the misleading and inaccurate information that’s been put out by some members.

He added: “I note that the council tax, there was a lot of attention, frankly, to scare people into thinking that it was going to cost a huge amount of money and that this authority was going to impose large amounts of extra council tax, utterly untrue and rubbish.

“It’ll be a matter for the town council if it comes into existence, what they do about that after the first year and it really was in some cases trying to scare people into not supporting it because it might and I think those that did that really do need to take that into account and to apologise.”

Leader of the council, Cllr Simon Whelband, said: “I’m not going to repeat the debate we’ve had over whether we should have a town council or a parish council.

“It’s clear from the consultation and from the non-binding poll that there is support for a council at that level.”

However, noting that the turnout was only 24 per cent overall, he said: “That’s three quarters of the town who have not made a view known on whether they want this or not.

“So I do think there is some work that the community governance group has to do to make sure that people are more involved in this process and understand what’s going on, because when it comes to the elections for this new authority in a year’s time, I want those seats to be contested.

“I don’t want it to be the same people standing for the same seats over again, as we’ve seen in other parishes in our district, but we’re not going to stand in the way of this, and we’re going to go through with it to the next stage.”