Welcome to our website
Welcome to the County Durham Association of Local Councils (CDALC) website.
We hope you find this website to be informative and useful. If you want to find out more about how you can become a councillor or clerk, or just want to find out more about parish councils in general then please use the Parish Councils and Get Involved sections shown to the left. Here you will find all the information you will need.
I hope this sparks some interest in you wanting to get involved with your local parish council. You are welcome to attend, observe and speak at parish council meetings - just pop along to your next meeting. Please contact the clerk for details of where, when and what time the next meeting is being held. Use the Locate a parish link to find out contact details for your local council.
There are 109 parish and town councils and 23 parish meetings in the Association's area. Of these there are currently 104 parish councils in membership of the Association. This represents almost 95% of local councils. In addition there are four parish meetings in membership of the Association.
CDALC represents the interests of parish and town councils and parish meetings in County Durham, the Metropolitan Districts of Sunderland and Gateshead and the Darlington Borough Council areas.The Association is owned by its Members with a County Executive Committee acting as the representative body for all parish councils in the County. CDALC has its own Constitution and its aims are to:
- provide a quality service to member councils including legal, financial, procedural and planning advice,
- provide quality training for clerks and councillors,
- represent the voice of parish councils in policy decisions,
- provide 100% membership of the Association,
- provide partnership working with Durham County Council and other organisations such as Police, Fire, NHS etc.
- provide partnership working with other community groups.
Training for parish councillors and clerks is provided by the County Durham and Cleveland County Training Partnership (CTP). The CTP is a partnership arrangement between the following bodies:
- Durham Rural Community Council
- Tees Valley Rural Community Council
- Durham County Council
- The Society of Local Council Clerks (SLCC)
- The County Associations of Cleveland and County Durham
CDALC provides administrative support for the CTP and also the secretariat for the County Durham Quality Status Accreditation Panel.