Consultation launched on new strategy to improve city’s wellbeing

Consultation launched on new strategy to improve city’s wellbeing

City council leaders have launched their draft plan on how the authority will work over the next four years to improve the wellbeing of residents through a series of key commitments that will tackle inequality, share wealth and support a better standard of living.

From today (7 December) residents and businesses can have their say on Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s draft strategy, called Our City, Our Wellbeing. The document sets out a fresh approach towards a new vision and set of priorities to improve the quality of life of residents, supporting businesses and communities across the board.

The strategy highlights six key themes to contribute to improved community wellbeing:

1. Healthier: Creating a healthier standard of living for all residents.
2. Wealthier: Reducing hardship and enabling greater shared prosperity.
3. Safer: Building empowered communities, safe from the threat of harm.
4. Greener: Conserving our environment and living more sustainably.
5. Cleaner: Working together to clean up our city and our communities.
6. Fairer: Tackling inequality and improving life chances for everyone.

The draft strategy sets out how the council will invest in and deliver services that support the city, and places significance on working with communities, other public services, businesses and other agencies to best use Stoke-on-Trent’s collective resources. The strategy has been developed at a time of financial uncertainty for local authorities across the country and with high demand for social care services in the city that has contributed significant pressure on council budgets. In this context, the strategy heralds a new preventative approach which aims to spot and tackle potential problems earlier, before they get really bad and require more drastic actions, such as taking a child into care for example. Investing in prevention and early intervention services is likely to save taxpayers’ money over time and work out a lot better for the people whom the council helps.

The five big programmes will be:

Supporting Family Life: working with the NHS, community groups and others to help families ensure a better start in life for their children through improved housing, education, increased income, and community support.

Reclaiming our streets and public spaces: help residents regain pride in our streets and public places by taking a strict approach towards those who want to harm our local environment through anti-social actions, graffiti and vandalism or illegal rubbish dumping.

Addressing hardship and poverty: support those who have the least, help them find better jobs and higher wages, maximise welfare benefits, deal with debt, and make sure they have a decent home.

Ensuring decent homes for all: use our influence and strong partnerships to solve ongoing problems like fuel poverty, dampness, and mould, and to help people achieve their housing goals, including owning a home.

Supporting people to live independently: support people with physical and learning disabilities, long-term mental health conditions and those who are frail to live in our communities rather than in institutional care.

Council leader Jane Ashworth said: “This corporate strategy sets out the council’s vision and priorities for the next four years, based on our assessment of the main challenges and opportunities that we expect to deal with during this time.

“It focuses on supporting family life from an early, preventative stage, restoring pride in our streets and tackling anti-social behaviour, addressing hardship and poverty, supporting residents to live in decent homes and helping people to live independently.

“This new approach will allow us to work with partners and take a preventative approach to address these issues facing our city, rather than delivering support services that respond to problems that have already happened.

“These things being said, what is not in our gift is the spiralling costs of social care and rising demographic pressures of social care, and this leaves us in a challenging financial position. We have taken every responsible step to address this and are working at length with the government, and seeking advice from national financial bodies.

“We continue to have an open dialogue with government, and with the right support, we can get on with helping our great city to grow.”

Residents are now being urged to have their say on these priorities. People can submit their feedback via an online questionnaire at www.stoke.gov.uk/ourcityourwellbeing. Throughout the consultation, which will continue for three months until 28 February, there will also be focus groups with key stakeholders from the business, community and voluntary sectors.

Councillor Ashworth continued: “It is really important we get feedback from residents; this is our city and we all need a say. Please take the time to answers the questions and share how you feel about our vision and what we should prioritise.

“We believe in our city, we see the creativity, fortitude and industry of our residents and the ambition and innovation of our businesses. Through this proposed strategy we can harness these great strengths and break the vicious cycle that thirteen years of austerity has created.”

The consultation will run until Wednesday, February 28, 2024.

Residents can review the draft strategy at www.stoke.gov.uk/ourcityourwellbeing.