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Challenge 4: Kirklees

Over a 6-month period in early 2018, 10 contestants will tackle five tough real life challenges in councils across the country, spanning front line, financial, creative and leadership challenges. The fourth challenge took place in Kirklees Council.


It was a lovely mid-May morning as the contestants arrived into Huddersfield station for the fourth and penultimate round of the 2018 LG Challenge. Despite one or two particularly early starts, they were excited and raring to go.

Teams Ambition and Vision headed straight to Huddersfield Town Hall, home of Kirklees Council. They were welcomed by Chief Executive Jacqui Gedman who enthusiastically painted a picture of a unique and lively district that, whilst certainly not lacking in pride or character within its individual towns and rural areas, has struggled with its overall identity since it was established 44 years ago. It was exactly this issue that the teams were tasked with solving –to develop a vibrant cultural offer for local people which would help to establish an identity of place for the district as a whole, including its towns and villages.

Being very familiar with the tight time constraints of the LG Challenge, the teams hurried to their respective rooms to immediately get to work. Both Team Ambition (captained by Hannah Lucey, Kent County Council) and Team Vision (captained by Nikki Middleton, Luton Borough Council) had the chance to speak to Kirklees’ Adele Poppleton, Head of Culture and Vibrancy, to discover more about the area they had been tasked with uniting.

Next up was a site visit organised for the afternoon to the nearby town of Dewsbury, which gave contestants an opportunity to speak to local residents and absorb as much information as possible about different ideas around identity in the district.

After a demanding day, an evening networking dinner took place at an Italian restaurant in Huddersfield, recommended by council officers to help highlight the offer in the town centre. Both teams were able to float their initial ideas with Jacqui Gedman, Council Leader Cllr Shabir Pandor, and Karl Battersby, Strategic Director Economy and Infrastructure. The work still wasn’t over as the teams returned to the hotel for a long night of discussion and planning.

Day two and both Ambition and Vision were up bright and early to finalise their business cases. As the clock ticked down to the deadline, the teams took the opportunity to refine their ideas in a speed networking session with 11 prominent individuals from the council and local communities, including Cllr Viv Kendrick, Cabinet Member for Children and Business Development & Commercial Marketing Manager, Anne-Marie Parker.

To add further pressure to the proceedings, this challenge gave all contestants the opportunity to meet one-on-one with the LGA’s Head of Corporate Services Claire Holloway to discuss their Bruce Lockhart Scholarship proposals, presenting some “particularly innovative and really quite exciting” ideas according to Claire.

The scholarship is a £10,000 fund, joint-sponsored by Kent County Council and Essex County Council, which allows the winner of the LG Challenge to progress a programme or work of their own design within their council and local community. The victorious candidate will be announced at the LGA Annual Conference in July.

Nerves were fraught as the deadline approached and both teams headed up to the council chamber to face the team of judges: Jacqui Gedman, Cllr Shabir Pandor, Rachel Spencer (Strategic Director Corporate Strategy and Public Health) and Claire Holloway.

First to present was Team Ambition, who offered an innovative approach which focused on the history of Kirklees and how this could be used to move the district forward. Despite the notable demographic variances within the area, Ambition recognised that all residents shared the commonality of mills and the textile industry, and this formed the basis of their exciting proposal. Through a variety of events hosted across four mills in local areas of the council, ‘Weaving Kirklees Together’ would aim to help instil pride and identity in all residents of the borough, while being informative and educational so that residents could learn about the history of the different areas of Kirklees at each event. Through competitions, illuminations, performances and partnerships with local companies, this great cultural offer would be a way for residents to express their individual identities, as well as learning about the wider area.

Team Vision’s proposal was a simple, focused concept – through the creation of an ‘I Am Kirklees’ brand, they believed all residents of Kirklees would be brought together under one inclusive banner. With the design of an I Am Kirklees card, local businesses and events could partner with the initiative and offer residents a loyalty scheme for visiting local attractions, thus encouraging better engagement in community projects and companies and creating a recognisable trademark for the district.  

The judges were noticeably impressed by the inventive proposals offered by both teams and took some time to discuss between them the merits of both cases. After long deliberations, the contestants returned for the eagerly anticipated results. The panel highlighted how impressed they were by both teams and that the council were fully intending on using aspects of both proposals going forward, but in the end the creativity of the mill-based cultural offer had won out and so for this challenge Team Ambition had come out victorious.

So, with the final round of this year’s challenge just around the corner, it will be all to play for when the contestants head to Cumbria County Council.

The LGA would like to thank Kirklees Council for hosting such a great challenge and their enthusiastic approach throughout.

Lizzie Nugent is Corporate Services Support Assistant at the LGA.

If you are interested in being involved in the Local Government Challenge please email [email protected]