Where an area is designated as a civil parish, the community it contains may be represented by a Parish or Town Council which is an elected local government body. This provides a limited range of local public services and makes representations on behalf of the community to other organisations, particularly significant to planning in that it can make submissions on behalf of its community when development plan documents are being prepared and on planning applications submitted within the parish. An increasingly important role is in being proactive in the preparation of Parish Plans and neighbourhood planning (in an area covered by a Parish or Town Council it is only these bodies that can lead on neighbourhood planning matters).
