Communities, Environment and Economy Proposals

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Communities, Environment and Economy Services

This area of the Council provides services such as maintaining roads, managing planning applications, licensing premises, collecting household waste, maintaining public spaces, supporting local economic growth, and engaging with local communities.

Overall, the net budget for this whole department is £58.8m. This is a really important area of the Council for many of our residents. Services like Streetcare which keep our public areas clean and tidy have therefore not been put forward for budget reductions, despite the pressures elsewhere.


Communities, Environment and Economy Priorities

Key priorities in this area are as follows:

Grow our local economy and deliver good jobs with fair wages for our residents

  • Take action to address unemployment and reskilling
  • Enhance support to new and existing businesses
  • Deliver regeneration programmes to drive local growth that benefits residents
  • Provide support to key sectors of the local economy
  • Deliver new and improved infrastructure and transport to support the economy
  • Support the delivery of more housing, particularly affordable housing

Tackle the Climate Emergency

  • Ensuring the Council is carbon-neutral
  • Deliver more energy efficient housing and development
  • Support reduction of carbon across industry and business
  • Develop further green spaces and tree planting
  • Embed more sustainable transport
  • Delivery of the new Waste Strategy to reduce waste and increase recycling

Make our neighbourhoods even better places to call home

  • Improving the cleanliness of the borough
  • Improving the delivery of our Highways Service
  • Develop new approaches to engaging local people in local decisions and local services
  • Transform community assets to enable local residents to have joined-up and affordable facilities that meet the needs of each area of the borough
  • Preserve local heritage and support and promote the local cultural offer
  • Supporting the voluntary and community sector to ensure we tackle shared challenges


Communities, Environment and Economy Proposals

To balance the budget and ensure there is enough money to tackle the priorities set out above, the following proposals are under consideration:

(2.1) Additional investment in tackling homelessness to secure suitable accommodation and provide personal support to people who are homeless: We have seen a significant reduction in rough sleeping recently with additional support and temporary funding put in place during the pandemic. This is coupled with an increase in demand for Homelessness Services and a particular growth in complex cases, both of which are considered to be largely a result of the pandemic. We would like to continue to provide additional support for the highest priority cases who are most in need of help. This involves providing personal support to the individual and securing suitable and sustainable accommodation. This would cost an additional £1 million. We are also experiencing pressure on meeting the costs of temporary accommodation for people who are homeless but not at the stage of rough sleeping. Some of these costs are met from housing benefit but not over a certain threshold. To meet this demand this would cost an additional £1.5 million.

(2.2) Additional investment in highways and transport management to deliver improved services: The Transport and Highways Service covers our support of the integrated travel network, including public transport provision as well as active travel, rail, and road. This is a critical network for everyone in West Cheshire and a service that is essential to delivering a greener, fairer connected and prosperous society. We want to constantly improve and deliver on our net-zero ambition so we can deliver transport services that meet and exceed local expectations. We also want to innovate and grasp new opportunities to improve our approach to delivering transport. We are proposing investing £234,000 into additional management support in this area.

(2.3) Additional investment in staff to tackle flooding with a focus on prevention including drainage and flood defences: Recent flooding across the borough has had a devastating impact on local communities and businesses. The Council plays a key role in supporting the recovery from such incidents, but also identifying ways to prevent them happening in the future, through things like drainage and flood defences. An additional £147,000 is proposed to recruit further staff to support this work.

(2.4) Additional investment in Waste Services to collect and treat the increasing volume of waste being created by home working and increased housing: We now have a new Waste Management Strategy that will ensure that the service is affordable and contributes to our climate emergency goals. This will be supported by additional capital expenditure on items such as cleaner and greener waste collection vehicles. We constantly review the demand on the service to ensure we are meeting local needs. Due to factors such as more people working from home, and increasing numbers of new houses across the borough, the amount of household waste created is increasing. To fund the cost of collecting and treating that additional waste we are investing £710,000 into the service over the next three years.

(2.5) Additional investment in advice and support to help businesses recover from the pandemic: Many local businesses have encountered the toughest conditions in memory. The Council wants to continue to do what we can, working alongside many partner organisations, to support businesses to recover from the pandemic and is proposing to invest an additional £90,000 in additional advice and support. This includes support for affected employees, helping small and medium sized businesses to grow sustainably, support for community-based businesses and social enterprises, and a particular focus on our town centres.

