Cllr Rob Humby
Leader of Hampshire County CouncilConservative Councillor, Rob Humby, discusses local initiatives to support people and businesses.
As the Leader of one of the largest local authorities in England, serving over 1.4 million residents, my overriding ambition is to ensure that Hampshire continues to be a great place in which to live, work, play, visit and to do business now and for decades to come.
This might seem a tall order when, currently, we’re facing one of the most difficult financial situations in Hampshire County Council’s history and are at the early stages of our process to find ways to meet a £132 million budget shortfall by April 2025 – circumstances that I’m acutely aware we are not alone in, since it’s no secret that councils up and down the country are in a similar position.
We’re proud of our track record in maintaining strong public finances for the people of Hampshire which has seen us through over a decade of national austerity and kept us in a better financial position than most other county councils. But, we are equally proud of how we manage to always keep our eye on the future –planning for how we can provide for the needs of Hampshire residents and businesses now and in five, 10, 15 and 25 years ahead.
2023 has seen us place even greater emphasis on Hampshire’s future with the implementation of a new organisational model across the Local Authority which also introduced a new Directorate named Hampshire 2050 – dedicated to better focus the work within our Authority on place shaping, strategic partnerships and delivering public value for our residents and communities.
Ensuring that the right strategies are in place to guide decisions about services, resources and infrastructure is at the heart of the Directorate’s remit in contributing to the continuing prosperity of Hampshire to at least the year 2050, improving residents’ quality of life and protecting and enhancing the county’s unique quality of place, whilst also tackling climate change.
To this end, together with key partners, we have developed a high level and long-term blueprint for the whole of Hampshire – the Hampshire 2050 Vision.
The Vision to Hampshire 2050 was borne from almost two years of in-depth examination, analysis and debate by a wide range of revered leaders in their field through a Commission of Inquiry in 2018-19. Development, ownership and endorsement of the Vision is shared across a wide partnership (the Hampshire 2050 Partnership) comprising organisations in the sectors of health, education, and business, as well as other local councils.
Whilst keen to take forward activity to realise the Vision, given the events of the past couple of years – not least the Covid pandemic, at the inception of the Directorate dedicated to Hampshire’s future, we recognised the need to undertake a review of the Vision to ensure it remained relevant in the light of national policy changes and the economic climate.
The outcome of this exercise assured us that the Vision is still robust and fit for purpose, subject to some relatively minor changes.
So, what’s next? We need to convert our words into actions and I’m delighted to be bringing the Partnership back together later this autumn with a view to reinforcing their previous commitment and to collectively agree how, together, we will bring the Vision to life – effecting real and positive change for the benefit of the next and future generations.
I am under no illusions that success will require the dedication of all the partners, as an Authority we simply cannot achieve the ambition single handedly, but we are best placed to join the dots as an influencer and enabler. With a clear shared Vision to drive us and our partners forward, I am optimistic that we can ensure that generations of Hampshire residents will reap the rewards of economic and social prosperity.
