Liberal Democrats from Harlow have given their support to proposals to put local people, not Whitehall, in charge of regeneration projects, when they were debated at the party's conference in Harrogate last weekend.

Local Liberal Democrat leader Cllr Chris Millington said:

"Since Labour came to power there has been a torrent of new schemes and initiatives to try to regenerate neglected areas, and new organisations to run them, but none of them have achieved a genuine transformation of the targeted communities.

Areas and estates that have seen millions of pounds spent on them are still amongst the most deprived in the country, continuing to suffer shorter life expectancy, poorer health, higher unemployment and lower levels of educational attainment.

The range of funding streams and organisations makes it difficult for those involved in regeneration to work out who to go to and see for money and decisions. What's worse is that those who want to regenerate their communities find they lack the freedoms to address the issues that really need to be dealt with.

Making regeneration work means working with the community, not imposing it on them. That's why the Liberal Democrats would put local people in charge of regeneration - they are best placed to know what their community needs.

Under our proposals, every community, urban (including London), suburban or rural, would be able to establish a community council, able to have more powers and responsibilities than existing parish councils.

We would give local people greater control over local facilities and institutions. We would also decentralise the planning system, giving greater control of it over to local communities with councils having the freedom to develop their own local plans to suit their needs, rather than meet government directives.

We would strengthen local communities and the social networks binding them together by reinvigorating volunteering, the voluntary sector and cutting the red tape faced by charities."