My Council Deserves A Crown For It's Performance. (Peterborough Council)

Member Name: cindy1

Product:	Peterborough Council
Date:	18/04/01 (565 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A clean city, promotes community spirit, strives to offer the best services and wants people to succeed.

Disadvantages: Not one

The Home Page.
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When you log onto the Peterborough City Councils web site, the green background strikes you. Although some people may find the site layout dab, in actual fact it represents Peterborough's status.
You see Peterborough is a green city. It strives to promote green issues, such as cycle routes, recycling and nature reserves. I will give you more information on this later.

The home page gives you a warm welcome, and underneath, it explains that Peterborough City Council is a unitary council providing all local government services to the people of Peterborough and surrounding villages.

The web site its self is easy to navigate, and the menu on the left side gives you quick and easy access to the following sections: What's New, The Council, Services A-Z, Community Information, Leisure and Tourism, About Peterborough, Feedback and Useful Links.

Apart from this, there are direct links to important issues such as education, the latest council news and the latest foot and mouth updates. If this weren't enough the web site also has a very accurate site search facility that allows you to find your required information, quickly and easily.

I'm going to start by giving you some information on the city, and then I will tell what Peterborough has to offer, and I'm sure you'll be impressed by this great city.

The City.
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Peterborough is located mid-way between Norwich and The Midlands; it boasts an excellent rail network, and a second to none road system. Peterborough is 78 miles from London, 4 miles from the A1 and 15 miles from the A14; these are major roads that link us to Major City's.
If you decide to travel by train London can be reached in less than 50 minutes, and better still, we are on the main East Coast line, so train can be taken to Edinburgh, Newcastle, Glasgow and Leeds. The rail network also runs east-west, provided quick a
ccess to Birmingham, Great Yarmouth and Norwich.

Peterborough has quite a history, archaeologists discovered a 3000-year-old settlement at Flag Fen, which is open to the public, and we also have a cathedral that dates back to 650AD. During the medieval times right up to the industrial revolution, Peterborough was just a small town on the edge of The Fens.

Growth started in the mid 19th century, when the railways arrived. Peterborough became a major railway junction, which in the process attracted major industrial companies.
In late 1960 the new town development program started, the aim was to build four residential townships; the fourth Hampton Hargate is now in the process of being built, so Peterborough will continue to grow in the 21st century. This new township will create 5000 new homes, some of which include housing association and local authority homes to rent, it will also provide 12,000 new jobs, as part of Hampton will be business orientated.

Over the years parkways (landscaped dual carriageways) were build, to provide quick access to various parts of the city. A network of cycle paths was constructed, and now Peterborough has over 100km of safe cycle routes, making it the largest cycle network in Britain.

A shopping centre (The Queengate Centre) was built, which has been voted as one of the best in Europe. Peterborough actively promotes sports and recreation and has some of the best sports establishments in the country. Although Peterborough is a city, open spaces are important, there are 10 golf courses in the vicinity, two large country parks, and the showground, which hosts the biggest and best agricultural show in Britain.

Economy.
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Peterborough has a strong economy; a census carried out in 1991 revealed that there were 78,000 jobs in the city. 55,000 of these jobs were filled by local residents and the remaining by people commuting into the area. Peterborough has some prominent b
usinesses in the town, which employ a large number of the city's population. These include Hanson Brick, Thomas Cook, Royal Mail, Freeman's, ACCO UK, Pearl Assurance, Pedigree Masterfoods, Soda Stream, Coca-Cola and Schweppes, Transco and Waitrose Ltd.

Unemployment.
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There are currently 2173 people unemployed in Peterborough, which accounts for approximately 3% of population.

Housing.
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Altogether, there are 66,598 dwelling. Of these 18% are council, 6% housing association, private sector 74% and others 2%. The average price for a semi-detached house is £64,000. If you want to rent a property a one bedroom flat would be about £67 a week, a two bedroom house would be £69 a week, and a three bedroom house would set you back £76 a week.

Ethnic Minorities.
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There are approximately 141,000 people living in Peterborough, 92% of the population is white. However, we do have a large Indian population who mostly reside in the Millfield area of the town, they account for 1.7% of the population, so there is approximately 2,500 Indians living in the town.

Transport.
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Subject to the necessary funding Peterborough is planning to introduce safe routes to school, home zones, and they say they will be working in partnership with the bus operators to make the Westgate area of town safer.
There was also plans to build the Green Wheel, which is a series of bicycle routes in and around the town, this has now been built, and it does provide mile up on mile of safe cycling.

By now, you should have a clear picture of Peterborough, and what it has to offer. Now I'm going to tell you about all the services that Peterborough advertises on its web site.

What's New.
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This section basically keeps you up to date with important changes that affect people living within their catchment area. I especially
like the latest press releases; this is updated on a daily basis. Obviously people haven't got the time to log onto the site everyday and check out the news, so to overcome this problem you can actually look at the archives and locate a specific story or just have a browse around.

You can also read about on going news stories such as the Westgate Development Program, School Organisation Plan, Local Transport Plan and Best Value Plan. In addition, the council is very happy to hear your views whether good or bad, and a handy feedback form is supplied.

The Council.
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This page gives you democratic information and key plans. There is even a welcome from the mayor Ray Pobgee. It says on the homepage that Peterborough has an annual budget of £151 million. This money is spent on education, social services, transport, housing, libraries, museums, street cleaning and refuge collection.

