Council outlines priorities for coming year

Two years ago, the council set out its vision for Herefordshire in the County Plan 2020-24. How the council is progressing towards meeting these ambitions and its priorities for the coming year are outlined in a new Delivery Plan 2022/23, which has been agreed by Cabinet.

The County Plan 2020-24 describes how the council will work to ensure a thriving county by building on the strengths of its people and places, particularly focused on the key areas of environment, community and economy.

Key achievements over the past year have included:

• Boosting the support available to residents within their own communities through the opening of 46 talk community hubs and a talk community kitchen providing healthy meals;
• Supporting local businesses to grow and thrive with investment in new buildings such as the Shell Store business incubation centre, and helping hundreds of businesses access £46m of grant funding towards equipment, new premises and faster broadband.
• More than 1,000 independent retailers across the county benefitted from custom through the Shop Local prepaid card scheme funded through covid recovery monies
• Encouraging people to get more active in how they live, with free swimming lessons for around 10,000 children and adults; and how they travel, with dozens of new e-bikes for hire in the City and over 60,000 free bus journeys at weekends – all helping to improve overall health and wellbeing.

Priorities for the coming year outlined in the Delivery Plan focus on:

• Environment - reducing the amount of household waste generated in the county; investment in Hereford to improve public spaces and travel in the City, reducing the carbon footprint of the council and the county
• Community – investing in services to improve the health and wellbeing of children, development of affordable housing and council-owned care facilities, supporting the opening of further talk community hubs
• Economy – supporting business opportunity and growth, implementing developments plans for the towns and City including the redevelopment of Hereford library and museum, helping to secure better accessibility to broadband throughout the county

Full details can be found in the Delivery Plan 2022/23

Cllr Liz Harvey, Cabinet member finance, corporate services and planning, said: “We are now half way through our delivery of the ambitions we outlined in our County Plan, and despite the past two years being the most challenging any of us have ever experienced so much has been achieved.

“We set out clearly how we aimed to protect and enhance our environment, strengthen communities and support our economy. Over the past two years we have supported some of our most vulnerable residents and helped create more resilient communities, invested in business and growth, and offered opportunities for people of all ages to get more active – to name only a few of the ways our activities have benefitted everyone in our county. And all at a time when we were also responding to a pandemic.

“We have taken great strides but there is still more to do. We are realistic about the scale of the challenge - rising costs and changing demands means facing tough choices about where to focus resources. This delivery plans sets out how over the coming year council services will enable residents to get on with their lives day-to-day and provide them with support when they need it, invest in services for children, encourage and assist business to thrive, and how we will work to protect and enhance the beautiful county we live in.”