Communities and Council services play their part to help the borough thrive

Communities and organisations are pulling together in Cheshire West and Chester as the borough reaches the final year of an ambitious four-year plan.

Cheshire West and Chester Council has reported back on progress with the plan, called ‘Play your part to thrive’, which sets out what the Council and local people can do together to improve the borough.

Cllr Louise Gittins, Leader of Cheshire West and Chester Council, said: “When we published our plan for the borough three years ago we knew we were facing many big challenges, like the climate emergency and a difficult financial picture, which we could only tackle if we all worked together.

“Little did we know that we were also about to face a global pandemic, conflict in Europe and the rising cost of living.

“We know that we have a lot of work still to do, but I am really proud of the way everyone in the borough has worked together to face the challenges in the plan, and much more besides.”

Reporting back to the Council’s Cabinet, Cllr Gittins outlined some key successes for the borough.

• The climate emergency is a priority for the Council and a key concern for local people. Local recycling levels remain high, nine parks and greenspaces have won and maintained ‘green flag’ awards and in the past year more than 57,000 new trees have been planted across the borough. These new trees not only help to tackle climate change, but also promote bio-diversity and create shaded woodland spaces for people to enjoy.
• Support to help people live independently within their communities is also proving effective. 85% of people who had reablement services needed no further support, and a similar percentage of older people who had been discharged from hospital were still at home in their community three months after going home. A significant proportion of young people with special educational needs and disabilities are also being supported to learn in mainstream schools.
• The Council has worked with local homeowners to return 335 empty homes to use, and an additional 685 affordable homes delivered have been built within the year. These are homes for sale or rent which are aimed at residents who cannot afford to buy a home on the open market or cannot afford to pay market rents. Despite this, homelessness remains an issue and the Council is providing 212 households with temporary accommodation and continuing to work with people found rough sleeping within the borough. On the evening of the last rough sleepers count in the borough in March 2023, three people were found to be sleeping outside.
• The time taken to process benefits applications has halved in the last year, to seven days, and 92% of people are satisfied with the Council’s customer service department.636 local people have been directly supported into work by Council services and another 22 were successful in gaining supported job placements within the Council.
• The Council strives for value for money, but where appropriate it also works to support local businesses, and in the last few months alone spent more than £61m with locally registered firms.

Cllr Gittins explained that challenges remain, particularly around the increased demand on social care which is being seen both locally and nationally. The number of children in need within the borough, and number of children in care are both increasing. In other areas, such as the timeliness of complaints processing, significant improvements are being made but performance remains below the ambitious targets set.

She said: “It’s always heartening to see what can be achieved when the Council, our partners and local people pull together, whether it’s recycling levels, tree planting or supporting people in their community.

“I hope we can continue to work together like this as we start to develop our new plan for the borough later this year.”

For more information about performance in the borough visit: 

www.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk 

...and search for ‘performance report’.