Message from the Chief Executive, Judith Greenhalgh

I’ve now been with you here in Denbighshire, as your Chief Executive, for eight months. The time has really flown by and I feel tremendously lucky and privileged to be working and living in such a beautiful part of Wales and the UK. Denbighshire is geographically quite a small county but we really have everything here – stunning beaches and coastline, historical market towns, thriving village communities and our wonderful countryside – all within a short distance of each other.

Proud of working for Denbighshire

I am very proud of the Council. We have been a consistently high performing Council for a number of years now but in my early months I have been looking at everything we do to examine whether it can be done more efficiently and effectively, as there is always room for improvement. With the continuing budget cuts and growing demands and expectations of our services, we need to make sure we are using all of our resources as well as we can. This will include looking at income generation and at new and innovative ways of delivering our services; recently we have consulted with our residents on changes to our waste model that will increase the number of collections and should increase the amount we recycle. Over the coming months, we will be bringing forward projects to improve our internal efficiency and projects that will change how we deliver our services. I am working with my managers to at look these not just to meet the budget challenges we face but also because I think we can improve our services further.

Working to deliver our Coporate Plan

When I joined Denbighshire, the Council Leader and his cabinet tasked me with delivering their corporate plan, which was put together in 2017 following the extensive ‘County Conversation’, where our residents were asked to express their views on what was important to them. I am happy to say that we are making good progress in delivering these priorities; housing, connected and resilient communities, environment and young people. It is still early days in the delivery of our plan but I am confident that we will be able to make a difference in the areas that you told us mattered to you. Alongside our corporate plan, there are the important services that the Council delivers day to day on your behalf; both at an acute level to our most vulnerable residents and more universally to a wider section of our population. The latter will include things like our libraries and leisure centres, which we know are very important to you and in which the Council has invested a considerable amount of money and are now truly amongst the best in their class. If you haven’t had the chance to visit in a while, please do, I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised.

Looking ahead

The new year, 2019, will bring many challenges and opportunities for us. In the early part of the year, we are hoping to finalise the terms of the North Wales Growth Deal which will, if approved, bring hundreds of millions of pounds of investment in to our region, creating jobs, developing houses and businesses, funding skills development and improving our vital transport and digital infrastructure. This really is a once in a lifetime opportunity for North Wales, will be a massive boost to our region and help us to tackle many of the problems and issues that you tell the Council that you face. I will be working hard alongside other leaders and chief executives across the region to make sure that this happens for us.

My best wishes to all of you, your friends and families, for a merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful new year.