A PETITION has been launched to set up a parish council covering Bournemouth’s last remaining villages.

Campaigners want to give more of a say to locals in Throop and Holdenhurst over local issues.

Their petition of nearly 300 signatures was the last to be presented to Bournemouth Borough Council before its replacement today by a new Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole authority.

Parish councils are ‘bottom tier’ authorities which are consulted on issues such as planning applications. They maintain community buildings and land assets and add a small charge to their residents’ council tax bills.

Strouden Park councillor John Adams, who presented the petition, said: “I helped get the Holdenhurst area set up as a parish committee. It wasn’t big enough to make a parish council in those days but now is the time, with the council ward getting larger, to talk to Throop. They’re interested in Holdenhurst and Throop getting together and it was time for a Holdenhurst and Throop Parish Council.

“There are nearly 300 signatures make the area a parish council. We haven’t got a parish council at all in Bournemouth.”

There was no time for it to be put on the agenda in the last days of the old Bournemouth council, but Cllr Adams hoped it would be taken up by the new authority.

“At least Bournemouth has had it,” he said. “They would have to say it’s business at hand for a new authority, for consultation. I feel that it has to be dealt with pretty soon. I think it would be very difficult for people to say it shouldn’t happen.”

Holdenhurst is recorded in the Domesday Book and was a parish in its own right before being subsumed into Bournemouth County Borough in 1931. Throop, on the banks of the Stour, is the only place in Bournemouth with gas lamps.

Cllr Kieron Wilson, of Throop and Muscliff ward, said: “I support my residents’ attempts at improving their democracy. This is an interesting idea. I’m all for devolving power to local people.”

But he added: “There are many opportunities that were given to councils in the Localism Act 2011 that would probably give a little more power than those gained by having a parish council, such as a local plan which would give a real say to all local people on planning issues within the town. There are already powers but established councillors haven’t used them in the past. But I think it’s great that there is such activism from the residents.