Alongside all the statutory duties you will be familiar with, this rise will allow us to progress service improvements and capital projects in the coming year as we seek to help drive economic growth and improve the quality of life for residents.
While we are currently operating in difficult economic times, our citizens rightly expect us to look to the future:
· we will continue to secure external funding for a range of capital investment projects such as PEACE Plus and Levelling Up, to help us invest further in our local area
· we will be continuing to work with local and central government partners as part of the Belfast Region City Deal with the ambitious redevelopment plans for Bangor Waterfront
· our villages will benefit from £1.75M of investment thanks to the Small Settlements Regeneration Programme
· we will be further progressing plans for the redevelopment of Whitespots Country Park
· we are undertaking a review of all our current town and city Masterplans to produce new and updated frameworks for the revitalisation of our town and city centres relevant to a post covid environment
· we remain passionate about hitting the 2030 statutory recycling target of 70% and further establishing our reputation as a proud recycling Borough
· we will be continuing to deliver on our Roadmap to Sustainability
· we will be investing almost half a million pounds in events to help animate the Borough
· looking to the future we will continue to invest in our young people, giving them opportunities to shape our Borough through the Youth Voice initiative. We will also be running a range of summer schemes and providing grants for sports, community, arts, heritage and ‘in bloom’ initiatives
· Digitisation remains a priority as we seek to offer more efficient services to our ratepayers
· we have also agreed on a number of transformation proposals; some will be progressed over the next year and some over the longer term
· the year ahead will see a Local Government Election with a new term for the Council. This means we will also be developing a new corporate plan for the 2024-28 Council period.
It will be a busy year and there is much to look forward to.