Councillor Rob Kendrick looks back on achievements during 2020-21
It's fair to say the last twelve months have been like no other for the County Council. The pandemic has been a dominant factor in the work of the council. It has been in the frontline, working with partners through, for example the Lincolnshire Outbreak Engagement Board which includes the NHS, District Councils, Police and Crime Commissioner. Public Health falls within the council remit and has been very much to the forefront with the Director of Public Health for Lincolnshire regularly appearing on local media. Virtual meetings have been the norm throughout the last year.
Key issues
Despite the massive impact of Covid19 vital services have continued to be delivered such as social care, children's services and highways works to name three. Some services inevitably had to be suspended during lockdown such as heritage sites. The council has provided business support packages and Community Grants to local groups. I give a snapshot of some of the key issues:
Highways
Major projects have been delivered or started such as the Lincoln Eastern by-pass, Grantham Southern Relief road, Spalding Western Relief road and roundabout improvements. Planning work started on the North Hykeham Relief Road which will complete the ring around Lincoln. Locally we have seen improvements to the B1191 Martin to Martindales and resurfacing in a number of roads. Potholes remain a big issue and the recent bad winter weather increases the damage to the roads. The scale of the problem is illustrated by the fact that in January alone over 2000 potholes were filled. However there is a difference to when we had the last bad spell in 2018 when at the end of that winter we had 20,000 potholes outstanding, this time it was 3000. A new high-tech piece of equipment for repairing potholes has been undergoing trials and this may be a valuable contribution to getting on top of the problem. The road maintenance budget stands at £51 million for our 5,500 miles of road.
Flooding
There were a number of incidents and additional funding has been put in place to help with flood risk reduction. With funding from central government a new multi-agency flood risk project was started with the pilot scheme taking place in this Division.
Children's services
Services continue to be highly rated by external inspectors and users. This includes children with special needs and children in the care of the authority. Work started on major improvements including new buildings at a number of special schools as part of a scheme to ensure there is equal access to quality facilities across the county.
Social Care
A massive part of council spending at £200 million plus. New ways of using technology to support people are being looked at. Whilst it was anticipated there would be announcements regarding funding for social care from government, this did not take place during the pandemic. Though, we anticipate some legislation in the coming year relating to social care.
Legacy of the pandemic – the need to change working practices to deal with the pandemic has led to a longer term review of how the council can operate. In recent months work has gone on to change ways of working and these will probably continue such as some remote/home working for staff. Use of buildings has changed too. Support for businesses continues with for example help to promote the county for tourism worth over £1 billion to our economy by the launch of new website "visit Lincolnshire".
Conclusion
Clearly it has been a most challenging year. However it ends with the council having sound finances and plans for the future development of the County.
On a personal note, whilst the normal round of events in the Division has not taken place I have endeavoured to keep in touch via virtual meetings, social media and local magazines. Locally there are a number projects which started in the last year mainly relating to highways such as speed limit reductions and these should come to fruition in the coming months. I continued to press for road improvements and supported parish council and residents requests for action from the council on a number of issues.
I was also pleased to help a number of local groups through the Community Fund and support other initiatives to help businesses. Hopefully we will see a return to a more normal state of affairs in the coming months.
May 2021