Earlier this year, at our full council meeting on 21 March, Suffolk County Council declared a Climate Emergency and only a matter of weeks later, MPs in Westminster approved a motion to declare an Environment and Climate Emergency on a national scale.

A new programme using council land to create much-needed homes and a plan to cut carbon emissions are among the priorities outlined by the Leader of Suffolk County Council on 23 May.

On 21 May, it was announced that Ofsted inspectors have awarded Children’s Services at Suffolk County Council the top grade of ‘Outstanding' following their visit in April 2019. Only eight other Local Authorities, out of 152, have been judged to be ‘Outstanding’ overall.

'Highways Community Self Help’ is designed to support and empower town and parish councils in Suffolk to carry out minor maintenance tasks in their area.

Suffolk, like many other local authorities, faces a large increase in demand for placements for a variety of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Suffolk’s SEND Sufficiency Plan (2018) identified that the number of children and young people with SEND will increase by 18% between 2017 and 2020. This compares to an overall growth in the school age population in Suffolk of 4%.

On 16 April 2019, Suffolk County Council reported that it had received 7,505 applications from parents indicating which primary school they would prefer their child to be educated at in Reception for this year.

With over 120 walks and events the 2019 Suffolk Walking Festival is shaping up to be to the most creative and ambitious to date. This year’s Festival, the 12th to date, launches on Saturday 11 May at West Stow Country Park.

The countdown to one of the biggest events in the county’s calendar has officially begun, with 12 March marking 100 days until we come together to celebrate everything there is to love about Suffolk.

This year’s OVO Energy Women’s Tour Grand Depart in Suffolk will take place between Beccles and Stowmarket. It marks the first time that both market towns will host Britain’s leading women’s procycling race.

Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service is asking the public for views on how it manages the risks it faces across the county, as well as five different areas of its work, from how it responds to automatic fire alarms, to firefighters’ shift patterns.