Strong progress is being made in delivering the City Council’s priorities for Building a Better Plymouth despite significant challenges caused by national factors, a new performance monitoring report shows.
The report to Cabinet highlights evidence that employment rates are improving, anti-social behaviour incidents reducing, the number of young people in education, employment or training increasing and the numbers of households prevented from becoming homeless increasing.
The report also highlights a wide range of initiatives during the last quarter that have helped deliver the administration’s priorities of tackling crime and anti-social behaviour, filling in potholes, creating cleaner streets, building new homes, green investment and better access to healthcare.
They include:
- A new multi-agency working group focusing on predatory and high-risk males within the evening and night-time economy as part of the work to tackle violence against women and girls
- A trial of Velocity patching technology which has seen around 10,000 road repairs that didn’t require excavations to the road surface, speeding up the repair process
- Investment in a new fleet of mechanical street sweepers, including one dedicated to more sweeps of pavements on key routes and another to clean rear lanes, using special steel brushes to tackle weeds
- Work with partners on schemes to deliver new and refurbished homes at Millbay, Plympton, Efford and Barne Barton
- The development of a Green Skills Action plan and the mapping of green skills and training needs in the city
- Success in securing funding to support net zero investment to deliver renewable energy schemes
- The dental task force working together on initiatives to tackle the crisis in dental provision, including the securing of dental appointments for a number of schools.
The report also highlights ongoing challenges, including the numbers quitting smoking not dropping quickly enough, not enough Key stage 4 pupils achieving in English and Maths and an increase in the number of people on dental waiting lists.
Councillor Chris Penberthy, Cabinet member for Housing, Cooperative Development and Communities, said: “This latest performance report is encouraging as it shows real, tangible progress on a whole range of critical issues for Plymouth – and things that we know make a difference in the lives of many residents.
“It is particularly encouraging to see the number of incidents of antisocial behaviour is down in the last quarter and more people being successfully supported to avoid becoming homeless.
“It is also encouraging to see employment rates increasing as a result of the huge amount of ongoing work to attract and secure employment opportunities and investment in the city and to ensure there opportunities for residents to develop the skills required for the current job market.
“Many of the challenges we continue to face in Plymouth – such as rising homelessness and lack of access to dental care – are down the national issues and the ongoing cost of living crisis – but we are determined to ensure that tackling them alongside our partners remains a high priority.”