(2.6) Streamlining traffic flow by enforcing traffic regulations: The Council is likely to have a new duty to enforce the law on a range of traffic offences such as entering and stopping in a yellow box, driving the wrong way down a one-way street, and performing a prohibited turn. If granted these powers, the Council can issue fines to individuals found to do this, to deter people from this behaviour and streamline the flow of traffic. This revenue is forecast to be around £120,000.

(2.7) Reducing energy costs and having a positive environmental impact through our actions to tackle the climate emergency and cut carbon emissions: We have a comprehensive and ambitious action plan to reduce carbon emissions both from the Council and the wider local area. This is backed by investment from the Council, Government, and the private sector. As a result of these actions, we will reduce energy costs on things like Council buildings and street lighting. We will also potentially earn income by generating electricity through things like solar farms. Overall, these actions could save £377,000 over the next three years as well as having a positive environmental impact.

(2.8) Increase rental income through the development of houses for rent: The Council takes an active approach to supporting the delivery of new housing. This meets the housing needs of local people but also creates income from the properties from rent. We forecast an additional £320,000 could be secured through our new housing programme.

(2.9) Additional investment to support the resilience of ongoing regeneration schemes as shopping habits and our high streets change: The current market conditions are impacting on the financial position of our major regeneration schemes in areas like Winsford and Northwich. We are expecting £570,000 less income than anticipated from next year due to changes in retail which have accelerated during the pandemic. In response we are actively marketing the schemes and negotiating with new and prospective tenants. It is also proposed that funding is put in place to meet this shortfall and manage our financial resilience whilst ensuring continued support to these areas of the borough.

Further ideas for the future

To meet future challenges the following is being considered, but work is at an early stage:

(2.10) Consider reviewing the Council fleet to ensure it includes low emission vehicles and it is cost effective: The Council has a range of vehicles to support a wide range of services including street cleaning, maintenance, waste collection, and transport for users of social care. We propose reviewing the Council’s whole fleet to ensure it includes low emission vehicles, is managed consistently, and is cost-effective.

(2.11) Consider delivering services in a more joined-up way through multi-use buildings in communities that are fit for purpose: We propose looking at our buildings in communities for opportunities to deliver a range of services in a more joined-up way from fewer, but more suitable facilities. This should improve the accessibility of services for local people and could reduce our costs.


Communities, Environment and Economy Services

This area of the Council provides services such as maintaining roads, managing planning applications, licensing premises, collecting household waste, maintaining public spaces, supporting local economic growth, and engaging with local communities.

Overall, the net budget for this whole department is £58.8m. This is a really important area of the Council for many of our residents. Services like Streetcare which keep our public areas clean and tidy have therefore not been put forward for budget reductions, despite the pressures elsewhere.


Communities, Environment and Economy Priorities

Key priorities in this area are as follows:

Grow our local economy and deliver good jobs with fair wages for our residents

  • Take action to address unemployment and reskilling
  • Enhance support to new and existing businesses
  • Deliver regeneration programmes to drive local growth that benefits residents
  • Provide support to key sectors of the local economy
  • Deliver new and improved infrastructure and transport to support the economy
  • Support the delivery of more housing, particularly affordable housing

Tackle the Climate Emergency

  • Ensuring the Council is carbon-neutral
  • Deliver more energy efficient housing and development
  • Support reduction of carbon across industry and business
  • Develop further green spaces and tree planting
  • Embed more sustainable transport
  • Delivery of the new Waste Strategy to reduce waste and increase recycling

Make our neighbourhoods even better places to call home

  • Improving the cleanliness of the borough
  • Improving the delivery of our Highways Service
  • Develop new approaches to engaging local people in local decisions and local services
  • Transform community assets to enable local residents to have joined-up and affordable facilities that meet the needs of each area of the borough
  • Preserve local heritage and support and promote the local cultural offer
  • Supporting the voluntary and community sector to ensure we tackle shared challenges


Communities, Environment and Economy Proposals

To balance the budget and ensure there is enough money to tackle the priorities set out above, the following proposals are under consideration:

(2.1) Additional investment in tackling homelessness to secure suitable accommodation and provide personal support to people who are homeless: We have seen a significant reduction in rough sleeping recently with additional support and temporary funding put in place during the pandemic. This is coupled with an increase in demand for Homelessness Services and a particular growth in complex cases, both of which are considered to be largely a result of the pandemic. We would like to continue to provide additional support for the highest priority cases who are most in need of help. This involves providing personal support to the individual and securing suitable and sustainable accommodation. This would cost an additional £1 million. We are also experiencing pressure on meeting the costs of temporary accommodation for people who are homeless but not at the stage of rough sleeping. Some of these costs are met from housing benefit but not over a certain threshold. To meet this demand this would cost an additional £1.5 million.

