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work had been completed on resurfacing of Millford Lane, St Peters Road phase A and B, 50% of Drake circus roundabout and the footways around it. Eight footbridges had been refurbished, some of them were Outland Road, Roborough, Pennycomequick, two at Gdynia Way and Prince Rock;

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the Winter Service continued and to date had been out seven times gritting the main roads. Vaccination and testing centres had also been gritted and covered 333 kilometres per night. To date only 130 tonnes of rock salt had been used;

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theFasola Road artificial intelligence had been ordered. The training on the system was going to commence next month. It was a satellite digitalized service to survey the roads and pavements for defects underneath that the eye couldn’t see;

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lighting and CCTV upgrades were continuing, especially in the Keyham and City Centre areas, and we're engaging with local communities following additional funding being received from Central Government by the Safer Streets and the Safer Keyham projects;

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in terms of Councillor casework, all the numbers have come down over the last few months; in October we were at 90 cases and on the 11 January this year we were down to 14 – highways officers were congratulated for their concerted efforts;

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Plymouth City Council had started an exciting venture to increase the use of electric vehicles in the city. While the majority of people may find it easy to plug in EV vehicles, it may be difficult for someone who has a mobility issue or was disabled. The parking team recognised this and as of the 24 January I trial was starting in the Theatre Royal car park on assisted electric vehicle charging;

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the Morlaix Drive Access Improvement scheme, originally scheduled for 2020, but delayed because of the pandemic, would start on 24 January, and would be finished by the end of the year; as part of the scheme it would be widened to allow for the flow of a two way traffic system including buses and the upgrade of the existing narrow foot way to a shared pedestrian and cycle path;

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50 specimen trees were also being planted as well as ornamental plantings and bat and insect boxes along Morlaix Drive.

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the housing delivery team who formed part of a strategic planning and infrastructure department were working proactively to help meet the serious challenges we were facing on homelessness as well as to address the urgent need for more affordable housing in Plymouth. So far the team have been successful in securing more than £2.2 million of land released funding from the Government to deliver 325 new affordable homes on 13 council owned sites over the next two to three years. We have also recently bid for another £220,000 of land released funding to build a further 12 community led affordable homes, and we expect to hear if these funds are also approved over the next few weeks;

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these projects were being promoted under the council’s nationally recognised Plan for Homes programme which made public land and other forms of capital subsidy available to housing association partners to help meet priority housing needs in the city. For example, groups such as service veterans, older people, those with physical and learning disabilities, homeless families and those who simply could not afford private accommodation of their own were already benefiting from this initiative and would now continue to do so.

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the registration service continued to see a high demand for new citizens and the Council was seeing increased revenue as a result. The service would be attending Plymouth Wedding Fair at the Guildhall at the weekend to promote the Council House as the chosen venue for Plymouth residents and to improve the relationship with local businesses and the wedding community;

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one of the Council’s registrars took on the amazing honour of conducting the marriage of her daughter and her new son in law at the historic Duke of Cornwall Hotel on the 27 December 2021;

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the Green Tavern Suite at Plymouth Argyle would become officially licensed for ceremonies at Home Park this month. We are really looking forward to seeing couples say I do overlooking the pitch;

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the schools library service was pleased to report that over the Christmas and New Year period, 600 topic boxes were collected from schools and a further 400 topic boxes were delivered. Each of these topic boxes contained a collection of 25 books on a related topic that school staff used to enhance learning. In total, the FLS staff based at Burrington Way collected and distributed 25,000 books over three weeks in what remained difficult circumstances. As well as schools and public library related stock, staff at Burrington Way have for the past month been designated a principle distribution centre of lateral flow tests to the public. The library service typically handed out in the region of 2000 test packs each week;

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in line with the Council's green agenda, the library service promoted brand new digital library cards available through the library app; anyone with a smartphone could now have as an option a digital library card as a replacement for what had traditionally been plastic library cards. In addition, on Saturday the 12 February 2022 Plympton Library would celebrate its 10th birthday. The library was built on the site of the former library that was destroyed by fire. The occasion would be marked with events and activities.

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in 2018/2019 the Government funded several pilot projects across the country to research how it could best support children eligible for benefits related free school meals during the school holidays. Plymouth City Council was lucky enough to be involved through its national partnership with Streetgames in 2018, and as one of 10 national local authority pilot projects in 2019. In 2020, following the huge success of these pilot projects, the Government had invested £220 million nationally to the holiday activity and Food Fund programme to reach disadvantaged children so they were able to access healthy food and take part in fun enriching activities over the Easter, Summer and Christmas holidays. The Government had confirmed that this programme would continue and Plymouth City Council have been awarded £1,037,160; this year, on year investment would enable the council to extend and enhance the existing Fit and Fed programme and to further develop positive outcomes for all children and young people in the city.

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following the murder of Sarah Everard in March 2021 a national conversation and increased awareness of the dangers faced by women was launched. Many women and girls reflected on and spoke out about their own personal experiences of violence across the UK. Locally we had our own tragedy with the murder of Bobby Ann MacLeod in November 2021. Following this tragic event, it was imperative that we assessed what more could be done at a local level to ensure women and girls felt safe and empowered to live without fear of harm, abuse or intimidation. The leader launched the Violence Against Women and Girls Commission with the first meeting having taken place at the end of 2021. The objectives of this Commission included shining a spotlight on the national issue of violence against women and girls, and to understand more about the issue for those living in Plymouth, taking a proactive stance to better understand a wide range of views and experiences, and consider what more needed to be done to tackle the issue, improve the perception and the lived experience of women and girls that Plymouth was a safe city. This was an opportunity to revisit and review local policies were appropriate, including the public health approach to addressing violence against women and girls, and to identify and seek to influence any areas of national policy that needed revising.

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regarding Devon CCG's decision to abandon the procurement of services delivered by the Mayflower Medical Group; this would be discussed at the Health and Wellbeing Board in a few weeks’ time and the Devon CCG would be present. The intention at the Health Wellbeing Board was to have an open discussion on GP access in the city and a private discussion with the CCG in relation to the Mayflower Medical Group whose contract ends on the 31 March 2022 and the continuation of the services provided by those GP practices. Dialogue would continue so that patients had a fitting and proper service to GP services. Whilst there was capacity of Derriford to deal with all medical needs of the city as well as parts of Devon and southeast Cornwall, it was imperative that the GP provision in the city provided the first point of contact for many of those elements that we all have is as the population, and that they don't end, they don't start in the accident and emergency department.