Local by-laws easier to abolish

Antonia Torr, Legal Editor

The government has announced plans to make it easier for English local authorities to abolish those outdated by-laws and allow the creation of new ones.

This allows councils to get rid of any outdated and bizarre regulations, a process which usually requires Whitehall approval. These regulations include such offenses as carpet-beating in Blackpool, and frying fish in Gloucester.

The process will instead involve town halls consulting residents in order to determine what by-laws should be abolished.

The City Council of Gloucester has discovered up to 60 old by-laws that it would like to revoke and not replace. One example of such a by-law is a 1911 regulations that required domestic servants to register with the council.

Mr Shapps, the Local Government Minister remarked that the Government wants to put power back into the hands of local people.

"Clearly an 1887 law about beating carpets in Blackpool is no longer followed, in which case, let's make it easier to scrap," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"Of course there are many other things to do but having pointless laws there that no-one follows makes a mockery of the law, the law becomes an ass. Let's get rid of those things, and this government wants to hand the power to do those things to local communities, which surely can't be a bad thing.

"We believe that rather than everything having to revert to Whitehall, 'the minister knows best', instead, local communities should have those powers, and that's what we're going to give them today."

The minister went on to mention that members of the public should be able to contact their local council with any concerns that they may have, and the local authority would be able to act with ministerial involvement.

Some by-laws have received governmental support, such as the support given by Prime Minister David Cameron to the Greater Manchester City Councils who wished to ban the sale of cheap alcohol.

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