Welcome to the Annual Report for Planning and Environment for 2003-2004. The past year has been one of achievement for the Planning and Environment Department as well as a period of change. We have focussed on area regeneration as well as improving the range and quality of our services to customers. Customer care and consultation has been a focal point of the past year and throughout the report we will highlight how this has been implemented across the services as well as feature our key achievements. The report will also outline the range and variety of services, which our department provides, and draw attention to some of the projects that have been taking place across North Lanarkshire.
One of the most important developments over the past year has been the progress with the planning application for Ravenscraig. The regeneration and development of the Ravenscraig site represents an enormous economic boost for the area, which will include additional employment, improved transportation links and access to housing, shopping and leisure facilities. It is expected that up to 9,000 new full time jobs will be created, as well as construction jobs to support the development. As many as 3,500 new homes are planned and the development will include a new town centre, major parkland areas and 2 new primary schools. Achieving regeneration of this scale will be a long term project and we will continue to update you of our progress as the development progresses.
Also in Planning a wide range of environmental improvements took place, these included £100,000 of landscaping works to Cumbernauld Village, environmental improvements to back courts in Wishaw totalling £677,425 and £700,000 of investment in Airdrie Town Centre which provided streetscaping, new lighting and landscaping.
For Roads and Transportation the past year saw a major budget increase for roads across North Lanarkshire of £3m. This huge increase was invested in road resurfacing, repairing street and footpath lighting as well as improving the condition of footpaths, signage and the road gritting service. Improving road safety was also a priority of the Council and by investing heavily in engineering, enforcement and education we were able to continue remedial treatments at accident cluster sites and a programme of promoting and educating local communities about road safety. Improving road safety measures meant we upgraded 12 pelican crossings to puffin crossings, 2 new puffin crossings were installed and 2 traffic signalled controlled junctions were upgraded also. Also 9 new mobile safety camera sites were established across North Lanarkshire which will help reduce speed and improve the safety of our roads.
In Protective Services our Food Safety Section successfully bid for a grant of £10,000 to carry out an innovative food safety training initiative in schools throughout North Lanarkshire. As well as providing training in schools over 800 food handlers received food hygiene training at local colleges. To help enhance this training and education a food hygiene booklet was produced and distributed to nurseries, child minders and other child carers. In total the Dog Warden Service responded to over 1,866 service requests and 76% were responded to within 2 days. Protecting consumers was also a key focus of the Service and in Trading Standards we helped achieve this through a programme of education and information as well as enforcement where necessary.
Focussing on area regeneration and driving forward major infrastructure projects such as the Airdrie Business Centre was a focus for Policy and Economic Development. The Service lead a partnership which was successful in securing £6m from the Scottish Executive Vacant and Derelict Land Fund. Major investment of this nature will help transform North Lanarkshire's derelict land sites and enhance the local environment. Through the delivery of our services in the past year we were able to help 546 local residents into employment or training, assist 221 companies, safeguard or create 1,018 jobs and help 35 new companies to form. Completing the Economic Regeneration Framework was also a major project. The Framework outlines how the Council will drive forward economic regeneration across North Lanarkshire over the next 6 years through the provision of business support and training, improvements to the transport and communications infrastructure as well as community based and town centre initiatives.
Improving services to customers was a key area of development, with a range of reviews and initiatives taking place across the Department. Of equal importance was our approach to staff development - we made a formal commitment to the achievement of Investors in People (IIP) in March 2003 and held our first Management Conference in November 2003.
The coming year will also be a challenging one for Planning and Environment. I am confident, however, that we will meet these challenges by working together with our partners and local communities.
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