Living in Gloucestershire

The Council is set in a great county with a mix of smart towns like Cheltenham for café bars, shopping, nightlife and festivals (including Cheltenham Gold Cup racing). As well as the historic city of Gloucester, for its impressive Cathedral, (used as a set in the filming of Harry Potter) and Premiership rugby, the Cotswolds, Tewkesbury and Forest of Dean add further character and countryside. The county's housing, schools, motorway access and train facilities are also very good.

Our focus and our approach

We question everything. If it doesn’t help to make life better locally – we don’t do it. Doing better and better is a key priority for all of us – members and officers alike. It means getting the basics right – making sure all our services are doing well. And it means delivering what the Public want, when and where they need it.

To make sure we do that we talk to local people and – more importantly – listen to what they say. It makes sense. The people of Gloucestershire pay for services so they should have a direct say in how they are delivered and developed.

We focus our services so that the people of Gloucestershire can reap the rewards. But, we don’t work on our own. To make sure people get the best value for their money, we find the best way to provide those services. That means working with other councils and other agencies to make services more effective. However, we also have to be very adaptable and our focus can change due to unforeseen circumstances, for example we are currently assessing how to respond to the developing onset of recession locally.

Facts!

Around 600,000 people now live in the county.

We have the Cotswold’s, the Royal Forest of Dean, and Severn Vale – some of the largest Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the country. Not surprisingly, it is seen as a desirable place to live, and our population growth over the last ten years has been much higher than the national average. It is a popular destination for people looking to retire and have an improved quality of life – so much so that almost 18% of our population is aged 65 or over, around two per cent above the national average.

Conversely, we have a lower proportion of people aged under 25, and there are pockets of deprivation in some of our towns requiring high levels of service from the county council, the district councils and our partner agencies.

Gloucestershire has been an important trading and business centre since the Roman era. It has excellent transport links and a number of major private and public sector organisations helping generate a thriving local economy.