Date: 01/09/2009
Councillor Margaret Eaton OBE, Chairman of the Local Government Association (LGA), was the honoured guest of High Peak Borough Council and Staffordshire Moorlands District Council on Wednesday 26 August, in a visit to learn more about each authority and their strategic working alliance.
Accompanied throughout the day by joint Chief Executive Simon Baker, Cllr Eaton spent the morning at Moorlands House in Leek, receiving a comprehensive briefing about the councils' strategic working alliance, followed by tours of the Library, the Nicholson Gallery, the One-Stop Shop and the Call Centre. And in the process, meeting Executive Directors and officers, council Leader Cllr Sybil Ralphs and Deputy Leader Cllr Arthur Forrester.
The Wednesday afternoon saw Cllr Eaton at the Pavilion Gardens in Buxton for further briefings, in the company of High Peak Leader Cllr Tony Ashton and Deputy Leader Cllr Emily Thrane, Executive Directors and officers.
Visits to the historic Dome at the University of Derby, The Crescent redevelopment and the Buxton Opera House followed, culminating in a round-up briefing of regeneration plans across the two councils' areas, back in the Pavilion Gardens Art Café.
Cllr Eaton, who represents the Bingley Rural ward of Bradford Metropolitan Borough Council (MDC), became Chairman of the LGA in September 2008. First elected to Bradford MDC in May 1986, she became its first female leader in May 2000.
The LGA, formed in 1997 and based in Westminster, is a voluntary lobbying organisation acting as the voice and advocate for its 423 local authority members in England and Wales. Together its members represent over 50 million people and around £113 billion a year spent on local services.