A NEW strategy that will form the basis of all future decisions made by Darlington Borough Council is set to be agreed by councillors this week.

The sustainable community strategy (SCS) is an updated version of a document first created in 2008 by the Darlington Partnership, called One Darlington: Perfectly Placed, which was used by the council to explain its wider aims for the town.

In the wake of the recession and tighter budgets, the council decided to refresh the document, using information gathered from the public at a series of budget debates held last summer to reconsider its plans for the next ten years.

As well as a wider vision for the future of the town, the revised document has also added smaller, short term goals that will improve conditions for people living in Darlington and keep the strategy on track financially.

A report prepared for councillors, who will vote to adopt the strategy at a full council meeting on Thursday, notes that the updated SCS has the idea of ‘fairness’ at the centre.

The document’s key aims include building stronger communities, economic growth and ‘every public pound well spent’.

The council has said it hopes to reduce inequality in a number of areas across town by supporting children and early years learning, providing a safe community, helping people to be more healthy and active and creating more businesses and jobs.

The SCS report noted: “The outcome of the Money Talks events was the recognition that we needed to develop a new plan with some shorter term goals which would help to tackle the financial challenges while continuing to focus on our overall vision as a longer term goal.

“This has resulted in a statement about how the overall ‘conditions’ within the borough need to change before we can be confident that we can continue to deliver our vision with the reduced resources available.

“The vision sets out a challenge to the people of Darlington including the public sector organisations to bring about significant change to achieve the conditions in the short term.”