We are committed to making Leicestershire a County to be proud of. Our key priorities for improving quality of life in communities relate to culture and leisure, transport, the environment, waste management and safer communities. We will work with our partners and each neighbourhood to ensure that every part of the County can make its views, needs and aspirations known. We are also committed to ensuring that our rural communities are well served and will continue to work within the Leicestershire Rural Partnership to achieve this. We will work with Leicestershire Together to deliver the following LAA priorities to ensure all our communities are stronger for the future:

Local people feel part of the decision making process and have a role in planning the future of their own community - 6% increase in adults who feel that they can influence decisions affecting the area;
Local people have a sense of community spirit and are supported in community activities to bring people together - 6% increase in adults who say people from different backgrounds get on well together; 3.5% increase in people giving unpaid help to groups, clubs and organisations;
Equality of access to services for everyone, including disabled people, minority ethnic groups, people who are vulnerable and people who live in deprived and rural areas, so that everyone can have a voice and secure independent living; and
Vital and thriving market town and village centres which act as ‘hubs’ for surrounding communities.

We recognise the important role that schools and education services play to support communities through for example extended school initiatives and related care such as child care, study support, health and social care and parenting support. Our commitment to this is set out in the Children and Young People’s section.

We will promote the economic well-being of the County by working with our partners to deliver a range of economic regeneration programmes to ensure that Leicestershire has a strong diverse economy where small, medium and large businesses can flourish. We will also work in partnership to ensure that our County has a positive image to attract visitors and investment. In our role in the Leicester Shire Economic Partnership we will seek to attract significant regional funding to support sustainable economic growth and work with our partners to deliver the following economic development priorities of the LAA:

Increase the vitality and viability of town and rural centres;
Increase the number of businesses starting up, expanding, and locating within the County – by 2008/09 increase business start ups by an extra 252 businesses;
Increase the contribution of tourism to the local economy;
Increase the number of people in employment and learning, including raising the level of skills and knowledge - 240 people in deprived areas helped from incapacity benefit into work by 2008/09; and
Work towards improving the provision of quality employment land and premises across the County.

To maintain our quality of life, Leicestershire communities need to be well protected with effective plans to respond to emergency situations. We will take a lead role on the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Local Resilience Forum to do this. We see the diversity of local people in Leicestershire as one of the County’s strengths and believe that local communities should play an important part in identifying the problems that affect them and in helping shape the solutions. We will give priority to building on our strong relationship with organisations and individuals in the voluntary and community sector and with faith communities. We will continue our joint work on the Compact and on the ChangeUp programme designed to increase the voluntary sectors’ contribution to public service delivery.

Page Last Updated: 5 June 2006