Cheshire East Council's leader and Sandbach Town Councillor, Cllr Sam Corcoran, has summed up 2023 and given his review of the year which saw many changes to Cheshire East.

Cllr Corcoran became leader of Cheshire East Council in May 2019 and was first elected on to Sandbach Town Council in 2007 and then on to Cheshire East Council in 2011.

He went to Manchester Grammar School and won an open scholarship to read maths at Brasenose College, Oxford.

Here's Cllr Corcoran's review of the year …  

January

Council auditors have a legal right to issue a Public Interest Report when they believe that behaviour is so bad that the public need to know about it. Grant Thornton exercised that right to "so that the electorate in East Cheshire is fully appraised of matters that happened" during 2014 – 2018.

The Grant Thornton report can be found by searching on 'Public Interest Report' at www.cheshireeast.gov.uk

February

The Council budget was passed with proposals to raise extra funding on car parking and garden waste collection charges. The joint administration proved that it was willing to take difficult decisions to deal with the economic fallout from the disastrous crashing of the economy in 2022 when Liz Truss was Prime Minister.

March

The Council reports a deficit/underfunding of £46M on spending on children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). The government awards the Council £1M under its 'Delivering Better Value' programme but makes no changes to the adversarial system under which parents can appeal to a Tribunal against council decisions – nationally councils lose over 90% of such appeals. (Kent is awarded £142M under the 'Safety Valve' programme.)

April

Voter ID campaign is launched to encourage residents to register to vote and enable compliance with the government's new rules.

May

Labour gained six seats in the local elections, moving from 25 to 31 seats – nearly double the 16 seats Labour held prior to the 2019 elections. The Council is still officially 'No Overall Control', with no group having a majority of the 82 councillors, but the joint Labour-Independent administration is reformed and Sam Corcoran was re-elected Leader of the Council for a record-breaking 5th year.

June

Lyceum Square in Crewe reopens with stunning launch event.

July

Revised library proposals are announced following public consultation, with libraries opening at 10am instead of 9am

August

Cheshire East Council welcomes Minister of State for Rail and HS2, Huw Merriman MP, to Crewe– using the opportunity to discuss the authority's ambitions for the local area to 'make sure HS2 leaves an ambitious legacy there'.

September

Action is approved by the Children and Families Committee that aligns to the outcomes of the Delivering Better Value (DBV) programme. The deficit on SEND spend is forecast to reach £300M by 2028. Cheshire East Council is invited to join the government's 'Safety Valve' programme for those councils with high SEND spend. The awards to councils under the Safety Valve programme have already totalled £972M.

October

Rishi Sunak goes to the Conservative Conference in a former railways station in Manchester to announce the cancellation of the Birmingham to Manchester section of the HS2 railway. The legislation for the Phase 2a section from Birmingham to Crewe had already been through Parliament, received Royal Assent and become law. Cheshire East Council had invested £11M into HS2 coming to Crewe, including design work for necessary improvements to Crewe station, the surrounding area and road infrastructure. £8M of this will now have to be written off.

November

The consultation on car parking charges in Cheshire East closes. This is only the second time since its formation in 2009 that the Council has considered extending parking charges.

December

Cheshire East Council wins an award for its Solar Together programme, helping residents install solar panels and batteries. solartogether.co.uk/cheshire-east

Would you like to know more about Sandbach?

Free from clickbait, pop-up ads and unwanted surveys, Sandbach Nub News is a quality online newspaper for our town.

Please consider following Sandbach Nub News on Facebook  or Twitter

We also have a weekly newsletter with the TOP FIVE stories of the week - sign up here