No one who holds office or works at a district council can be in any doubt about our impact: we transform both places and lives.

While we're legally required to offer certain services – waste collection, planning and housing, to name a few – it's often the services we ourselves choose to provide that have the biggest impacts. Art or cultural centres spearhead town centre regeneration; leisure centres keep people active and healthy; our economic development teams help businesses to thrive and grow local employment; and our social prescribing work supports good mental health. Such services do not just benefit our communities, they also take the burden off other parts of the public sector.