A raft of improvements have been made to services in Redbridge
over the past year after you told us what was most important to
making Redbridge a better place to live.
A year of strong performance and improvement has seen crime
rates fall, recycling rates increase, the borough's best ever
education results, two new primary schools built and a booming town
centre in Ilford.
In our most recent residents' survey we asked you what factors
were most important in making Redbridge a good place to live.
Your top factors included:
- feeling safe and being safe from antisocial
behaviour
- and the Borough's parks and open spaces.
In response the Redbridge Safer Communities Partnership which
comprises the Council, police, fire service, probation, courts,
Crown Prosecution Service and local voluntary sector organisations,
have worked together to achieve significant improvements in crime
levels.
- overall crime fell by nearly 16 per cent on the previous
year
- violent crime fell by nearly 9 per cent
- the number of incidents of robbery fell by 30 per cent
- domestic burglaries fell by over 7 per cent
- the number of vehicle crimes fell by 15 per cent
Satisfaction with the Borough's parks and open spaces has
improved and we are now implementing plans to achieve two green
flags awards for our parks and have formed Parks Participation
Groups to help give you even more of a say in how you want your
parks to develop in the future.
Housing
With increasing pressure on housing the Council knows it needs
to deliver more affordable housing. Around 287 properties were
returned to the Council for use and 400 families who were homeless
or threatened with homelessness received help and advice to find
housing, an increase of 51 from the previous year.
However there is still more to do as 222 new affordable homes
were made available in Redbridge but this fell short of our target
so we will working hard to ensure we make this a priority.
Support for young people
Improvements in services and support for young people have seen
the number of young people aged between 16 and 19 not in education,
employment and training decrease from 4.8 per cent to 4.3 per cent,
while 95 per cent of students in Redbridge achieved five or more
passes at GCSE - the second highest level in the country.
Fourteen new Children's Centres were opened in 2007 and 2008 to
help give young people the best possible start in lives and eight
more are planned.
Help for older people and business growth
Redbridge has also proved to be a better place for older people
with the Council helping 138 older people to live in their own
home, while 351 older people received an intermediate care service
that helped to prevent hospital admission and a new older people's
forum was formed to give them a say on plans for the future.
It's also good to do business in Redbridge as Ilford was ranked
first in a national league table of business growth in 2007 while
10 new businesses were established in the Borough.
"great year of achievement for Redbridge"
Cllr Alan Weinberg, Council Leader, said," This has been another
great year of achievement for Redbridge Council in which we have
responded to what matters most to residents while at the same time
delivering value for money for our residents.
"We recognise there is still more to do and we will continue to
work with our partners and residents to deliver real long term
improvements which will make Redbridge one of the best places to
live."