ONE WARRINGTON: ONE FUTURE
WHERE EVERYONE MATTERS
A SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY STRATEGY
FOR WARRINGTON 2009 TO 2030
Making it happenThe Partnership Board, having led the development of One Warrington: One Future, will ensure that its vision, ambitions and priorities are delivered. The thematic groups and partner agencies will steer resources and commission services and programmes to address the priorities. The Sustainable Community Strategy guides and steers more detailed plans and programmes, many of which have been referred to in this document. Others have yet to be developed. All will be able to demonstrate how they support the shared vision and ambitions for the borough.
As the overarching plan for promoting and improving the wellbeing of the area, this strategy also needs to take account of, and be taken into account by, other local and (sub) regional plans. The following plans and strategies are amongst those closely linked to Warrington’s Sustainable Community Strategy.
Local Development Framework
This is the land use strategy for Warrington. It is currently in development and replaces the Unitary Development Plan. It will become the ‘spatial expression’ of the Sustainable Community Strategy ensuring that our future land use supports the delivery of our vision and ambitions for the borough. We have closely aligned the development of the Local Development Framework with the Sustainable Community Strategy by developing common baseline information and consultation via the Borough Portrait and working together on the vision for the borough.
Housing and homelessness strategies
Warrington Borough Council has refreshed its housing and homelessness strategies to ensure they reflect the wider vision of the council and partners. The key priorities of these strategies are consistent with the Sustainable Community Strategy.
Regional and sub-regional plans
The Regional Spatial Strategy sets out the government’s planning and transport policy for the region for a 15-20 year period. It provides a framework for determining planning applications as well as for preparing parts of the Local Development Framework and the Local Transport Plan. The strategy for the North West was formally adopted in September 2008 and a partial review focusing on gypsies and travellers, travelling show people and car parking standards is underway.
The government has outlined proposals to integrate the Regional Economic Strategy and Regional Spatial Strategy into a single integrated Regional Strategy which would be prepared by regional development agencies. This will require legislation and until such time as that is in place, we have had regard to existing regional plans when preparing the Sustainable Community Strategy.
Other statutory plans
Other statutory plans and policies that have been considered in preparing the Sustainable Community Strategy and that need to have regard to its vision and priorities in the future are:
- Warrington Community Safety Strategic Assessment and Partnership Plan
- Local Transport Plan
- Children and Young People’s Plan
- Municipal Waste Strategy
- Licensing policy.
Local and neighbourhood plans
Warrington is developing its approach to neighbourhood planning. Some parts of the borough already have neighbourhood plans in place and we will be developing them across the rest of the borough. These will serve as local delivery plans for the One Warrington: One Future priorities and be particularly focused on our ‘closing the gaps’ priority.
Local Area Agreement
Each area’s Sustainable Community Strategy has a Local Area Agreement (LAA) linked to it. This is an agreement made with central government which establishes up to 35 stretching targets linked to our priorities (plus 16 statutory targets for education) for the partnership to meet over a three-year period. Many of these targets also contribute to the achievement of national priorities, for example, increased educational attainment, reduced carbon dioxide emissions, reduced violent crime rates and increased life expectancy.
Performance management
The Partnership’s Delivery Board is responsible for monitoring progress and challenging and supporting the thematic groups and partners in their work. We have developed a performance management framework for the partnership which requires a delivery plan for each of the priorities to be developed by the thematic groups. This plan identifies in more detail what we are setting out to achieve, who is involved and what actions are to be taken. The delivery plans include the LAA targets and are monitored regularly with progress reported quarterly to the thematic groups and the Delivery Board.
Strategy review arrangements
The Strategy and the LAA will be refreshed annually, by monitoring, evaluation and review processes. In addition, there will be a more fundamental review process to coincide with the three-year timeframe of the LAA. This will require a review of the strategy in 2010, 2013, 2016 etc. to inform new LAAs in 2011, 2014, 2017 and so on.