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Sustainable Communities Bill

I shall be brief, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As somebody who has been involved in two parish plans, I suppose that I must be ““Vicar of Dibley”” mark 2. My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. When I was involved in parish plans, we asked local people questions and tried to formulate a draw-down mechanism to ensure that funding went to what they wanted. In the case of the Colney Heath parish plan, we knew that there was a dearth of play equipment because we had talked to local people and that is how they wanted the funding to be spent. New clause 6 is a bigger version of that. It would ensure that people were asked what they wanted and prioritise funding to go to those particular projects. Bringing back that deal of control and giving people a say and an input would be all to the good and has my full support.