Corporate plan - 2025 to 2028

Cheltenham is a world-renowned cultural destination. Our town is rated one of the best places to live in the UK and it is also the UK’s capital of cyber and security. 

We want everyone who lives and works in our town to benefit from Cheltenham’s successes, and for all our residents and communities to thrive, not just survive, so that our town continues to be a fantastic place to live, work and visit. 

Our decision in 2023 to bring housing services back into the council has given us an opportunity to review our existing corporate plan. We want to ensure our priorities and activities reflect our additional responsibilities, not only as a housing provider, but as landlord to the tenants and leaseholders who live in our properties. 

We are setting a higher standard for ourselves, and our town, to build a better future for everyone in Cheltenham. We also recognise that pressures such as the cost of living impact our residents, businesses and communities. So, we will continue to work alongside our partners in the months and years ahead to deliver practical support and, as a council, we will aim to provide an excellent service to everyone, regardless of need or access to technology. We will also continue to invest in partnerships and services that will strengthen the long-term financial stability of Cheltenham.

This corporate plan sets out five key priorities, which will be our focus over the next three years.  Recently, the prospect of devolution and local government reorganisation has come to the fore. We will not ignore this, but it will not distract us from delivering what we have set out in this plan. We will remain focused on delivering a better future for everyone in Cheltenham.

The principles that will guide our priorities

The delivery of our priorities is based around six principles.  We will:

1. Help all our communities to benefit and prosper from our strong local economy
2. Work together with everyone in our networks to improve our borough and support our residents to be healthy, our communities to be strong and our businesses to thrive
3. Be commercially minded to keep costs down and our council financially stable, so we always provide value for money to the taxpayer
4. Use data and research to drive improvement, listening carefully to our residents, communities and businesses to underpin informed decisions
5. Ensure the climate emergency agenda is at the forefront and integral to all our decision-making
6. Be risk aware, rather than risk averse

Our key priorities

Over the next three years we will focus on five key priorities:

• Key priority 1:  Securing our future
• Key priority 2:  Quality homes, safe and strong communities
• Key priority 3:  Reducing carbon, achieving council net zero, creating biodiversity
• Key priority 4:  Reducing inequalities, supporting better outcomes
• Key priority 5:  Taking care of your money

The council delivers both statutory (required by law) and discretionary (optional) services and all contribute in some way to our key priorities. However, there are a number of major activities which will be essential to deliver if we are to make significant progress.  We will track and report on our progress against these activities on an annual basis.