9 May 2025

I hope you all had a good Bank Holiday weekend.

This week started with a regular catch up between myself and  Mike Greene, Chief Executive. It's always good to meet up and find out what's going on in the Council and where we are with various schemes. It's also an opportunity for me to raise any concerns or issues that I've coma across as Leader.

This week I also met with Haleem Ghafoor, Strategic Lead for Fairer Stockton-on-Tees and Community Engagement.

A Fairer Stockton-on-Tees is a strategic framework for tackling inequalities in the Borough. The impact of inequalities is significant and impacts on quality of life, life chances and life expectancy, so it's important that we do everything we can to help. I think it's one of the most important strategies that we have adopted as a Council and very close to my heart. Since being young, I've never understood inequality and how some families thrive whilst others lack opportunity and basic, everyday items. Meeting with Haleem reminded me of the huge range of projects we have in Stockton that make life a little easier for our residents.

This week there was also a Cabinet pre-agenda meeting to go through the items to be discussed at next week's Cabinet meeting, including a scrutiny review of our Holidays are Fun scheme and an update on Billingham Town Centre and the new sports hub facility.

 I also met with Jonathan Nertney, Head of Democratic Services, this week. I regularly meet with our Democratic Team to make sure that I am fulfilling my duty as Leader correctly, and it also lets the team inform me of any opportunities or issues that I need to be made aware of.

Unfortunately, I missed out on attending our Borough's VE Day 80th Anniversary celebrations and the lighting of the beacon due to illness but Paul Rowling, Deputy Leader attended in my absence. I hope you all enjoyed any celebrations you may have had throughout the week marking 80 years since the end of World War II in Europe.

This week, I made it back into the office after two weeks working from home after my knee replacement. It was good to be back in and see people face to face and also good to escape my living room! Not being able to drive is frustrating and you realise how much you rely on a car. I've had 2 hospital visits this week, one to see the surgeon and the other to have the 22 staples in my knee removed. It's fair to say, my knee is a bit sore at the moment

Today I am taking advantage of a quieter day and catching up on paperwork, casework and emails. I'm catching up with friends at the weekend and hoping to make it out for a meal on Saturday. I hope you and your families have a great weekend whatever you have planned.