Although the 13th largest city in the UK, Stoke-on-Trent is rapidly outstripping a number of parts of the country with our economic growth and recovery.
Stoke-on-Trent is a city with a strong sense of civic pride - we’ve been voted the kindest city in the UK – and a place where you’ll receive a hugely warm welcome. We have a rich and diverse culture, steeped in our prestigious industrial heritage as the celebrated ‘world capital of ceramics’. But we don’t just want to celebrate our proud past – we firmly believe that Stoke-on-Trent’s best years are ahead of it. We are determined to raise aspirations and match them with high-quality education and health provision, as well as improved opportunities to secure fulfilling and well-paid work. Through uniting social and economic opportunities, we are maximising the full power of the city council as a secure and steadfast institution within the city.
With determination, hard work and commitment, we’re delivering a number of improvements across the city. We have a thriving Enterprise Zone, creating many jobs and drawing serious levels of inward investment. We have an enviable track record in delivering large numbers of new homes on brownfield sites. We have delivered the first complete gigabit-enabled full fibre digital network in the country. And we are using culture, our wonderful heritage and our beautiful green spaces to bring economic opportunity and improved quality of life.
Working with our partners across all sectors in the city, we are developing an alternative approach to economic development which will prioritise social and environmental health and wellbeing and encourage and incentivise new and fairer approaches to commerce and employment. We will unleash more of our city’s untapped potential and prosperity and dismantle the harmful barriers which have stunted aspirations and undermined outcomes for decades. And we will develop more effective and holistic preventative approaches to help those who will need additional support to fulfil their potential in our cleaner, greener, healthier, wealthier, safer and fairer city.
We are focused on supporting our residents through the cost of living crisis and in bringing businesses, other public sector organisation, community and voluntary groups together, to use our united strength to build group resilience and give the right support to residents who need it the most.
We have adopted a zero-tolerance approach to the illegal dumping of rubbish in our towns, taking stiff enforcement action against offenders who blight neighbourhoods, and ridding streets and alleyways of nuisance waste.
We have granted more than £5.6m in UK Shared Prosperity Funding to 19 local organisations and community groups on work that will reap huge benefits to the city in the medium term, through helping local businesses to thrive, improving local spaces and supporting residents with employment and skills opportunities. We are committed to using the £56m received in Levelling Up funding to bring the most benefit to our communities.
We are using £29 million from the government’s Transforming Cities Fund, to help us revolutionise the city’s transport network and how residents get around which includes a dramatic revamp of the area around Stoke-on-Trent train station. We are developing Family Hubs and have some ground-breaking programmes for working age adults too. We are enhancing services for residents aged 18 years and over with learning disabilities, to live more fulfilling and independent lives in their own tenancies with access to volunteering and working opportunities as part of our Learning Disability Strategy, and we have similar strategies coming forward around autism and mental health.
We have some challenges, but we also have many more opportunities. This is an exciting time for Stoke-on-Trent and a great time to join the City Council.
While this snapshot doesn’t get across the true extent of the exciting regeneration and development that’s happening here, these initiatives clearly show this is a city that’s on the up and one where you can truly be part of something innovative and diverse, with lots of inspiring opportunities for those residents we serve.
