I joined Cheshire East Council as chief executive in August 2013 from a London borough where I was an executive director. If you think leafy Cheshire must be a much less challenging place to work than inner London, you couldn't be more wrong.

In March last year, AstraZeneca announced it would cut 550 jobs from its research site at Alderley Park near Macclesfield and move another 1,600 to a new global R&D centre and corporate headquarters in Cambridge.