About Wychavon

“Our vision for Wychavon is a safe, green, healthy and beautiful district that is a vibrant and creative place for everyone to live, work and visit.”

Welcome to Wychavon in Worcestershire - a great place with great people and a really special council.

The area of Wychavon covers 260 square miles and is the largest District in Worcestershire. 116,900 people (mid 2005 estimate) live here and there are over 50,000 homes.

Our main towns are Droitwich Spa, Evesham and Pershore and as a rural area we cover more than 100 villages. Research shows 89 per cent of residents are satisfied with the local area as a place to live.

So what makes Wychavon District Council special?

• We’re the first council to build a hospital and health centre
• We have a reputation for innovative communications
• Our loos have the highest satisfaction rates in the Country
• Our planning authority was the most improved in England
• Our housing department is the first double excellently rated district service in the country
• We have ever increasing partnership working with our community contact centres
• We won the LGC council of the year award 2007
• Our staff ranked our leadership as number one in the Times Best Councils to work for survey 2007.   

But what really marks us out is our no nonsense ‘Wychavon Way’. We have a ‘get on with it’ style and ability to translate jargon and the national agenda into something meaningful. For example take local strategic partnerships. Most have one partnership but we have three. They are very distinct and are based around our three towns and surrounding areas. And we give them money that makes things happen such as supporting community arts events, hospital transport and park improvements.

We don’t do talk shops and we can’t afford to.  We’re lean with 300 staff so we spend our time and energy on what really matters to people. And we make sure the best people deliver services – not always us, so we were one of the first to transfer housing and set up a leisure trust. We keep costs affordable too – with our 2.5% increase in Council Tax for the last 5 years.

What do others think?

Well in Audit Commission terms we are excellent and we helped the commission get it right as a Pathfinder. But to us our success is what our residents think and the latest survey results shows increasing satisfaction across our services from waste and recycling to parks and leisure. And our staff are proud of working for Wychavon with 97% enjoying their job.

For more information contact:

Fiona Narburgh
Head of Strategy & Communications
Call 01386 565101 between 9am - 5pm, Monday -Friday
Email: fiona.narburgh@wychavon.gov.uk