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About this booklet
Better
This booklet is from Mid and East Antrim Borough Council.
We want to work in better ways to give good services to the people in our area. This is called improvement.
We have written a plan for how we will work better this year.
In this booklet we will tell you more about this plan.
About the plan
Corporate Plan
3 years
The plan will help Mid and East Antrim to be a safe and welcoming place with activities for everyone to enjoy.
It includes the things we want to work on this year.
We also have a bigger plan, called the Corporate Plan, which includes the things we want to work on over the next 3 years.
The plan for this year does not deal with everything in the ‘what we know’ sections of this booklet.
Our Corporate Plan will deal with more of these issues.
Our plan has 3 parts:
• People - we will work with other organisations to make people’s lives better.
• Place - we will look after our local areas and make them better.
• Planet - we will work in ways that look after the planet.
Objective
For each part, we have one important Improvement Objective to work on. An objective is something you plan to do.
We asked people what they thought before agreeing our plan.
The next pages will tell you more about each part of our plan.
We will share updates about our plan on our website.
People
We will work with other organisations to make people’s lives better.
What we know
People are not very happy with their mental or physical health.
1 in 4 people who live here cannot do as many activities because of their health condition or disability.
We need to make sure that our services are accessible to people with disabilities.
Many people feel that their health stops them from having a job.
People are not happy with how much money they have.
People who do not have a lot of money want to be able to pay less to do activities that we organise.
People would like more chances to learn and get better jobs.
We need to make it easier for people with disabilities to work for us.
People do not know enough about the different activities we organise.
There are more and more older people in the area, and some of them are lonely.
Some people feel there are not enough ac tivities for young people. Sometimes they can behave badly and can get in trouble when they are bored.
Some people feel scared when groups of young people hang out in our parks and town centres.
A lot of women and girls in Northern Ireland have had problems because they are female.
They might have problems like:
• Being treated badly.
• Being hurt.
Improvement Objective
Change
The Improvement Objective for this part of the plan is to help stop violence against women and girls.
We will work on this by:
• Changing how people think about violence against women and girls, and helping them to prevent it.
I know what to do
• Helping people to know what to do if someone is being hurt.
We will do this by giving money to local groups for their projects, and by training our staff and other organisations.
Place
We will look after our local areas and make them better.
What we know
We need more safe outdoor spaces.
People want more indoor and outdoor places to exercise, play sports and have fun.
These places should be easy for disabled people to use.
More
People would like more public toilets.
People want our area to have better jobs and more money.
People want our town centres to be cleaner and to have more shops.
People want us to do more to bring visitors to our area.
People want our work to be fair to all parts of our area.
Improvement Objective
The Improvement Objective for this part of the plan is to:
Better
• Make our town centres better.
More
• Help get more money into the local area.
This will help people get better jobs.
We will work on this by:
• Writing a plan for how to bring more money into the area.
• Supporting businesses to start up and create at least 50 new jobs in the area.
• Supporting the growth of our area by meeting goals that the government sets for us.
• Organising events to bring more people to our town centres.
• Doing more to tell people about events, like putting information boards in town centres.
We will work in ways that look after the planet.
What we know
Our area is mostly clean.
But dog poo and litter are big problems in some areas.
People want more public bins to help stop this.
Easier
People want us to make it easier to recycle.
People would like town centres and parks to be cleaned more often.
The law says we need to do better at protecting the environment.
Everyone can help with this.
Improvement Objective
The Improvement Objective for this part of the plan is for everyone to work together to make our area better.
We will work on this by:
• Talking to people about how they can make changes in their lives to help the environment. The environment is where we live. It includes the land, the sea, the air and everything that lives in and on it.
• Looking into the recycling service we give.
This will help us meet the targets needed to follow the law.
How you can help
We want you to help us make our area the best that it can be.
You can help in lots of ways, like:
• Buying from the shops in our area when you can.
• Thinking about how much rubbish you make and what you do with it.
• Cleaning up after your pets.
• Supporting older people, women and girls, or anyone who needs help.
You can also help by:
• Giving young people the chance to learn a job if you own a business.
• Being safe on the roads, and using public transport when you can.
You can also contact us by post:
Policy and Performance Team
Mid and East Antrim Borough Council
1-29 Bridge Street
Ballymena
BT43 5EJ
If you live, work or study in Mid and East Antrim, you can also ask questions by filling out a short form on our website.
You can find out more on our website: www.midandeastantrim.gov.uk/ publicquestions
You can fill in a quick survey to say what you think about this Easy Read booklet: info.easy-read-online.co.uk/ easy-read-feedback-survey
This Easy Read booklet was produced by easy-read-online.co.uk The booklet includes images licensed from Photosymbols & Shutterstock.