Plaistow and Ifold Parish Council
When Members of the Parish Council say they are Parish Councillors; or the Clerk says that she is the Parish Clerk, many people think that we are connected to the Church.
To clarify who we are and what we do, we thought it would be helpful to briefly explain the difference between the Parish Council and the Church.
The Parish and the Parish Council
The Parish is an area with a defined boundary, both in civil (administrative) and ecclesiastical (religious and spiritual) terms.
Plaistow and Ifold Parish Council is the civil Parish. Originally, Plaistow was in the civil Parish of Kirdford and the boundary of the Parish was coterminus with the Church or ecclesiastical Parish (hence the two Parish Churches) as was common at the time.
On 1st April 1951, a new civil Parish of Plaistow was formed, which covers the present Parish boundary. The name of the civil Parish was changed to that of Plaistow and Ifold Parish Council on 1st April 2003.
The Church
The two Parish Churches are within the ecclesiastical Parish of Kirdford and Plaistow, which in turn is within the Diocese of Chichester. The Churches are administered by the Parochial Church Council (aka The PCC), which has no role in the management of the civil administration of the Parish.