REPORT FROM THE LEADER AND CABINET MEMBER FOR HOUSING, LEISURE AND GOVERNANCE

TO THE MEETING OF FULL COUNCIL ON WEDNESDAY 19 MARCH 2008

1. LEADERSHIP

Our work over the past month has continued to be dominated by the education consultation, and alongside Cllr Wells I have visited 16 primary schools, 3 middle schools and 1 high school. We will visit many more in the future, but at this stage our visits were focused primarily on those which were identified for possible closure under the proposed distribution of schools contained within the three options out for consultation. These meetings were extremely productive and gave us a good understanding of the issues relating to individual schools.

I visited Reading at the end of February to speak at a UK Youth Parliament event, which was attended by a large contingent from the IW Youth Council. It is pleasing to know that even on the youth stage the Island is making a name for itself.

With our Sustainable Community Strategy now being finalised, I took the opportunity to meet with LSP chairs from across Hampshire at the end of February, when we met up in Winchester. Like us, they are focused on setting their Local Area Agreement targets, however this is complicated by having both district and county local authority input into the process. Fortunately our set-up is more straight forward here, although we continue our work through the Island Strategic Partnership with our colleagues in the public, private and voluntary sector. I would like to use this opportunity to thank John Owen for his chairmanship of the ISP over the past two years. He is stepping down and I am taking over, representing the IW Council as the lead organisation within the partnership. John has set much of the work with the ISP in motion – particularly with the emergence of the Eco-Island vision.

The Chief Executive and I continue to undertake our regular visits to staff located around the Island, and at the end of February we visited staff based at Ryde Library, Ryde Help Centre and Ryde Town Hall. In all three locations, we saw a team of committed and professional officers, who are doing their best in buildings that in many cases aren’t fit-for-purpose. It re-emphasised the need for us to improve our buildings, and the environment in which our staff work in.

2. LEISURE

I met recently with a panel, including the Editor of the County Press, to decide the winner of a competition to design the logo for the 2011 . The chosen design is now being enhanced in conjunction with our Communications Team, and we know that the Organising Committee hope to publish the final logo in the near future.

The outcomes of the Leisure Needs Analysis will be published soon, including some recommendations for how leisure provision is taken forward over the

1 next few years. This was delayed because one of the proposals is to consider co-locating leisure facilities with schools, and therefore the outcomes of tonight’s decision on structure will enable this next stage of consideration to take place. A delegated decision on the next stage of the process on leisure will be published in early April.

We were delighted that three Island venues were selected as potential acclimatisation points for some of the world’s top athletes, ahead of the 2012 London Olympics. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOGOC) has identified The Fairway Sports Centre, Sandown, for athletics, Medina Leisure Centre, Newport, for and indoor , and Cowes as a yachting and centre. It speaks volumes for our sporting facilities here on the Island that three are deemed of a standard suitable for Olympic athletes.

Cllr David Pugh Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Housing, Leisure and Governance

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