[Talk-GB] Tagging community centres and polling locations for mayor of London election

[Mark Goodge]

On 01/04/2021 21:43, David Woolley wrote:

> One of my local polling stations is a portakabin that gets put up, in 
> the carriageway, of a residential road, about a week before the 
> election.  More generally, I'm not convinced that they are treated 
> differently from other booking of community centres, schools, etc, in 
> terms of the formal contracts.

It is a bit different. Any facility which is publicly funded (including, 
but not limited to, schools) is obliged to allow the use of that 
facility as a polling place at no charge to the electoral authority (The 
Local Elections (Principal Areas) (England and Wales) Rules 2006 
Schedule 2, section 20). So the use of such locations is a different 
kind of agreement to that of a purely commercial contract to rent a 
location in other places, such as church halls and pubs.

Mark