Councillors.
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There are 56 councillors in the city, that represent 24 wards. The current make-up is 27 Conservative, 21 Labour, 3 Liberal, 2 Liberal Democrat, 2 Labouring for North ward and 1 Independent.
Councillors hold regular surgeries for local people; they help resolve residents problems and complaints. They also help to make decisions for the city.

MP.
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The MP for Peterborough is Mrs Helen Brinton (Labour). She can be contacted by telephone, or in writing.

Schools.
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The council spends £2000 per child in primary school, and £3700 on secondary school pupils.
74% of pupils achieved the pass standard at key stage one, 57% pass key stage two, 41% at key stage three and 30% obtain a grade A-C at GCSE.

Council Tax.
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Peterborough spends £879 per head. 80% of this money comes from the government and the rest is from Council Tax.

Council Departments and Services.
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Thi
s section tells you how the council is run; it's run by a senior management team, where each director is responsible for a certain area. There are seven key departments spread across the city, many operate at satellite offices around Peterborough. The seven departments are defined as Chief Executive, Community Services, Contract Services, Corporate Services, Education, Environment and Legal Services and Social Services.

If you click on each department it tells you how they run their department, their name, job description and there is a contact address, and most have email addresses. Also included in this sub-category is a very useful section that tells you how you can pay your council tax by direct debit over the Internet. If you live in Peterborough, this may be a good option for you, full details are provided on the site.

Also included is a detailed section on library services, this is a very through page, which has links to every library in Peterborough, information on joining the library and details of charges are provided for your information.

There are also many useful links, which include Webpac; this allows you to search for book titles as though you were in the library. To access this information all you have to do is enter the barcode on your library ticket, as well as searching for titles you can also renew books and reserve items.

There is also a new service called Ask Peterborough, which is an email inquiry service offered to local people.

Opportunities.
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This section actually advertises jobs within the council, it also has details of teaching jobs, this is great if you're looking for a new challenge. Also included is information on pursuing a teaching career, there is advice on virtually everything to do with teaching such as how to get started, how to apply and information about the schools in the area.

Peterborough's Vision.
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Peterborough council wants to make its services even better; they want Peterborough to be the best council in Britain. They want to improve the quality of services, improve value for money and ensure the council is accessible and approachable.

High on their list of priorities is crime, they want to improve safety and tackle crime efficiently. They want to provide better care services for old, young and disabled. They want to improve access to higher education, and adult learning. They want people living in the town to prosper.

Quality of life is important so they want to provide more cultural, sports and community actives. Last but not least, they want to promote community spirit.

Services.
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This section outlines all the services the council has to offer. The services are conveniently arranged in an A-Z format that makes it easy to find what you are looking for. This section is very detailed and a lot of work has gone into the construction. As an example if you clicked on A, it would give you about 37 results, this includes abandoned cars, area housing offices, and air pollution. If you click on a link, it will give you a contact address and telephone number.
I find this section invaluable because it saves you a lot of time.

Community Information.
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This section is in the same format as Services, you can search A-Z by organisation name or by subject keyword. I'm truly impressed by this section, I have never seen so much information, a lot of research and dedication has gone into it. This section gives you links to community information, say I clicked on J it would come up with Judo, Jive Dancing, Job Searching, Jazz Music, Ju jutsu and Japanese. If you click on a link, it gives you the name, address and telephone; it also has a brief description and even meeting times.

If want a new hobby or you need help, this section is great, to be honest I've n
ever seen anything like it before.

Leisure and Tourism.
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This section is aimed at the tourist; it gives you information on Peterborough's history, why the town is considered green, the best places to shop. In addition, it has details of the tourist information office, such as contact address, and opening times.

There is information on the nightlife, and there is a list of the best clubs, cinema's and live entertainment in the city. There is an endless section on things to do and see, we have numerous spectator sports, such as a greyhound track, an ice-hockey team, POSH our very own football team and even a speedway track.

There is also a page on what to see outside Peterborough, being centrally situated it's an ideal place for touring. Last but certainly not least there is a page convincing you why you should move to Peterborough.

Useful Links.
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This section gives you many links to sites of interest, such as Anglia Television, BBC East, Radio Cambridgeshire, Peterborough NHS and not forgetting Peterborough's newest and brightest radio station Lite FM.

There is links to surrounding local authorities and also links to Peterborough's Twin Towns, which are Alcaca de Henares in Spain, Ballarat in Australia, Bourges in France and Viersen in Germany. I feel this is a really nice gesture. Last but not least, there are links to local and central government sites.

My Views.
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I have painted a very rosy picture of Peterborough, and why not it's fantastic city, it has a lot to offer, and what's more it's a great place to live.

However, no city can be 100% perfect, Peterborough does have a few problems. On one hand, they are building a beautiful new town, that offers state of the art houses. Yet there are some areas of the city such as Welland and Dogsthorpe that are run-down and depraved, these areas ne
ed to be regenerated, there is a lot of crime in these areas, and this needs to be tackled.

Also, irresponsible people dump rubbish, mainly builders and garden waste, to me this is an ugly sight that spoils the city's imagine. The council should seriously consider this issue; maybe a mobile waste collection lorry would help, as the city skip can be quite a way out for most people to reach.

The points above are my only niggles, about Peterborough. This is a truly great town, and should be set as an example to other councils. In my view my city is 99% perfect, and I hope it can continue to achieve this standard in the coming years.

If you need further information on services, or just general information, don't hesitate to contact me.

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