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The Strategic Plan 2015-18

This plan sets out the direction and future potential for our city. As a Council we have an ambitious range of goals to achieve that build on the successes of the last three years, working with a large number of partners to get the best for our residents.

To help us decide on the priorities for the next three years we held a number of focus groups with the public, independently selected to make sure we included all sections of out communities.

These focus groups gave us some important messages:

• Most people like living in Colchester.
• We need to make more of our heritage.
• There need to be more opportunities for business.
• Transport and retail need to be improved.
• Growth needs to be managed and housing needs to be affordable.
• We need to be ambitious for the whole city.

These are the four words that we feel sum up what we want to achieve:

• Vibrant - promoting our heritage and working hard to shape our future.
• Thriving - attracting business and selling Colchester as a destination.
• Prosperous - generating opportunities for growth and supporting infrastructure.
• Welcoming - a place where people can grow and be proud to live.

The Strategic Plan 2015-18 was approved by the Cabinet prior to being adopted by the full Council in February 2015.

Action plan

There is an action plan to go with this to set out our vision, specific actions and outcomes for each priority area. The action plan is presented to the Cabinet each year. This is a working document, and progress against these actions is reported on a six-monthly basis to the Cabinet and to the Scrutiny Panel starting in autumn 2015.

Equality assessment

The Council prepares an 'equality impact assessment' of policies, procedures and practices which have an impact on local people. This is part of the Council's commitment to equality and diversity.