Issue - meetings

The council’s Corporate Strategy will guide council activity and budget planning over the next four years. This report invites Council to adopt the Corporate Strategy and its associated outcomes framework as set out in the appendix.

The Council considered the Corporate Strategy and its associated framework which will guide council activity and budget planning over the next four years.

Councillor Robin Moss, Chair of the Corporate Policy Development & Scrutiny Panel, presented the comments from the Panel, which looked at the wider national context as well as the local picture.

On a motion from Councillor Dave Wood, and seconded by Councillor Sarah Warren, it was unanimously

RESOLVED to adopt the Corporate Strategy 2023-2027 as set out in the appendix to the report.

The Council’s Corporate Strategy provides a framework for the Council’s plans over the next four years.  The attached report invites Cabinet to approve the draft Corporate Strategy document, as set out in the Appendix, and to recommend its subsequent adoption by Council.

Cllr Dave Wood introduced the report, moved the officer recommendation and made the following statement:

“The Corporate Strategy is a framework for what the Council will deliver for residents over the next four years.  It brings together what you’ve told us is important, what you voted for in the election in May – and integrates this into the Council’s plans and way it makes decisions.

Listening to residents and acting on their concerns is our commitment.  We will find new ways to reach residents to find out their views and priorities.  We will work with communities to identify the local priorities that people really care about.  Area working will ensure Council thinking is joined up and focussed on local communities.

We will continue to improve frontline services.  Services declined after a decade of central government cuts to local government, but over the last four years we have started to reverse those cuts – millions extra invested in road repairs and cleaner streets as one example.  We will continue to improve frontline services and take pride in our area.

We will continue to put climate at the heart of everything that we do and will use an evidence based approach to ensure all our decisions are helping us on our journey to Net Zero. 

I’d like to thank the residents of B&NES for trusting us and giving the Lib Dems a historic second term in control of the Council, and with an increased majority.  We will repay that trust by listening to you and focussing on the issues that matter to you the most.”

Cllr Sarah Warren seconded the motion and made the following statement:

“This evening I am proud to support this corporate strategy, the first time ever that an administration in Bath and North East Somerset has been entrusted by voters with a second term to really embed their policies. This will be an opportunity to double down on action on the climate and ecological emergencies declared in the last four years.

This month, the world has repeatedly recorded the hottest day since records began, and it follows the UK’s warmest year on record. Lord Deben, Chair of the Committee on Climate Change told the Prime Minister a fortnight ago that, “the UK has lost its clear global climate leadership”, and that, “game-changing interventions from the US and Europe, which will turbocharge growth of renewables, are leaving the UK behind.”

The situation also remains serious for nature. The Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs published biodiversity indicators for the UK last December, showing declines since 2015 in biodiversity of marine life, of habitats and species of European importance, of wild birds, and of pollinating insects. Bearing in mind of course, that the natural world provides our food, our clean air and water, and ultimately disposes of our biodegradable waste. The same report also shows declining investment in biodiversity over the same period.

It is in this context, of an ambivalent UK government that has lost interest in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13