With the local elections over, a new municipal year is beginning.
As leader of the council, I will do all I can to create conditions in which councillors of all parties can play a meaningful part in policy making. I want to call on all the experience and all the talent available to help us make the best decisions for the benefit of the people and the businesses of the borough.
I hope that the council’s cross-party Overview & Scrutiny Committees can build upon the successes of last year, when they played an important role in changing policies proposed to the executive.
Early involvement of the Overview & Scrutiny Committees was the key to their playing a constructive part and I hope to see more of that this coming year.
I will try, as I did in the last municipal year, to work collaboratively with councillors of other parties. In that spirit, I have offered chairs and vice-chairs of various council committees to the Labour and Conservative groups.
My own priorities are ones that I hope councillors of all parties can sign up to:
First, sound council finances, without which the council can do nothing positive in years to come.
There will be more work to reduce future budgetary pressures through prevention, early intervention, and invest-to-save measures, such as increasing in-borough provision for special educational needs, which will cut our future home-to-school transport costs.
We will also be pursuing new ways to generate extra income, such as our own solar farms – the new one in Barkham, when fully operational, will produce nearly £3 million of revenue a year to use on services for residents and businesses.
Second, focusing help on those who need it most, such as the frail elderly, adults with learning difficulties, and children with disabilities, as well as those experiencing acute hardship.
And third, working with others – in the voluntary and charitable sector, faith groups, business, education, health care, the Youth Council, and different local authorities – to pool knowledge, experience, and resources to tackle the challenges we face together.
Three examples might help to show the range of the partnership working underway and planned.
The council has been continuing to work productively with its voluntary and charitable sector partners in the Hardship Alliance, which is seeking to help those struggling in the current cost-of-living crisis.
The council is also working alongside its external partners in the work on the Community Vision, which will establish the council’s priorities for the years to come; and the council hopes to call on the Henley Business School and the new Berkshire Prosperity Board to help us formulate a Town Centre Strategy.
The days when the council could do it all on its own have gone.
Constrained finances are encouraging us to do what I have always felt we should do anyway – embrace the opportunities that working with others can bring.
Cllr Stephen Conway is the leader of Wokingham Borough Council and ward member for Twyford, Ruscombe and Hurst
