The Local Government Association has a list on their website of over 300 proposals which councils have made to the Government under the Sustainable Communities Act.
The ones from Essex have already been covered in a series of articles by Lord Hanningfield and include some radical demands for increased localism.
The array of other proposals, large and small, include a great many good and bad ideas. Some struck me as gimmicky (lowering the voting age to 16 in Waltham Forest). Others seemed to be the opposite of localism by wanting to impose a new rules. For instance, Herefordshire want every school in the country, both urban and rural, to include a day's work experience on a farm as part of the national curriculum. (Poor farmers.) If schools want to fix this up then good for them – but I don't think it should be a requirement.
Among the ones I liked the look of were the following:
1. One from Brighton and Hove to allow allotment holders to sell their surplus product to local shops.
2. Wiltshire Council wants voluntary organisations to be exempted from business rates for rubbish collection but treated as domestic customers.
3. Various proposals to allow increased incentives for solar panels.
4. Various proposals for councils to be allowed to retain all the Council rent they collect.
5. Windsor and Maidenhead Council wants control of the Fire Brigade passed to them.
6. Redbridge wants to save the £9,000 a year they have to spend publishing statutory notices in the London Gazette. They want to place them on their website instead.
7. From South Gloucestershire: Abolish the Regional Spatial Strategy to allow more decentralised decisions.
8. Reopening the Herefordshire to Gloucestshire Canal.
9. From Redbridge. Reduction of the illumination requirements for some road signs.
10. From Southampton. Changing benefit rules to allow volunteering without loss of benefit.