(2.2) Additional investment in highways and transport management to deliver improved services: The Transport and Highways Service covers our support of the integrated travel network, including public transport provision as well as active travel, rail, and road. This is a critical network for everyone in West Cheshire and a service that is essential to delivering a greener, fairer connected and prosperous society. We want to constantly improve and deliver on our net-zero ambition so we can deliver transport services that meet and exceed local expectations. We also want to innovate and grasp new opportunities to improve our approach to delivering transport. We are proposing investing £234,000 into additional management support in this area.

(2.3) Additional investment in staff to tackle flooding with a focus on prevention including drainage and flood defences: Recent flooding across the borough has had a devastating impact on local communities and businesses. The Council plays a key role in supporting the recovery from such incidents, but also identifying ways to prevent them happening in the future, through things like drainage and flood defences. An additional £147,000 is proposed to recruit further staff to support this work.

(2.4) Additional investment in Waste Services to collect and treat the increasing volume of waste being created by home working and increased housing: We now have a new Waste Management Strategy that will ensure that the service is affordable and contributes to our climate emergency goals. This will be supported by additional capital expenditure on items such as cleaner and greener waste collection vehicles. We constantly review the demand on the service to ensure we are meeting local needs. Due to factors such as more people working from home, and increasing numbers of new houses across the borough, the amount of household waste created is increasing. To fund the cost of collecting and treating that additional waste we are investing £710,000 into the service over the next three years.

(2.5) Additional investment in advice and support to help businesses recover from the pandemic: Many local businesses have encountered the toughest conditions in memory. The Council wants to continue to do what we can, working alongside many partner organisations, to support businesses to recover from the pandemic and is proposing to invest an additional £90,000 in additional advice and support. This includes support for affected employees, helping small and medium sized businesses to grow sustainably, support for community-based businesses and social enterprises, and a particular focus on our town centres.

(2.6) Streamlining traffic flow by enforcing traffic regulations: The Council is likely to have a new duty to enforce the law on a range of traffic offences such as entering and stopping in a yellow box, driving the wrong way down a one-way street, and performing a prohibited turn. If granted these powers, the Council can issue fines to individuals found to do this, to deter people from this behaviour and streamline the flow of traffic. This revenue is forecast to be around £120,000.

(2.7) Reducing energy costs and having a positive environmental impact through our actions to tackle the climate emergency and cut carbon emissions: We have a comprehensive and ambitious action plan to reduce carbon emissions both from the Council and the wider local area. This is backed by investment from the Council, Government, and the private sector. As a result of these actions, we will reduce energy costs on things like Council buildings and street lighting. We will also potentially earn income by generating electricity through things like solar farms. Overall, these actions could save £377,000 over the next three years as well as having a positive environmental impact.

(2.8) Increase rental income through the development of houses for rent: The Council takes an active approach to supporting the delivery of new housing. This meets the housing needs of local people but also creates income from the properties from rent. We forecast an additional £320,000 could be secured through our new housing programme.

(2.9) Additional investment to support the resilience of ongoing regeneration schemes as shopping habits and our high streets change: The current market conditions are impacting on the financial position of our major regeneration schemes in areas like Winsford and Northwich. We are expecting £570,000 less income than anticipated from next year due to changes in retail which have accelerated during the pandemic. In response we are actively marketing the schemes and negotiating with new and prospective tenants. It is also proposed that funding is put in place to meet this shortfall and manage our financial resilience whilst ensuring continued support to these areas of the borough.

Further ideas for the future

To meet future challenges the following is being considered, but work is at an early stage:

(2.10) Consider reviewing the Council fleet to ensure it includes low emission vehicles and it is cost effective: The Council has a range of vehicles to support a wide range of services including street cleaning, maintenance, waste collection, and transport for users of social care. We propose reviewing the Council’s whole fleet to ensure it includes low emission vehicles, is managed consistently, and is cost-effective.

(2.11) Consider delivering services in a more joined-up way through multi-use buildings in communities that are fit for purpose: We propose looking at our buildings in communities for opportunities to deliver a range of services in a more joined-up way from fewer, but more suitable facilities. This should improve the accessibility of services for local people and could reduce our costs.