Agenda item

Mayors Annual Address

To receive a presentation from the Elected Mayor on the Cabinets

priorities for the coming year.

Minutes:

The Elected Mayor, Norma Redfearn, attended the meeting to share the Council’s achievements in the past year and her priorities for the year ahead.

 

It had been another extremely busy but productive year which had seen many of her commitments being fulfilled.

 

The Mayor acknowledged the hard work undertaken by her Cabinet, officers and all elected members to deliver the Councils vision and stated that it had been her mission to lead a Council that worked better for residents by dealing with the issues important to them and to deliver the real improvements for the borough that were most important to them.

 

Our North Tyneside plan

 

The Mayor continued to inform the Committee of the Council’s on-going priorities.

 

The Our North Tyneside Plan 2018-2021 would continue to ensure everyone in North Tyneside would have more and better opportunities, with the aim for the year ahead, to continue to drive forward and develop plans to keep North Tyneside a great place to live, work and visit.

 

Our people would receive the best start in life and have the right skills and abilities to achieve their full potential, find employment and live independently.

 

They will be healthy, well, and be cared for and protected if they become vulnerable. Residents will be able to volunteer and do more for themselves and their local communities. They will have a council that works better for them.

 

Our places will be clean, green, healthy, attractive and sustainable. The borough would be cycle-friendly with effective public transport and good roads, pavements and physical infrastructure.

 

Our coastline and town centres will be regenerated through projects across the borough. With a good choice of affordable homes and accommodation for older residents.

 

The boroughs award-winning parks and beaches, festivals and seasonal activities will make us a thriving place to visit.

 

Our economy would grow by supporting new businesses and the world-class companies based here. The Council would ensure the right skills and conditions were in place to attract new investment, and that high-quality job and apprenticeship opportunities would be available to all. On-going investment would make our business parks and town centres locations of choice for businesses of all sizes and in all industries.

 

These priorities had been formed by listening to residents, businesses and visitors and developing and allocating the Council’s resources to the things that matter most to them.

 

The Mayor stated she had continued to hold Listens Events on a Saturday morning in town centres, providing residents with the opportunity to talk to her and Cabinet at a time that was convenient to them about the things that matter to them.

 

The feedback from these and other engagement events had been extremely positive and had provided an opportunity to discuss issues of real importance to our residents.

 

The Mayor then focussed on what had been delivered.

 

Our People had seen a 20% increase in the number of children that have reached a good level of development in their early years. More children - especially those on free school meals- were achieving the expected level of development by the time they reach the age of five.

 

The inequalities between the most deprived and most affluent areas was closing and the equalities gap for our residents continued to narrow.

 

According to the Office for National Statistics, the unemployment rate in North Tyneside had fallen from 8.6% in 2013 to 4.9% in 2019.

 

With 89% of all schools in North Tyneside are judged to be Good or Outstanding by Ofsted.

 

Exam results this year had seen students achieving their best ever A-Level results, with GCSE results being maintained, with an average grade above the national average.

 

Sustained investment by the Authority into online and face to face advice and information was making a real difference to the lives of residents. The Authority was recently ranked 3rd best in the country, by adult social care customers, for advice and information being provided to them.

 

The Council was one of the top performing Authorities for the number of people supported with early help and prevention – that was an investment not just for those who had care needs but helping people before they need care services.

 

The Council was one of the top national performers for getting people out of hospital and back to good health and into their own home.

 

92% of adults with a learning disability in the Borough are either living at home or elsewhere in their community and was far higher than national and regional average.

The Authority’s Shared Lives and Reablement services were rated Good with Outstanding Features by the Care Quality Commission.

 

The Authority continued to offer supported accommodation to older people through North Tyneside Living. The development of Crossgates in Hadrian Park as an extra care scheme had been particularly successful and had helped the Authority manage a reduction in long term admissions to nursing and residential care.

 

Successful work between social care, housing teams and with other external Registered Providers had ensured there was a supply of high quality housing to meet the needs of vulnerable adults with a disability. The number of people supported was substantially above that of national and regional comparators.

 

Our Place – with the 100 anniversary since the first council house was built.

The Authority remained on target to deliver 3,000 new affordable homes by 2024.

