Leader's update - 26 September 2011
As we draw to the end of September, it has been a busy week once
again at County Hall.
Enterprise zone
The restful break over the summer recess already seems a distant
memory! But, it has been an extremely productive month. We've some
great news for Kent - such as the new Enterprise Zone status for Discovery Park (the
Pfizer site in Sandwich), which promises to offer a real boost to
the East Kent economy, opening up new jobs and business for local
people. At last week's Task Force meeting, it was great to discuss
our latest report to the Government and reflect on what we've
achieved since Pfizer's announcement back in January: the
Enterprise Zone, a strong bid to the Regional Growth Fund, the
extension of the High Speed line to Sandwich and Deal, and the new
flood defences for the town and site. It really feels like a strong
package is now coming together for jobs and business in East
Kent.
Big Society
On Friday, I had the pleasure of taking part in a fascinating
panel debate about the Big Society hosted by the Bishop of Dover,
Trevor Wilmott. This was an excellent opportunity to talk seriously
about what can be done practically to support the growth of the big
society and I am really positive about the work we have been doing
as the local authority. It won’t be long before our ‘Big Society
Fund’ to support the growth of social enterprise in Kent is up and
running and I am confident this will make a real difference to the
growth of the voluntary and community sector in Kent.
Cabinet
We had our Cabinet meeting on Monday,
and it reminded me of how much change is underway at the moment,
with the structural reform in progress through the health agenda,
changes to our local partnership arrangements (Children's Trusts,
Locality Boards etc) and the restructure of the organisation as we
seek to meet the challenging savings set out in our medium term
financial plan.
Health reform
I am determined to make sure that Kent leads the way on health
reform, taking the opportunity to make real improvements for local
people. In my view, we need to capture the local innovation by GPs
in areas such as Dover to ensure that patient needs always drive
the system. We need to tailor the very best health and social care
to individual patient needs and cut through any bureaucracy to do
this. Local government has a real role to play in championing local
people and making sure Kent residents get very best care when they
need it.
Tomorrow's People
Getting the growing number of young people out of work into
training or jobs was the topic of conversation when I met Baroness
Scott, the charismatic chief executive of Tomorrow's People.
Tomorrow's People have a great track record and we have been doing
some work with them in Maidstone where we're supporting a number of
local families - you may have read about it in the Guardian on
Wednesday. Debbie and I share the ambition to use establish a
social enterprise programme which will offer all young people not
in education, training or employment an alternative to welfare,
giving them a real opportunity to get "work ready" by doing a mix
of community projects, training and work experience to motivate and
support them, giving them a real "leg up" into a local job or
further training. More about this soon.
Planning
National headlines have been dominated by changes to the
planning system and the need to balance growth with protection of
the countryside. I have been thinking long and hard about this and
am putting forward proposals to boost brownfield development, get
houses built where we need them and to safeguard our precious
countryside and green space. There is a way through the controversy
which will bring much-needed local employment, kick start areas of
the economy but preserve Kent's "sense of place" and our Garden of
England reputation. We will be helping the Government to find
it.