STRONGER COMMUNITIES AND FAMILIES IN NORTHUMBERLAND

STRONGER COMMUNITIES AND FAMILIES

Our aim is to ensure all residents feel genuinely safe, belong and have a say in how the county is run. We aim to provide a range of quality community and cultural services, and facilities to inspire creativity and participation.

● Woodhorn Museum (through an annual investment of £1 million from the

Council) was the first - and is one of only three - venues to host the iconic

‘Weeping Window’ - the installation attracted over 125,000 visitors to

Woodhorn during the seven week period in autumn 2015.

● Visits to Northumberland funded museums have increased by 30% in the previous year.

● Three of Northumberland’s most popular tourist spots have scooped top honours at 2016s BBC Countryfile Magazine awards. Northumberland National Park won the National Park of the Year award; Hadrian’s Wall scooped the Heritage Site of the Year; with Bamburgh Castle taking the title of Landmark of the Year.

● In February 2016 the council approved major plans for the redevelopment of Hexham House, a grade 2 listed building with dramatic views over Hexham Abbey. The £1.5m scheme will involve the creation of a new Register Office and two wedding ceremony venues with seven luxury holiday apartments in the remainder of the building.

● In February 2016 a new scheme to celebrate and promote food and drink produced entirely in Northumberland was launched. ‘Produced in Northumberland` is a joint initiative between Northumberland County Council, Active Northumberland and Northumberland Tourism, which recognises producers and businesses that use and promote food and drink made in the county. The verification scheme aims to raise the profile, value and public confidence in Northumberland food and drink. The economic impact of food tourism in the county is worth nearly £276m a year and it’s hoped the scheme will help to add value to the visitors’ overall experience as food and drink is such an important and memorable part of their visit.

● For the seventh year running residents benefited from free or discounted entry to top attractions in Northumberland during a weekend in March as part of the Residents’ Festival organised by Active Northumberland and the Council.

● Northumberland County Council in partnership with Northumberland National Park Authority secured a four year funding deal for a busy Northumberland bus route which should bring legions of tourists to Hadrian’s Wall. The AD122

bus service which runs along the most spectacular stretch of the World Heritage Site from Hexham to Haltwhistle during Northumberland’s peak tourist season (Easter-September) is used by both residents and tourists allowing them to visit stops along Hadrian’s Wall. In 2015 there were around

5,000 more journeys on this bus service than the previous year.

● Berwick is to get a new town centre coach park at Chapel Street to support tourism and boost the economy of the town.

● Following a £400,000 investment from the government, the Hadrian’s Wall Connect Project is set to boost tourism numbers in 2016 through a range of improvements to make it easier for visitors to access the unique World Heritage Site. The grant led by VisitEngland has helped to secure the popular Go North East AD122 bus service for a further four years and will also see the introduction of ‘Hadrian’s Wall Welcome Hubs’ at key visitor locations including Carlisle, Haltwhistle and Hexham railway stations.

● A popular coastal footpath, known locally as Lover's Walk and part of the Coast path and St Oswald's Way trail, has been reopened in Alnmouth following repairs by Northumberland County Council and Northumberland Estates.

● In 2015 Northumberland Live was launched, a free music festival which took place in Blyth. Due to its success events took place in 2016 in Blyth and for the first time in Bedlington; attracting 12,000 and 6,500 people respectively.

● We are keeping our communities safer through our £7 million investment in two new fire stations at Hexham and Alnwick and have improved our emergency response equipment with a new £200,000 incident command and control vehicle and a new special rescue vehicle. Hexham fire station is due to open in December 2016 whilst Alnwick, combined with a new depot is set to open in Spring 2017.

● Staff from our adult social care direct payments team are offering a range of support to people who prefer to employ their own care and support workers. The service makes it easier to manage the technicalities of being an employer

– making it less intimidating to handle issues such as tax, insurance, criminal record checks (Disclosure and Barring Service, or DBS checks) and immigration status. For those who wish to use it, employment can give more personalised control over who provides support and care, and how it is provided. It is available both to people who qualify for public support - through cash Direct Payment or Personal Health Budget - and those who fund support themselves.

● Our annual ‘LOVE Northumberland’ awards – now in their seventh year - celebrate the very best in community and voluntary environmental work

across the county making the county the great place it is; preserving and improving the environment in the county, celebrating community spirit and promoting county pride.

● More than 50 local residents have been honoured as local heroes for the contribution they’ve made to their community in the Northumberland Local Heroes Awards launched in 2012. The awards highlight how much good work is done by local people for the benefit of neighbours and their local area.

● Our adult social care support planner service is working in conjunction with Northumberland Clinical Commissioning Group to encourage GPs to refer adult patients who are lonely and isolated to our support planner service. The initiative supports the national Social Prescribing agenda which aims to improve health and wellbeing by helping people access local community activities and support.

● The national organisers of the Tour of Britain hailed the Northumberland stages of the race in September 2015 as a major success showing that the direct economic impact of hosting the event was £2.13m. The county was showcased across 129 countries during the two-day event with 115,000 spectators, of which 21% of spectators came from outside the North East region and 23% stayed overnight. The North Sea Tall Ships Regatta is estimated to have generated £8m in economic benefits to the county.

