News: Brighton & Hove City Council leader Jason Kitcat on Brighton & Hove Connected

‘Brighton & Hove Connected’ is a citywide strategic partnership that brings together representatives from many major organisations – including the council, the universities, businesses, and community groups. The name ‘connected city’ reflects how so much of what our city does is through our connections – including business links between the digital and creative sectors, and transport links to our city region and London.

Every four years this strategic partnership draws up a plan for the coming period, setting out how we will all work together and tackle key issues for Brighton & Hove. We all have different but overlapping aims, so it makes sense to co-ordinate our contributions to solving the issues that lie ahead.

The recently-launched 2014 strategy sets out what we’ve achieved since 2010, and what we as a city need to do in the coming years to build a resilient and dynamic place to live, work and visit.

For example Brighton & Hove is expected to have grown by 16,000 people by the next census in 2021. The only way to keep our city moving and economy growing is to get our residents, visitors, goods and services around more efficiently – which means more people travelling by sustainable transport, and less congestion. This shift also has huge benefits with people being more physically active and fewer people with health problems from pollution – which saves the NHS money.

So as a city we’ve agreed that we should promote cycling and walking as efficient ways of moving around. This will have economic, health and environmental benefits for everyone. As a city we have a great track record on working together to reduce inequality, create new jobs, and improve the prospects for our young people. With more difficult financial times ahead for many, and new challenges to deal with, it’s more important than ever that we continue on in partnership.

To read the strategy and find out more, go to: www.bhconnected.org.uk.