Ashfield District Council leader praises authority for going 'above and beyond' in the last year

Coun Jason Zadrozny (Ash Ind) said that, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the council had not only continued to deliver high quality services across the district but also additional services such as payment of Covid-19 business grants and making high streets safe for shoppers.

Coun Zadrozny, said: “Despite the pandemic Ashfield District Council successfully continued the delivery of all its services , the only council in Nottinghamshire to achieve this.

“The council sets out its ambitions and priorities for the next few years in the corporate plan.

"This is reviewed every year to ensure we are delivering on our priorities and to the standard expected by residents.”

Over the past 12 months ,the council has worked together effectively as ‘one council’, re-deploying staff into important roles outside of their normal duties to ensure services continued, as well as delivering humanitarian services to vulnerable residents across the district.

Over the past 12 months, the council has distributed more than £40,000 to the community and voluntary sector through the Ashfield Community Fund and more than £70,000 in infrastructure grants to Our Centre, Under One Roof, and Ashfield Citizen’s Advice, while two new affordable council housing developments, including in Hucknall, have been started.

Coun Zadrozny continued: “We have been the lead authority in securing £1 million Rough Sleeper Initiative funding for improvement opportunities and support for rough sleepers and those threatened with rough sleeping across the county.

“We successfully bid for £1 million in funding to improve thermal efficiency ratings of domestic properties, both council-owned and private sector, and 99.46 per cent of all housing repairs appointments made were kept and 99.37 per cent of emergency repairs were attended to in government timeframes.

"Supporting high street businesses through the pandemic we have employed covid information officers and more than 3,200 visits have been made offering advice and guidance to retailers, small businesses and licenced premises.

"We have offered a range of business support and dealt with more than 1,270 business support enquiries throughout the year.

“We ran a successful Big Spring Clean campaign in February 2021.

“We responded to 6,069 reports of anti-social and nuisance behaviour between April 2020 and March 2021 and support was provided to businesses throughout all phases of the pandemic, through the administration of a variety of business grant.

"More than 7,300 payments have been made to businesses, with a total value of £30 million.

“The pandemic has had a huge impact on how the council delivers its services, but from the beginning we were committed to residents still receiving the high level of service they expect.

"The council has fantastic officers who have worked above and beyond during the past year and I want to thank them for all their hard work.”

The council has a range of major projects either finishing or starting in the next year, including improvement work at Hucknall Leisure Centre.

Coun Zadrozny said: “The council has so many amazing projects in the pipeline at the moment.

“We are proud of all we achieved last year, and excited for what we will deliver in the next 12 months.”