The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is consulting on the regulations which will bring into force the byelaws part of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007. The assurances that we were given have proved valueless.
We all know of councils and individuals who will abuse their positions to discriminate against us. These regulations will remove some important safeguards and some councils will make byelaws to prohibit naturism.
At present byelaws are difficult to enforce so they are only used when really justified. That protection is being removed. Byelaws will be enforcible by contractors using fixed penalty notices and there will be no realistic right of appeal.
Until this Act byelaws had to be approved by central government. It was not a particularly onerous process and it provided a valuable safeguard against abuse by councils. Now, for many byelaws, that protection is being removed.
It looks likely that this scheme will be extended to byelaws of all descriptions. The prospects are terrifying.
Following initial discussion on the members forums the draft BN submision was available here. On 17 November the final version was posted to the DCLG.
The government consultation is carefully designed to channel comments in the direction that they want but don't let that put you off. If you think a point needs to be made then make it! They call their web page "Communities in Control" but "Communities Out of Control" would be more appropriate.
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Your response must reach DCLG by 20 November 2008. The address is
They would like to know whether you represent an organisation or group, and in what capacity you are responding. |
We have written to the DCLG several times and we obtained one notable improvement to the Act but we remain very concerned that councils will abuse their powers. Our submission on the regulations will be posted to them in mid November.
This is a quote from the summary of a recent government consultation.
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In total there were 3,899 consultation responses; these comprised 3,500 campaign-based responses and 399 non-campaign responses. Campaign responses were almost identical in content as respondents had been provided with a standard template by the organising campaign, whereas non-campaign responses were not identical to any other response. Although campaign responses represented the majority of the overall sample, they were near identical in nature. The focus of this analysis is therefore primarily on the non-campaign responses received. |
Individual letters carry far more weight than form letters or postcards so we are not going to provide form letters or postcards. Some of the points that should be made are below. Please change the wording, leave out ones that you think are unimportant and add your own. To help ensure that the letters have variety the points will be in a different order each time you visit this page.
When you send a letter please send a copy to the RLO. Email is preferred but paper is fine. When you get a reply please send that to us as well. Scans or photographs are great. We can analyse it, remove the spin, and put the results on the web so that the facts are clear. Knowing what the letters say helps tremendously with planning the campaign.
How to contact us.