Winning awards and planning for the future

First of all let me start by thanking all that kept working so hard while I was enjoying a holiday. 

The delights of Copenhagen for five days and then the Dorset Jurassic coast and a couple of days in London gave me a fantastic mixture of art, walking and rest and relaxation. I hope you got something similar over the summer time. 

Henry Moore at the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen

Sculpture made of marine and beach litter in Dorset

A legend

I have come back to a week of awards. At the beginning of the week, our head of policy, Richard Tuset was awarded the modestly phrased ‘I am Legend’ medal for his unstinting efforts behind the scenes to support Pride. The Rainbow Awards, who singled Richard out, have chosen a worthy medallion man.

Richard Tuset and me

The medal

The Queen’s Award

On Thursday I was honoured to be at the Mayor’s Parlour for the presentation for the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service to Brighton & Hove Healthwalks. On behalf of her Majesty the Queen, the Lord Lieutenant for East Sussex, Mr Peter Field and Deputy Lieutenant presented the award to Corinna Edwards-Colledge and Gill Lewis, volunteer walk leader. Corinna gave a very gracious acceptance speech as the manager of this initiative which has been going on for 11 years ensuring 20 walks a week and something like 30,000 hours of volunteering over the life of the healthwalks initiative. With exercise and friendships produced from this fantastic scheme, there were plenty of enthusiastic volunteers who were delighted by the Queen’s recognition. In the pictures you will see Husnul Haque, Richard Ince and Gill Lewis, volunteer walk leaders. 

At the Queen's Award celebration

Corinna Edwards-Colledge (purple dress) with volunteers

Husnul Haque, Richard Ince and Gill Lewis, volunteer walk leaders

UK’s best city for restaurants and bars

This week the Mayor and Lady Mayoress received the award for Brighton & Hove in recognition as the UK’s best city for restaurants and bars as voted by readers of Conde Nast publication. This was well-deserved and notable since we pushed London into second place. In the same series of awards, we were recognised as the fifth most popular place to visit in the UK; Edinburgh was voted as the first. 

Lady Mayoress and Mayor

Our award

An unsung hero

Finally this week Kemp Town’s street cleaner Rob Teagle will be recognised as an ‘unsung hero’ in an award he will receive tomorrow from the independent estate agent Paul Bott and Co. 

So quite a week for awards recognising the essence of Brighton & Hove – Pride; volunteering; a fantastic biosphere in which to walk; bars and restaurant that are the best in the country – a cultural and culinary leisure offer and a place to be proud of.

Planning our future

Much of the rest of this week I have spent with colleagues working on the way ahead, our future budget, services and plans. As you know we face significant challenge to take out more than £26 million of current expenditure as part of more than £100 million savings over the next four years. We, like every local authority in the country, have to change both what we do and the way we do things. In Brighton & Hove we are determined that we will change and that we should have, as our guiding star, the vision for the city as agreed by all city partners last year namely ‘Brighton & Hove - the connected city'. Creative, dynamic, inclusive and caring. A fantastic place to live work and visit’. This is what we discussed with senior managers on Wednesday. 

ELT in discussion with senior managers

Our senior managers

This year is a bigger challenge than in recent memory, but although it is daunting and will need significant change, our approach is one of openness in line with our values. So we want to involve all staff in the conversation about how we can change. We intend that the annual roadshows, which are being planned for October, as an opportunity to engage staff in this significant change.

Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing lots of information with you and you'll be hearing more from your manager soon. 

That’s all for now.
Penny