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Appendix A
Project Ideas: Response and Recovery
Economic Recovery
Maidstone Town Centre Strategy co-designed with the public and other key stakeholders (e.g. businesses and anchor institutions) a central piece of work for the whole Borough to secure a thriving future for the County Town. We are currently consulting on the new Economic Development Strategy which includes a town centre pillar, we will use the feedback from stakeholders to provide the context of other peoples views about the town centre
A communications project on marketing the borough, promoting our assets, our borough and town centre to secure inward investment.
Maidstone is Open for Business across the borough - Incentive Scheme encouraging businesses to meet our goals on employing local people for example
Project focussing on thinking local in terms of our economy
Preparatory work for Levelling Up/ UK Prosperity Fund and similar bidding opportunities
Tackle youth unemployment targeting our most deprived wards including working with Mid Kent College to establish a Youth Hub for 18-24-year olds
Work with existing arts and cultural groups, coordinate activity and bids for funding to develop projects to enhance the cultural lives of residents in Maidstone and diversify the offer
Establish Anchor Institutions network to enable more local recruitment (including collaboration of skills and training) and local spending through procurement
Improving infrastructure like broadband (link to the Economic Development Strategy)
Community Resilience
Levelling Up a piece of work informed by local data to enable a definition as to what levelling up means for maidstone borough and the councils role in this
Financial Inclusion - identify people/households financially in crisis and at risk, contact and target with information to ensure they are receiving the correct benefits to maximise income.
Community Recovery Grants funds to enable communities to help themselves including time limited support to voluntary and community groups e.g. tackling issues accentuated by Covid19 including isolation, risks to health and well-being and the knock effects of day to day life e.g. gaining access to employment
Make best use of the Homelessness Prevention Grant to enable households to remain in their homes.
Create provision at Trinity Foyer to enable partners including in the VCSE to deliver services here
Pump priming work to encourage and support volunteering
Support to extend digital inclusion
Project with community to consider ways of paying respect for people who have died as a result of the pandemic complementing Compassionate Maidstone recognition and awards
Establish Community Compact to sustain strategic and operational relationships with the Community, Voluntary and Social Enterprise sector as agreed by the Community Housing and Environment Committee
Investment in Emergency Planning to ensure we are prepared for future large scale emergencies.
The Way We Work
Investment in equipment to enable sustained home working
Invest more in technology to enable mobile working as part of a working from anywhere approach
Investment in ICT kit to enable blended remote/home and office working including video conferencing
Detailed work to enable decision, design and implementation on the preferred option for long term office accommodation
Time limited increased capacity for HR and policy teams to refresh staffing policies and cultural change to enable new ways of working
Engagement with staff and Managers on training, working practices as changing the way we work and working from home and the office
Review whether the way we deliver services can/should be more personalised based on the different needs of our customers?
Incorporate agile workspaces and climate change adaptations into offices
Integrate and embed social value into our procurement in a comprehensive way