Local councils like Bury Council play a big role in our day-to-day lives. But what exactly are they supposed to be doing?
Here’s a breakdown of their real purpose, what they’re legally required to do and what they must not do.
✅ What Councils Must Do (Their Legal Duties)
By law, councils must deliver a range of essential services that the whole community rely on. These include:
- Social Care: Supporting vulnerable children, adults and the elderly
- Education Support: Ensuring children have school places and special needs provision
- Housing and Homelessness: Helping those without a home and managing social housing
- Public Health: Tackling issues like obesity, smoking, addiction, and mental health
- Waste and Environment: Collecting your bins, managing local cleanliness, and dealing with environmental health issues
- Planning and Development Control: Managing permissions for new building proposals and land use
- Road Maintenance: Maintaining local roads and pavements
- Licensing: Regulating pubs, taxis, gambling and street trading
- Libraries: Running a basic public library service
- Elections: Organising local and national elections fairly and transparently
These aren’t optional — they are legal obligations. Councils must fund and deliver these services, even when budgets are tight.
❌ What Councils Shouldn’t Be Doing
There are also clear limits on what councils can’t do — and if they go beyond these, they can be challenged or even taken to court:
- No Political Campaigning with Public Money
Councils are banned from using your money to promote political causes, parties, or campaigns. That includes press releases, websites, social media, or glossy publications. - No Acting Outside the Law
Councils cannot take on projects or make decisions that aren’t allowed by law — this is called acting “ultra vires” and can lead to legal action. - No Commercial Activity Without Proper Safeguards
Councils can’t run businesses or trade for profit unless they set up a proper commercial structure under strict legal rules. - No Ignoring Statutory Services
Even when money is tight, councils are still required to deliver core services like housing the homeless, providing care, or running elections. - No Decisions Behind Closed Doors
Councils must follow fair, open, and lawful procedures. That includes transparency, accountability, and listening to the public where required.
⚠️ Why This Matters
When councils focus on vanity projects, political gestures or questionable commercial ventures, they often do so at the expense of services we all rely on — from road repairs to social care. That’s not just bad policy — it can be unlawful.
Bury Independents commit that, if and when we are involved in running the council, our councillors will focus on concentrating delivery of those basic services all residents rely on and will not venture into questionable partnerships with commercial entities looking to make a profit at the expense of reduced services and poor maintenance of council assets (e.g. roads, buildings owned by the Council etc).
It’s time for Bury Council to remember its legal purpose: serving the public, not pushing political agendas or ignoring essential services.
