Cheshire East Council invites residents to shape the future, together

Cheshire East Council is inviting residents to help shape the future, together, as part of its work to develop a new strategic plan for the borough.

The council is developing a new plan for a number of reasons including:

• The significant number of new elected members following the elections in May and a need to reflect post-election priorities;
• The changing context of which the council is now operating in, with regards to the financial challenge caused by factors such as rising inflation;
• A greater need to focus council resources to meet increased service demands and costs, and;
• Improvement in digital technology and artificial intelligence which the council needs to safely and securely take advantage of to drive efficient service delivery. 

The council is inviting its partners, residents and customers to shape the priorities and ambitions of Cheshire East for the short, medium and long term together, through a series of engagement events and a survey.

The emerging priorities that the plan is seeking to develop are the need to reduce health inequalities and implement the outcomes of the recently updated health and wellbeing strategy, and to continue commitments to achieving net zero for both the council and for Cheshire East. The council will be seeking views to shape the activities and areas to prioritise into the future.

Councillor Sam Corcoran, chair of Cheshire East Council’s corporate policy committee, said:

“We need to make sure our services are delivered as effectively and efficiently as possible, especially when we have less money available. A new plan will help us to do this as it considers what we want to achieve over the next few years and is backed up by our budget, which will say how we then pay for it.

“Councils have significant challenges over the next few years. There is an urgent need to prioritise and target service delivery to areas that need them the most. The Cheshire East Plan is a way we can ensure we focus on the priorities of our communities and place the care of people at its heart.  

“The new plan will support us with the decisions we have as we meet the increasing demands on our services and significant challenges ahead. We want to understand what people want the Cheshire East of the future to look like, and what the ingredients are to making our borough a good place to live, work and visit.

“I would urge everyone to fill out the survey or come and talk to us at an engagement event. If you have never interacted or given your views to the council before – now is the time to do so. We want to know the views of residents to help guide us when we make the difficult decisions that we know lie ahead.”

The survey, which is now open until midnight on Friday 15 December 2023, can be found by visiting: 

https://surveys.cheshireeast.gov.uk/s/ShapingOurFuture23/

The council is inviting the public to drop in and participate in interactive activities and share views to shape the future.

The public engagement events will be open at the following venues:

• Crewe Market Hall on 15 November 11:30am – 3:30pm and 16 November 3:30pm – 7pm
• Macclesfield Grosvenor Centre (near Greggs) on 22 November 11:30am – 3:30pm and 23 November 2- 5:30pm