● The 2015 Kielder Marathon, sponsored by the Council and Active Northumberland, saw an increase of 43% participation over the Marathon weekend compared to the previous year. 52% of participants came from the local area with 79% of participants booking overnight accommodation.

● Over £1 million has been invested in improving and developing our parks over the last three years with the regeneration of two parks in Berwick and the development of a new water play area in Amble. Investment of up to a further

£2 million is planned over the next three years to undertake enhancement projects in the parks in Hexham, Ashington, Bedlington, Cramlington, Blyth and Morpeth.

● Developments will take place at a number of existing sports pavilions as well as the development of a new community pavilion at Gallagher Park, Bedlington which will create community and changing facilities. £137,000 towards this development was secured from Sport England.

● Investments continue to be made to ensure we can provide top quality outdoor playing pitches in the county. Over the last year we have invested over £330,000 in the refurbishment of all-weather pitches at Prudhoe and Hirst Welfare, Ashington, as well as securing an additional £483,000 from the Football Foundation for the development of a new artificial turf pitch at Bedlington High School.

● In 2014, 9.3 million people visited Northumberland, a rise from 8.8 million in

2013.

● The overall economic impact of tourism in Northumberland increased by 2.3%

in 2014 to £765 million, up from £747 million in 2013.

● Residents in Northumberland are benefitting from a new scheme which will see free central heating fitted to a number of homes without, or with only partial, central heating. NCC successfully bid for a £6.5m Government grant on behalf of other local authorities in the region to tackle fuel poverty. Twenty projects nationwide were awarded funding, totalling £25 million as part of the Central Heating Fund scheme which will improve the energy efficiency of more than 7,000 households across England.

● We continue to invest significant resources in helping schools to improve despite central government’s move to take this responsibility away from local authorities.

● We act as champions for children and parents and challenge schools and academies to provide the very best. We have two very significant issues of challenge; firstly the number of pupils in secondary schools that are not good enough and secondly the progress made by our most disadvantaged young people. An impressive 98% of parents got their first preference in 2016 for a secondary school place, an increase of two percent over last year’s 96% figure and one of the highest in the country. The council processed 4,957 applications for places at middle and high schools across the county.

● Apprenticeships, traineeships and study programmes provided through our Learning and Skills team are rated ‘Good’ by Ofsted. We are keen to develop the skills agenda in partnership with colleges and other local authorities.

● We have supported 732 families through the Government's Troubled Families programme

● Since it was introduced in 2012 some 800 young people from across the county have taken part in the National Citizen Service (NCS) programme, which is designed to equip school leavers between the ages of 16 and 17 with skills in community leadership and organisation.

● Whilst many councils have completely stopped supporting Post-16 school’s travel investment we continue to invest £1.4 million, recognising the rural nature of the county.

● An exciting new combined education and leisure facility is being developed for Ponteland. The council is investing £57 million of capital in new buildings for a Ponteland Secondary School and Ponteland Primary School on a shared site,

with leisure facilities. The investment will allow state of the art facilities to be developed and new buildings constructed for a Ponteland Secondary School and Ponteland Primary School on a shared site, along with the community leisure facilities. New school buildings will also be developed for Darras Hall First School to support it in becoming a primary school on its existing site.

● We have worked with over 70 schools across the county to promote sustainable and healthy travel to over 15,000 pupils encouraging more walking, cycling and scooting to school.

● The Council is contributing more than £4 million to new high schools being built in Alnwick, Bedlington and Prudhoe. This means from September 2016 more than 2,800 pupils will have a better environment in which to learn as well as the communities having new and improved leisure facilities to use in the evenings and weekends. More than £3.3 million has been invested in maintaining schools across the county and £5.02 million is being invested in

an extension to Ashington High School.

● £14.9 million is being invested in improving and extending ten schools in Alnwick following a reorganisation of schools in the Alnwick Partnership, as well as building a new high school in the town.

● We are focussing on developing our provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities in partnership with local special schools and the Department for Education.

● We continue to work with the regional schools commissioner to ensure new academy sponsors are well matched to meet the needs of schools in Northumberland who they wish to sponsor.

● The variation in GCSE results across secondary schools and academies is far too wide and we are determined to continue to challenge schools and academies to do better.

● Our Northumberland School meals team was shortlisted in the north east catering awards, North East LACA Awards Excellence 2016 for the Catering Management team of the year for the improvements it has made to the school meals provision. Stamfordham First school was also shortlisted for the Primary School Catering team of the year for its high level of initiative, creativity and passion and for the extra steps is has taken to engage the children and the wider community.

● Working on behalf of the North East Combined Authority we have secured

£3.3 million to support unemployed jobseekers with mental health conditions into paid employment.

● The Council, working in partnership with Northumberland Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations has been successful in attracting £3 million from the national Building Better Opportunities programme to support residents who have multiple and complex needs into work. This will be delivered by a partnership of six Northumberland VCS organisations who will provide a flexible range of peer support and mentoring across the County.