Agenda item

(Report of the Leader of the Council)

Report of the Leader of the Council to advise members of the consultation responses that have supported the development of the priorities of the Corporate Plan 2025 to 2030 and advise on the development of the draft Annual Delivery Plan which will support these being achieved.

The Chair welcomed the Leader of the Council, the Assistant Director, Policy & Performance and the Corporate Project Coordinator.

The Leader of the Council introduced the report and highlighted that they felt it was one of the most collaborative and extensive consultation exercises that the Council had undertaken.

The Officers provided the Committee with a presentation.

The Committee made the following comments/observations and asked the following questions:

1)    The Committee thanked officers for the presentation as it answers a lot of questions and it was noted that the document was smaller and more streamlined and that this was an improvement on the previous Corporate Plan document.

2)    The thinking behind the tagline and whether this was set in stone as it did not capture the heritage of Tamworth?

The Leader confirmed that the tagline needed to be succinct and memorable.

3)    What the Councils heritage offer would be and how they are going to promote that and their buildings?

The Leader confirmed that she was looking to move this on and that there were people coming to the town tomorrow (7th February) to look at its heritage, and that we need to be coordinated in our approach and get the right people together to discuss what is possible.

Members commented that all heritage partners should be included and that this could improve tourism.

4)    Concerns around the lack of engagement from residents in responding to the survey.

Officers confirmed that whilst they had hoped for more responses, 1200 conversations had taken place and what could not be captured in a survey was the positivity and passion of the residents of the borough.

5)    In reference to appendix C and the consultation responses within Place Shaping, how do we address the issue around people feeling safe.

The Leader confirmed that based on community safety updates residents perceptions were different to what they hear from the police and that perhaps a piece of work needed doing to change those perceptions.

The Committee commented that a recent update from the Inspector was very data driven but that this does not seem to match what they are hearing in terms of anti-social behaviour and that this may be due to the public not reporting crime as they do not think anything will be done, where as they should be encouraged do this and get a crime number for each incident.

Members acknowledged that things had improved with the new area commands.

6)       The Committee highlighted that the response to priority areas residents felt were missing from the survey, were the County Council’s responsibility. They referred to a recommendation that was made to Cabinet in the previous year around communicating what the Tamworth Borough Council was responsible for and what the County Council was responsible for and that there was a wider problem around communication with some residents not having access to social media. It was asked whether a paper flyer/newsletter could be considered to be sent out to communicate to all residents.

7)       The Leader confirmed that this was important to them and agreed to look at ways to communicate this to all residents.