Issue - meetings

Report of Cabinet Member for Communities and Culture

The Committee considered a report of the Cabinet Member for Communities and Culture giving further details of the proposed new Vision and Delivery Plan for the County Council’s Countryside Estate (schedule 2 to the signed minutes).

At their meeting in February 2022, Members considered revised proposals for the management of the estate following the significantly changed context brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, which entailed its retention in-house. The new Vision was for the Estate to support the wider Vision set out in the County Council’s Strategic Plan 2022-2026 for, “an innovative, ambitious and sustainable County where everyone has the opportunity to prosper, be healthy and happy”. At that time, they requested further details of the Authority’s investment proposals/Delivery Plan so they could give pre-decision scrutiny prior to their consideration by Cabinet.

During her presentation of the report, the Cabinet Member highlighted the key actions contained in the Delivery Plan for supporting each of the Priorities included in the Strategic Plan, as follows:-

Priority 1: Support Staffordshire’s economy to grow, generating more and better paid jobs.

(i) Enhance catering offers at Country Parks; (ii) Explore increased provision of business units and business opportunities that linked to the Parks’ offer; (iii) Parks Promotion Plan – improved website, social media and promotion of the Parks’ offer, including linking with local businesses and cultural industries that complement the offer, leaflets and signage; (iv) Placements and traineeships to support growth of the green sector and address skills shortage; (v) Major redevelopment of café and visitor centre facilities at Marquis Drive and; (vi) Expansion of facilities at Chasewater.

Priority 2: Tackle climate change, enhance our environment and make Staffordshire more sustainable.   

(i) Increase carbon sequestration to help meet net zero through tree planting and habitat enhancement; (ii) Support nature recovery through habitat enhancement linked to the Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS); (iii) targeted species recovery work linked to LNRS; (iv) Promotion, education and behaviour change – events and activities to raise awareness of climate change and nature recovery and what people can do to help and; (iv) Greening the Countryside service – electric/Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) vehicles and equipment, renewable building technologies installed and adaption measures developed.

Priority 3: Encourage good health and wellbeing, resilience and independence. 

(i) Develop a Healthy Parks Programme to include health walks, mindfulness walks, activity promotion, outdoor gyms, etc. and explore social prescribing models. Link to Better Health Staffordshire plus groups already linked to sites for addiction recovery, mental health support etc. to expand offer; (ii) Undertake a programme of site improvement to improve accessibility and reduce barriers to use, including access for all facilities, dementia-friendly status etc. Ensure improved promotion of information about site accessibility and the site offer was available to target audiences; (iii) Provide an enhanced community/cultural/ arts offer including through volunteers and through externally funded programmes; (iv) Develop Volunteer Strategy and expand the volunteer programme to include volunteer wardens for key sites and broader volunteering to include conservation work,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29