 

In 2018/19 - 250 affordable were delivered as part of the 957 built and importantly 26 new Council homes were completed for our residents.

 

Seven of the borough’s parks received Green Flag Awards, with the Rising Sun Country Park, Benton Quarry Park, Marden Quarry Nature Reserve, Killingworth Lakeside Park, Wallsend Parks and Northumberland Park being recognised as being among the nation's finest parks and green spaces.

 

The Authority also received more Blue Flag awards than any other council area in the North East.

 

The Mouth of the Tyne Festival was again a success with more than 100,000 people attended the festival, bringing an estimated £1 million boost to the local economy.

 

Over the last year Spanish City received ten awards for the restoration of the building.

 

Looking forward, the Tour of Britain Cycle Race would be coming to the Borough on September 9 and would provide further opportunity to showcase North Tyneside to the rest of the UK.

 

The Authority continues to promote cycling as a sustainable travel choice and during the summer there were around 70 different events and activities ranging from guided rides to disability cycling initiatives as part of our Summer of Cycling.

 

Almost 2,000 children had been trained through Bikeability, a cycling training for children to ride a bike safely.

 

Monkseaton Middle School took part in ‘School Streets’, a national initiative to trial temporary closures to motor vehicles to make it easier for pupils, staff and parents to choose active travel for their journey to school, while also improving safety, congestion and air quality.

 

Approximately 19 infrastructure schemes – such as crossing facilities and cycle improvements - had been installed as a result of the travel safety audits undertaken as part of our Go Smarter Project.

 

The Authority called for a climate emergency in North Tyneside and although much had been achieved with the low carbon plan being years ahead of target, it was recognised there was more to do and being inspired by the passion of young people, plans were being accelerated to tackle the climate emergency and keep North Tyneside a great place to live work and visit.

 

Our economy continues to grow and the news that Sage will relocate to Cobalt Business Park was welcome news for the borough.

 

The Authority was attracting more businesses and creating more job opportunities at every skills level.

 

There are over 5,000 businesses based in North Tyneside, which was an increase of over 1,000 in five years, which provided more than 85,000 jobs, which are 15,000 more jobs than in 2013.

 

The Business Factory had helped 322 new businesses to start up in 2018-2019 and assisted 414 residents with self-employment advice.

 

The Swans Centre for Innovation opened in 2016 and currently provided 760 square metres of office accommodation, which would increase to an additional 940 square metres of refurbished office accommodation when refurbishments to the upper floors was complete.

 

The position within the River Tyne North Bank Low Carbon Enterprise Zone had made it an ideal base for small and medium-sized businesses specialising in the advanced engineering, sub-sea, marine, oil, gas and offshore renewable energy sectors.

 

Regeneration projects in Wallsend, Whitley Bay, Fish Quay and Forest Hall demonstrated the commitment given to all corners of the borough.

 

Secured funding of £200,000 enabled further development of the regeneration masterplan for North Shields town centre and would further regenerate the Fish Quay, with the funding helping to scope out plan for a more vibrant and connected town centre.

 

The Authority was working with Nexus to secure transport investment, with Homes England on housing opportunities at Murton and Kllingworth and with Port of Tyne to unlock new future development opportunities.

 

The Authority carried out a Peer Review in June of this year, led by the Chief Executive of Salford City Council and the results of the Review would be presented to Cabinet in October and shared with all members.

 

The Authority would launch a new programme focussed on customer service, The ‘We Serve’ programme, which would engage all staff to look at how residents are served and how to improve. The focus was to be split into four areas: Customer Promise, Brilliant basics, Customer First and Better Never Stops.

 

The Mayor stated that serving our residents is what we are here to do, so seeing what more we can do for them would only make us even better at it.

 

There was much more to do, but she was confident that along with the Cabinet and team of officers, the authority would deliver on its promises and continue to give the people and businesses of North Tyneside a Council they would be proud of.

 

Following her presentation the Mayor offered an opportunity to ask her questions.

 

A member stated there was continued uncertainty to what the effects Brexit would have on the borough and its residents and asked for further information to how the borough would be affected.

 

In response the Mayor stated that there was still uncertainty nationally and she was happy to meet and listen to members concerns.

 

It was AGREED that the Mayors Annual Address be noted.