Reflecting on all that has been achieved and put in place to ensure Bracknell Forest is an even better place to live, I realise and appreciate how very, very busy this past year has been.

We have agreed strategies on improving Transport, All Age Integrated Care, Leisure and Sport, Community Safety, Children in our Care, Accessibility to Planning, Biodiversity, Community Involvement, Corporate Parenting, School Attendance, Youth Services, Youth Justice and Climate Change. We also agreed a new housing allocations policy, a new arts, culture and heritage framework and adopted the new town centre masterplans. We have been out and consulted on all of these, and all have been amended to reflect the responses from our residents.

All these strategies aim to make real improvements to the lives of our residents or improve our borough for everyone who lives or works here now and in the future. They all have action plans with targets to be monitored and publicly reported on – keeping us on track and accountable.

• This year, the budget involved 12 separate public consultation sessions held in libraries, community spaces and the Town Centre. We have just completed the consultation on the Vision for Bracknell Forest, again taking this out to shopping centres and listening to our residents, including college attendees.
• As promised, we are taking the Council to the residents and being as transparent as we can be.
• We have opened a new hub for the Virtual School and our Children in Care and a new hub for the Youth Offending Service. We relaunched Braccan Walk Youth Centre meaning more young people now have access to it.
• We secured the new health facility in Bracknell town centre, now going up at pace, and agreed to joint fund the community hub at Warfield with Warfiled Parish Council, which will be a fully sustainable building. We also agreed the lease with Age Concern Bracknell Forest for Buckler’s Park Community Hub with initial services and activities now up and running. And the construction of the new Bridgewell facility in Birch Hill continued this year, with work now nearing completion. This new facility will provide much-needed accommodation for adults with care and support needs.
• We agreed to build new affordable and social rent homes for our residents, including a 100 per cent affordable development on Old Bracknell Lane, featuring flats and three- and four-bedroom homes and affordable family-sized homes for social rent on Binfield Road.
• We also invested millions of pounds in improving local roads, paths and bike lanes with more than £4m spent just on resurfacing roads. A further £2.7m is earmarked for highways improvements in 2025/26.
• We launched the Bracknell Forest Skills Hub in September 2024 to help residents build their skills and find new opportunities. The hub also works with local employers to support them to upskill existing staff and recruit trained staff.
• We organised a very successful Climate Change Summit last July and a separate climate change summit for primary children and another for secondary school pupils. I have visited 12 schools to give assemblies on climate change and the Pride of Bracknell School poster competition for primary children entitled’ Steps to Save my planet’ received 1500 entries. We are organising summits this year on July 16, in the Kerith Centre, in the evening, and July 18 at Wellington College in the afternoon. These will help to produce the Community Climate Change Strategy, outlining ways to reduce the 98% or carbon footprint not related to this Council’s activities.
• We organised many community celebrations and events, including the second successful Bracknell Forest Pride, the popular culture and community Day and D Day 80th anniversary celebrations. Just this month we also celebrated the 80th anniversary of VE Day with a well-attended civic event. We have hosted our Nepalese, Indian, Hong Kong, Romanian, and Polish communities in the Council’s community hub to discuss health and wellbeing, social prescribing, housing, benefits, concerns about crime and introducing them to the world of volunteering and all that is available at the Open Learning Centre.
• Our Welfare Support Day in Princess Square enabled residents to talk face to face with representatives from the CAB, our own Welfare Team, Green Doctor, The Cow Shed, DWP, the Arc. Thames Water and others.
• The Household Support Fund, phases 5 & 6, grants from the government enabled us to provide more than 2,800 families with financial support to meet the increased costs they face during school holidays. 20 households received intensive debt advice enabling them to become debt free or to have a manageable debt repayment schedule in place for the first time.
• £50,000 was issued to our voluntary, community and faith sector stakeholders who supported our community, with things like warm clothing, food and energy efficiency measures and hot water bottle exchanges.
• More than 600 pension age residents in receipt of Housing Benefit and/or Council Tax support, received additional financial support.
• 400 low-income households, in receipt of the highest rates of disability support, received support worth more than £60,000.
• Additional benefits worth more than £160,000 are now in place for residents, supported through the council’s dedicated Financial Inclusion Team.
• Help was provided to more than 120 care leavers supporting with the cost of travel to work or hospital, food and other essential.
• We have received three reviews from the Overview and Scrutiny Panels, one holding Thames Water to account, one on supporting young people to access Sexual Health advice, and one on the transitioning from school to the world of work. I would like to thank all those who contributed to these valuable reports.
• We have received one petition asking us to try and help the Acoustic Couch relocate from under the condemned High Street carpark. This we are trying to do.
• We all unanimously welcomed the Afghan families included in the Ministry of Defence organised resettlement scheme.
• We have had many inspections. All our school in Bracknell Forest continue to be Ofsted rated Good or Outstanding. Larchwood, our short break children’s home, received a good inspection rating and our Adult Social Care service also received a good rating when inspected by the CQC.
• The SEND inspection has highlighted that we have a long way to go before we can ensure all our children have the opportunity for best possible outcomes. A detailed action plan has been published. Progress will be carefully scrutinised. We need more local places for our children. Specialised Resource Provision has been doubled, and we have opened a new Unit at Sandhurst School. Another is planned at Edgbarrow, and a new Social emotional and mental health school is also planned in Warfield. The urgently needed Special School to support children with autism planned at school at Buckler’s Park is on hold until the Government has reviewed the finances. There is now a permanent and experienced work force in the SEND team, 100% of EHCPs are being delivered within the statutory timescales and the backlog cleared.
• We adopted a Parental Leave Strategy and adopted the need for members to all have DBS checks – most residents assumed this had always been in place.

I would like to thank all the officers for making all this possible. I would like to thank all the Councillors for maintaining the positive and productive atmosphere during meetings. We are here to represent and benefit the residents of Bracknell Forest. The Nolan Principles have been upheld on almost all occasions. Certainly, we are as transparent as we can be and the Council has been taken to the residents so they can get involved, and that changes are done with them, not to them.

This new year promises to be challenging financially, and we have to continue to discuss Devolution and Local Government reorganisation. I am confident this will be achieved in the same manner as we now conduct all our business.

Thank you,

Mary Temperton

Leader, Bracknell Borough Council