Cllr. David Thomas: Delivering a new Torquay town centre - with your help

These funds from the Government will be given over the next 10 years and are part of their Long-Term Plan for Towns.
Torquay is one of 55 towns across the UK who will benefit from a £1.1 billion levelling up investment and is the only town in the South West that was picked to receive these funds.
You may wonder why was Torquay chosen? This was down to our biggest town in the Bay being flagged up on the Levelling Up Needs Index. This takes into account metrics that cover skills, pay, productivity and health, as well as the Index of Multiple Deprivation. This has ensured funding goes directly to the towns which will benefit the most.
This also means we will be able to use a suite of regeneration powers to unlock more private sector investment by auctioning empty high street shops, reforming licensing rules on shops and restaurants, and supporting more housing in town centres.
The funding has been aligned to the issues that research has shown what people want, this includes: 
*Improving transport and connections to make travel easier for residents and increase visitor numbers in centres to boost opportunities for small businesses and create jobs.
*Tackling crime and anti-social behaviour to keep residents safe and encourage visitors through better security measures and hotspot policing.
*Enhancing town centres to make high streets more attractive and accessible, including re-purposing empty shops for new housing, creating more green spaces, cleaning up streets or running market days.     
So, what’s next? Working with the local community and businesses we now need develop a Town Plan for Torquay. This will need to be produced no later than summer 2024 and will set out how the funding will be deployed in line with these priorities.   
Talking of long term plans, you may have seen that we are currently out consulting on our 20-year Community and Corporate Plan. It would be great to hear from you about if we have got our themes and priorities right.
Our motivation for this is that we want to see a healthy, happy, and prosperous Torbay. We want to be a council that delivers for our people and the place that we are proud to call home. As you know, we want to put residents at the heart of everything we do and this Community and Corporate Plan ensures Torbay is a place where everyone can feel included, valued, and benefits from investment.
This draft Plan has been developed using the feedback we received from you during our first Resident Satisfaction Survey back in July this year. These results helped us to identify the three strategic themes which are Community and People, Pride in Place and Economic Growth.
The priorities under these themes aim to deliver positive outcomes for you and businesses based in the Bay. These include ensuring our town centres are safe and welcoming for all, improving the delivery, affordability, and quality of housing for residents in Torbay, to raising skills levels and developing a year-round economy.
As the plan sets out a long-term vision, we also want to encourage our younger people to have their say on whether or not they agree with the proposals. So if you have young people living with you, or you want to read the full plan and feedback to us, visit www.yoursay.torbay.gov.uk/community-and-corporate-plan. You have until the end of October to send back your thoughts. On this webpage you can also see the full results of our Residents Survey, which as mentioned, has helped us pull together these priorities.
Once this Plan has been agreed we will then pull together a Business Plan that will cover the next four years, which takes us up to the next election. In that Plan we will show how we will make a start on delivering the priorities in the longer term plan.