In 2011 Rural Action Yorkshire produced a toolkit on implementing PB in town and parish council areas. It drew on the work of several councils in Yorkshire and Humber.

Town and Parish councils are quite unique in that they are non-statutory so they are directly created by the people they serve. Often councillors aren’t aligned to a particular party, and they have the ability to raise their own precepts. They are closer to their communities and understand better what needs to change to improve it.

Parish councillors frequently complain about how difficult it is to get their community involved in the parish council’s business. Major planning proposals, wind farms, waste incinerators and such like are usually pretty effective in filling parish meetings with members of the public anxious to know how they might be affected, but otherwise, it is often said, no-one is interested. PB demonstrates that this isn’t the case, but that people want more of a say, rather than less.