Peterborough City Council's new 'go-to' man explains why his £140,000 a year role is a vital one

Peterborough City Council has appointed Adrian Chapman as the new Executive Director for Place and Economy.

After a lengthy application process, which began back in January, Adrian Chapman, who has been an officer with Peterborough City Council since 2006, and fulfilled many roles, has been appointed as the successful candidate.

But what does the Executive Director for Place and Economy, a job that commands an annual salary of between £140k to £160k, actually do, and why is it so important?

“I’m responsible for a really wide range of public facing services that are designed to ensure that we deliver the best outcome for al of our citizens”, he explains.

“My portfolio ranges from highways, planning, and the economic development of the city and surrounds, right the way through to domestic abuse and sexual violence advice and prevention services, environmental health, training standards, community safety, and even traffic wardens.

“It is a vast remit – but very exciting because if anything comes up within a community – lets say for example anti-social behaviour – quite often the public don’t know who to speak to. Resolving a problem like that in the past would involve different bits of the council’s organisation, and that not only could take time but could be complicated in terms of administration and execution.

“What the council has done for the very first time is to combine into one role what were two areas of the organisation.

"My role is the one ‘go-to’ role covering a multitude of services; and what that means for the people of Peterborough is that there should no longer be any excuses, no officer of the council can say to them: ‘Sorry, that’s not my job to do’ or ‘I don’t know who to send you to’.

“I want people to come to me and my team – we have all the tools in place to address the issues they have, and we aim to resolve them and deliver those services to the people of Peterborough as smoothly and as efficiently as possible.”

This is a very senior appointment within the organisation and will also include things like highways problems, overgrown bushes, street lamps being out, an area that feels neglected, a community that needs safety staff to support the area, youth workers – all of these many services that the council performs, they all come under this new portfolio.

Mr Chapman joined the council 16 years ago as part of a government-funded regeneration scheme in Dogsthorpe. He was promoted to lead various community schemes, much of which included environmental health and community support roles including dealing with drug gangs with the Police Community Support Officers, anti-social behaviour, fly tipping.

“I’m a ‘Peterborian’ born and bred, so this city means a lot to me, and I want to see Peterborough grow – but that doesn't just mean physical growth, for me its also about social growth, economic growth, and community growth.

“This job gives me a wonderful opportunity to face some of the very real challenges that this city has, with socio-economic issues for families and individuals this winter, getting homeless people out of the cold and fed properly.”