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October marked the first year of operation for our award-winning Viking Energy Network Jarrow (VENJ) and so it was fitting that it scooped another prestigious accolade in the Public Sector Project category at the RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors) awards.

VENJ harnesses low-grade heat from the River Tyne and exports it to council-owned buildings, including Jarrow Focus leisure centre, three residential tower blocks, Jarrow Business Centre, and Jarrow Town Hall. It is the first of its kind in the country.

October also marked the opening of the Paul Younger Centre, in Hebburn, which uses air source heat pumps to provide renewable heating and hot water to Durham Court residential block and Hebburn Central leisure facility.

The Centre is a wonderful tribute to the late Professor Paul Younger, who was born in the town and went on to become one of the world's foremost experts in his field. We were delighted that Paul's family and friends were able to join the Mayor for the official opening.

The two schemes are delivering a combined annual reduction of almost 1,400 tonnes in carbon emissions.

We also started construction on the development of a cutting-edge new Extra Care scheme in Hebburn town centre.

The 95-apartment scheme, on the site of the former Lincoln Court scheme just behind Hebburn Central, is a partnership between northern housing association Karbon Homes and Â鶹ÊÓƵ. It's exciting to see work getting underway on this development, which will allow not just our older people, but younger adults with care needs to live in the community with care and support.

We know this is so important to our residents, who have told us that they want to be able to continue to live independently in the community for as long as possible rather than going into residential care.

We made further progress with our children's homes this month. All three locations are now back on site and will be completed by late summer next year. We are working to buck the national trend by investing in council-owned Children's Homes provision, which means we can reduce expensive out-of-borough placements and support our young people by ensuring they can attend school, be closer to their family and any wider support network and enjoy time with their friends as any child should.

We welcomed more than one hundred professionals from across the region to South Shields Town Hall for our hate crime conference, with this year's theme being 'From Adversity to Diversity'. The conference has become a key annual event, aimed at identifying and tackling this issue and we are really proud to be leading the way with this in the North East.

As an organisation, we are committed to equality and inclusivity. There is simply no place for hate in our communities. Promoting tolerance, acceptance and kindness is crucial so that everyone feels safe in our diverse borough.

We also held the North East's first Child Poverty Summit with representatives from organisations across the borough and region vowing to tackle child poverty head on.

The event highlighted the commitment and determination of people to work together to address child poverty and it was heartening to see all the positive interventions in place, including the work with young people and schools. There are staggering levels of poverty in our borough and region, and we made it a priority long before the cost-of-living crisis hit. We have worked collaboratively with partners and the third sector, and it is that co-operative approach that sets South Tyneside apart and has enabled us to do so much for those most in need of support.

As a result of the Summit,  we are committing to; raising the key issues from the Summit with the Combined Authority and Government; enhancing support to schools to reduce the cost of the school day and support parents just above the Free School Meal threshold; encouraging take-up of Free School Meals; rolling out more baby boxes to new parents; providing further welfare support within Family Hubs; and expanding advice on money matters and help on sustainable cooking to parents within school settings.

While there is a huge amount of work going on to alleviate poverty in South Tyneside, most of the levers to action real change are still in the control of central government and we are hoping for change. Instead of dealing with the effects of poverty, we need to stop people being in poverty in the first place.

As part of our ongoing campaign to boost the take up of Pension Credit in South Tyneside we hosted a drop-in event at The Word providing advice and support for our older residents. Since April 2023, our efforts to promote pension credit have resulted in over £838,000 being claimed by residents who are eligible, but it is estimated that there are still around 3,000 people in South Tyneside not claiming and we want to ensure every single person gets the money that is due to them. We will be hosting further events during November so look out for further details or check out our cost-of-living web pages.

The Chancellor presented her first budget this month. This was a huge budget for the country set within a context of really challenging public finances. As a council who has already saved over £208m since 2010 we know all too well the difficult decisions that have to be made to balance the books.

What I really welcome in the Chancellor's budget is action to protect and support those in our communities who need it most, and a choice of investment over decline. In South Tyneside we are focused on targeting our support to make things fairer to make every penny count and to reduce inequalities, subsiding services wherever we can.

Councillor Tracey Dixon
Leader of Â鶹ÊÓƵ