WE would like to respond to a letter last week as we feel it contains a number of inaccuracies.

Redditch Borough Council is committed to keeping its residents informed about, and involved in, its plans and progress in ways that are interesting, engaging, informative and accurate.

We constantly try to improve what we are doing and always welcome suggestions on how we can do so.

For just 17p a copy, Redditch Matters is one of our most effective ways of keeping in touch with residents.

In our last readers' survey, the magazine ranked equally with the Advertiser as the most trusted sources of council information.

During the last 12 months, we have undertaken a variety of initiatives to ask Redditch residents what they would want over the next 10-15 years for the borough.

We had a magnificent response and our final plan for working with other organisations to make Redditch a better place genuinely reflects what the people who live and work here want to see.

One of the main issues residents want us to address is their local environment.

In the July issue, we talked about the work we are doing already and how everyone can play their part.

We have also carried out specific consultation with young people.

One of the key messages was a growing concern about bullying. We have since organised a conference looking at anti-social behaviour, bringing high schools, young people and other professionals together to look at how we can better tackle this issue.

In response to young people's concerns, we have also obtained £66,000 worth of funding to improve school holiday activities and £70,000 to fund a team of detached workers to provide youth work to young people where it is needed.

Our Best Value Performance Plan sets out what we are trying to do - how many of last year's targets we achieved, how we performed against national standards and our plans and priorities for next year.

We are aware of the problems with our current website and have taken on board views from users in the redesign of a new website, which we will be launching in early August.

Our housing services are currently under review in a bid to improve the services we offer to residents.

In the last 12 months we invested £4.7million in our housing stock and have approved a second phase of work, worth a further £8.4 million.

Staff at Redditch Borough Council all work hard to make life better for the people of Redditch.

However, we are not complacent. There is still much to be done and we will continue to work in partnership with our community and other statutory private and voluntary bodies to this end.

J BRANCH

Director of Strategy and Review

Redditch Borough Council