It’s been another busy month at the council, with the opening of The Base - the new Youth provision for the town.
It is great to have met with the young people who co- designed the venue with us and understood the thinking behind their design. The centre boasts a recording studio, design lab, podcasting studio, hair and beauty centre, gym as well as a hangout area and place for the charities who will be running the centre to run their sessions and work.
It is great to be working with WAY UK, SMASH and STEP Swindon and it is really great to see the centre up and running. We’re really looking forward to seeing how the space develops and what the young people using the centre can do.
Hearing that Youth Voice is really important to us and we are keen to find more ways to engage with them.
The Health & Wellbeing Board has a duty to receive a report from the Director of Public Health each year, and we were delighted to receive a report that was co- produced with young people from WAY UK, setting out the key priorities for young people in the town.
They raised mental health support, access to dentists and the ongoing inequality in the town as key issues, and we have looked to address these through the council’s work over the coming months.
Engagement with residents and responding directly to their concerns is exactly what we want the council to be doing, and we have directly responded to comments that it is too hard for people to engage with the council face-to-face by creating a new help desk at the Central Library where residents can speak directly to council officers to raise concerns and get support.
If this is a success, we will look to widen the scheme to the other libraries to try to get support to residents closer to where they live.
We are also holding another series of Let’s Talk Swindon events, which have been well-received before. This set is looking at skills development, so that we can support Swindonians to build up their skills and reach their potential.
We are looking to work with businesses, education establishments and residents to understand the different skills needs and how we can create effective pathways for people to get their skills they need to build their careers. Check out the council’s website and Facebook pages to see when the sessions are happening!
I wanted to end the column this week with a thank you to the Chief Exec of the council for her hard work helping us transform the council and congratulate her for a shortlisting for Chief Exec of the Year at the Municipal Journal’s annual awards.
It is great to see her passion and commitment being rewarded. It is really nice to see the external praise for the work we are doing to try to turn the council around and make it a more inclusive and effective organisation that is working with residents to build the better Swindon we all want to see.
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