REPORT FROM THE CABINET MEMBER FOR THE ECONOMY, THE CUSTOMER, COMMUNICATIONS, LEISURE & TOURISM

TO THE MEETING OF FULL COUNCIL

ON 17 JANUARY 2007

· The Cabinet has approved the formation of a strategic agency to deliver marketing and economic development strategies for the Island. The agency will be formed from the existing Economic Partnership and Tourism will obviously be included as an important part of this agency in due course. A Joint Venture for Tourism will now be created, which will merge with the agency when the time is right. We will also be taking steps to establish the Local Delivery Vehicle over the next few months and this will be a subsidiary company of the Partnership. This project has taken some time to come to fruition, but we are now in a position to move forward with this important development.

· The Strategic Transformational Project is now ready to undertake a gateway review and work on that review is starting this week. In order to prepare for the review, the draft invitation to tender has been completed and two workshops with staff were held in order to ensure that they had the opportunity to contribute to the current draft of the specification.

· Medina and the Heights Leisure facilities opened their doors to new and improved fitness facilities this month. Positive comments have been made from new and existing customers. The public have benefited from a much needed doubling in capacity of these facilities, in addition to new and improved fitness equipment. Since the re-opening several hundred people have either renewed their old membership or joined for the first time.

· A second edition of One Island has been published which enabled us to effectively communicate the work of the council and also to explain our findings from the residents survey.

· We are now about to start an important piece of consultation on the results from the residents survey and also on the budget priorities going forward. This will enable us to effectively respond to the findings of the survey and the three key areas of concern that residents told us were important; Respect, Pride and Value.

Councillor Tim Hunter-Henderson