Agenda item

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 developing net zero industries, backtracked on fossil fuel commitments, and whose progress the Climate Change Committee has criticised as too slow and lacking urgency, that it is beholden now on local government to show leadership, and this is what Bath and North East Somerset’s Corporate Strategy aims to do for the next four years.

We are in no doubt that we will be delayed and stymied at times by lack of government support: for instance, by restrictive national planning rules, by government prevarication around support for making homes energy efficient, by a profit-led bus industry, by an inadequate electricity grid, by transport ministers actively undermining our efforts to enable walking, wheeling and cycling, and by government’s failure to control airport expansion, to mention just a few.

Nevertheless, I am proud that our latest corporate strategy shows a clear determination that Bath and North East Somerset council will continue to do all within our power to provide the support to enable our community to be carbon neutral and nature positive by 2030. Over the next four years, we will further embed these values into all our decision-making, which will be made in the context both of an understanding of the environmental limits of our planet, and overlaid on a social and economic foundation, in line with the principles of doughnut economics.

I am delighted to second the recommendation this evening.”

Cllr Tim Ball stated that he was happy to see Liberal Democrats working hard for residents and stressed the importance of remaining focussed on the delivery of this strategy.

RESOLVED (unanimously):

(1)  To approve the draft Corporate Strategy 2023-2027 attached at Appendix 1 of the report and to recommend it to Council for adoption.

(2)  To delegate authority to the Chief Executive in consultation with the Deputy Leader (Cabinet member for Council Priorities and Delivery) to develop and implement an organisational decision framework tool to support implementation of the Corporate Strategy.