Looking to the future

Hello everyone. Today (Wednesday) is International Women's Day, and a range of events is taking place across Bury to celebrate this. See My Newsdesk - Committed to creating an equitable society this International Women's Day for more details.

I'm glad that we're taking the lead in making sure women are properly represented in the workplace. Our new chief executive Lynne Ridsdale is the first woman to hold the council's top job on a permanent basis, and is also Bury's lead for health services.

It's important that we create an equitable society where everyone is treated with respect and give the opportunity to fulfil their potential, regardless of who they are.

Yes, we've come a long way from the world our grandparents knew, but there is still some way to go, which is why it's important we mark these occasions.

Onto the council's finances for 2023/24. I won't sugar-coat it - the tremendous financial challenge facing us meant we had to find £31 million to balance the budget.

This has been caused primarily by the high rate of inflation, which has led to steep rises in the cost of fuel and supplies. We are also having to cope with an ever-increasing demand for services, and a labour shortage.

And, as usual, we are not getting the additional funding we need to meet these demands.

However, I am still optimistic and ambitious for this borough. We're going forward on two fronts - supporting those who are most in need, and to transforming our town centres to create jobs and prosperity for the future.

Firstly: we're allocating an extra £400,000 to help the borough's most vulnerable through the cost of living crisis. This includes new council tax support grants of £100 to 1,000 households who are financially struggling but not eligible for the current support scheme.

We're also providing £100,000 in grants to community groups to improve their localities, and £51,000 to local councillors to spend in their area.

We're freezing Bury Market rents for an extra year to help traders recover from the effects of Covid lockdowns and with anticipated disruption during the £20 million renovation of the market.

And we're creating a £50,000 pot to support children in care and care leavers, and allocating £20,000 to support our armed forces veterans and cadets.

We've listened to people, which is why we're putting another £10 million into improving our roads, and £125,000 to deal with the backlog in tree maintenance, a topic that frequently fills our in-boxes.

And we're not going to close Bury Art Museum, but instead try to boost its income through commercial events.

Building on Bury's year as GM Town of Culture, we're putting aside £20,000 for cultural events this year, and £14,000 to celebrate the upcoming coronation of King Charles III and commemorate the life of Queen Elizabeth II, involving schools across the borough in creative projects.

Altogether, these measures are a clear message that we are on your side during these tough times.

But, while we need to support our most vulnerable here and now, we are also making great progress on our longer term and ambitious plans to regenerate our borough.

Plans to regenerate our town centres in Bury, Radcliffe and Prestwich are progressing well and sit alongside the development of town plans for Ramsbottom and Whitefield. We'll have more news on these very shortly. These transformational projects will help to secure the future of our local economy, with local jobs, skills and investment, while improving the environment.

Working together, we can ensure that our borough remains a great place in which to live, work and study for decades to come.