President's Update

This blog page features updates from ADEPT's President, Anthony Payne.

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President update 1st May - latest news from ADEPT

Hello to you all for the final time in my last update as President of ADEPT! 

In just a couple of weeks, we have the ADEPT Spring Conference and President Awards Dinner. Offering our members a fantastic opportunity to come together, celebrate achievements over the past year and discuss the challenges and steps ahead of us.

The theme of the event will be resilience in our places - if you have not yet booked your ticket, please visit our conference website for more information and to secure your space. 

The conference programme is now finalised, and we have a fantastic line up of speakers including Dr Victoria Hurth who will give the inaugural Presidential Lecture. In addition, I am delighted to be presenting the Annual President’s Awards at the dinner. A big thank you to those who took the time to enter – reading the award entries is a real privilege.

Handing over the ADEPT presidency

I will be handing over the Presidential chain of office to Ann Carruthers earlier in the day too. Ann is Director of Environment and Transport at Leicestershire County Council – and former chair of the ADEPT Transport & Connectivity Board. She will be an exceptional President. I wish her all the best. 

I’d also like to welcome Amy Harhoff, Corporate Director Regeneration Economy and Growth at Durham County Council, as the new chair of the ADEPT Transport & Connectivity Board.

I have enjoyed every aspect of my work as President over the last year and have been inspired in this exciting and varied role. I am grateful for the experiences and for all of the wonderful people I have had the chance to meet and collaborate with. 

Mini Expo announced for Live Labs 2

Before I sign off, I did want to highlight the fantastic success of the Live Labs 2 Expo in Birmingham on 17th April. The event was quickly fully subscribed and we had a long waiting list for stand-by tickets. 

So - to ensure as many people get to hear about the Live Labs 2 programme - we are hosting a mini Expo event online on Tuesday 14th May. The event will feature much of the key, takeaway information shared and delivered on the day. You can register for your place and find out more information here.

EDI Charter and A Place for All published 

I also wanted to highlight that, as part of our commitment to promoting a culture of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) across the membership and beyond, we have recently published an EDI charter and set of actions (here).

As the representative body for local authority place directors, we recognise the inherent value of embracing EDI principles in all aspects of our work. The place sector has traditionally lacked diversity and we understand there is a journey ahead, during which we need to remain realistic but also strive to create real and lasting change. 

The charter builds on the recent equality, diversity and inclusion campaign, A Place for All, featuring a series of powerful case studies. We’ve now gathered all the case studies together in one publication – please do read and share these stories. 

You can find out more about ADEPT’s latest news, publications and the work of our boards and groups on the website: www.adeptnet.org.uk

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