President update 2nd April - latest news from ADEPT
Hello!
As the weather becomes decidedly more spring-like (with hopefully less rain?), I hope this finds you all looking forward to the longer days ahead and enjoying the lighter evenings.
The ADEPT Spring Conference and President Awards Dinner is quickly approaching! The conference offers members a fantastic opportunity to get together, celebrate our achievements and gear up for the challenges ahead. In a general election year where change is on the agenda, but no let-up in the significant pressures we face in sight, we will be returning to the theme of resilience in our places. If you haven’t already booked your place, then please consider doing so. You can find more information on the draft programme and book your place on the conference webpage.
We’ll also be celebrating the many achievements across our places over the past year at the Annual President's Awards ceremony. There’s still a chance to enter the awards - the deadline is Friday 12th April! Full details on how to submit your entries is available on the ADEPT website.
News
Earlier this month, we provided a response to the Spring Statement, emphasising the urgent need for sustained investment in place-based services. We stressed that current budget allocations and investment strategies overlook the critical needs of local authorities, leaving essential services at risk and negatively impacting vulnerable communities in a disproportionate way.
We co-hosted another successful green finance training day with CIPFA, with inspiring case studies from Westminster Council and South Gloucestershire Council. Also, over 100 people attended the webinar on our recently published SEND Transport toolkit (here) including representatives from both place and children’s services.
Carolyn McKenzie, Hannah and I met with the Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, Philip Duffy, for a wide-ranging discussion about partnership working, waste reforms, water quality, surface water flooding and planning for good growth. And I am delighted that the Gen Z recruitment campaign pilot is finally underway, with Plymouth Council as one of the five participating councils, the others being South Gloucestershire, Oxford, Barnsley and Hounslow.
Publications
In March, we submitted our response to DfT Street Works Fines and Lane Rental Surplus Funds consultation. We responded to the consultation, which is looking at reforms to street works legislation covering surplus lane rental funds, fixed penalty notices and weekend overruns. We also responded to the WEEE reforms consultation which is considering proposals on reforming the producer responsibility system for waste electrical and electronic equipment.
We are continuing with our equality, diversity and inclusion campaign, A Place for All, that we are running in partnership with Colas. Each of these stories is being published on ADEPT’s LinkedIn page and on ADEPT’s Workforce page. They offer genuine insights into the experience of each individual, exploring the challenges they’ve faced at work, how they overcame them and changed their workplaces for the better. Each story provides valuable lessons that can be applied to our own organisations - please take some time to read and share these personal stories.
Live Labs 2 Expo
Sold out! We have over 200 people registered to attend which is great news. The event is taking place in just a couple of weeks, on 17th April at Birmingham Conference and Exhibition Centre. It will bring the Live Labs 2 projects together with their commercial and academic partners – it’s a fantastic opportunity to meet the teams, partners, SMEs and academics involved in each trial. Find out more at the Live Labs 2 Expo website.
Blogs
This month’s Climate Change blog comes from David Dale, who gives a progress update on adaptation, focusing on government and local authority engagement, departmental initiatives and events.
We have an extra blog from ADEPT CEO Hannah Bartram, talking about the forthcoming Live Labs 2 Expo event. Hannah talks about the event in detail, discussing some of the key features and explains how it will be relevant to people outside of the highways sector. You can read the blog here.
We also have a project Live Labs 2 blog – this month the spotlight returns to the Devon project, where Beth Lewis, Devon County Council's Principal Engineer - Major Projects, tells us about some forward thinking tree relocation work. It’s a great story and has been picked up by lots of media outlets.
Events
Our next Lunch & Learn hosted by Virgin Media O2 is: ‘Location based video analytics – understanding and managing population behaviour using computer vision’ and will take place on Friday 26th April. The session will give an overview of how VM Virgin Media O2 combined connectivity and video analytics will help Transport for London better manage customer safety and reliability, alongside applications of the technology in other environments. It’s free for ADEPT members, you can register here. For anyone that missed the previous Lunch & Lunch on Using AI to optimise Transport Plan Delivery Plans, the slide deck is available here.
You can find out more about ADEPT’s latest news, publications and the work of our boards and groups on the website: www.adeptnet.org.uk.
