Council's Annual Review - a year of working hard for West Lancashire

During the meeting of Full Council last night, the 2022/23 West Lancashire Borough Council Annual Review was presented to councillors and carried.

The Annual Review aims to highlight our achievements in our priority areas and how this work made a positive difference to West Lancashire.

Highlights of the review include the opening of the Tawd Valley retail and leisure park, unveiling proposals for new leisure and wellbeing hubs, issuing over £9m in funds to help residents and businesses with the cost-of-living crisis through various government and local schemes, and delivering a further 37 new affordable homes through Tawd Valley Developments Ltd.

The report also considers high performance in our services, such as the improved energy efficiency of 250 council homes in Skelmersdale, made possible by almost £5m in funding from the Council and £1.8m from the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund. Our house-building company Tawd Valley Developments Ltd (TVDL) also completed 37 affordable new homes and started work on the £8m Fairlie development in Birch Green with 50 more new homes, now starting to welcome delighted tenants.

The Council have also worked hard to foster a sense of place and community in the Borough, marking events of national and local importance such as the late HM Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee celebrations, King Charles III accession proclamation and the 1st Battalion of the Duke of Lancaster Regiment marching through Ormskirk to exercise their Freedom of the Borough. A fantastic programme of cultural and entertainment events have also been enjoyed by residents and visitors in our town centres.

Councillor Yvonne Gagen, Leader of West Lancashire Bourgh Council, said: "I'm proud to see this annual review presented to councillors. The driving force behind every decision we make is our residents and the benefits they will see and feel from our efforts to deliver quality, value-for-money services that support their wellbeing and prosperity.

"The Peer Review we undertook in March 2022 was part of our commitment to improve our performance. A year later, our Peer review assessors returned and were impressed to see significant progress on our continued drive for improvement, and we will strive to continue to improve as we move forward."

You can read the Council Annual Review in full here www.westlancs.gov.uk/performancemanagement