Warwick District Council

The council and its area

Warwick District Council is the local authority for a district in the centre of Warwickshire that takes in the towns of Royal Leamington Spa, Warwick, Kenilworth and Whitnash together with surrounding villages such as Barford, Radford Semele and Bishop's Tachbrook. Just under 150,000 people live in the district, which borders Coventry to the north and Stratford-on-Avon district to the south, with the M40 motorway and the Chiltern railway line crossing it. The council's offices are at the Town Hall on the Parade in Royal Leamington Spa, and a customer service hub at the Royal Pump Rooms nearby handles face to face enquiries on weekdays.

Formation and history

The council was created on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. It brought together the municipal boroughs of Warwick and Royal Leamington Spa, the urban district of Kenilworth and much of the former Warwick Rural District. The district takes its name from the county town, although Leamington is the largest of its towns and the administrative base. Each town keeps its own character: Warwick with its castle and medieval street pattern, Leamington with its Regency terraces and gardens, Kenilworth with its ruined castle and abbey grounds.

Warwickshire has a two tier structure of local government. The county council looks after education, social care and highways, while the district council is responsible for the services described below. Town and parish councils form a third, more local layer across the district.

Services for residents and businesses

The council collects household waste and recycling from homes across the district and runs street cleaning and garden waste services. Bulky item collections are available on request. It decides planning applications, prepares the local plan that guides where new homes and workplaces can be built, and deals with building regulations through its building control team. Environmental health officers inspect food businesses, investigate noise and pollution complaints, and license taxis, pubs and other regulated activities.

Council tax and business rates are billed and collected by the district on behalf of itself, the county council, the police and the fire service. The same teams administer council tax support for households on low incomes.

The council manages public car parks in Warwick, Leamington and Kenilworth and enforces the rules that apply in them. It maintains cemeteries in the district and operates the crematorium at Oakley Wood, south of Warwick. Grants from the council support voluntary groups, sports clubs and arts organisations, and its economic development team works with town centre traders and small firms.

Housing

Unlike many English districts, Warwick retained its own council housing. The authority owns and manages more than five thousand homes, maintains them through a repairs service, and keeps a register for people seeking affordable housing. Its housing teams also advise private tenants, assess homelessness applications, and work with developers and housing associations to increase the supply of affordable homes in an area where house prices are among the highest in Warwickshire.

Elections and democracy

Councillors elected from wards across the district set the budget and policies, with all seats contested at elections held every four years. Committee and council meetings are webcast and open to the public. The council also runs the machinery of elections locally: it maintains the electoral register and administers parliamentary, county, district, town and parish polls for the area. Consultations on the budget, the local plan and major projects are published on its website, and residents can respond online or in writing.

Parks, leisure and culture

The district council manages some of the best known green spaces in Warwickshire. Jephson Gardens, laid out beside the River Leam in the nineteenth century, remains the centrepiece of Leamington, with formal planting, a glasshouse and riverside walks. St Nicholas Park in Warwick offers playgrounds, boating and open riverside meadows below the castle. Abbey Fields in Kenilworth wraps the ruins of a medieval abbey in parkland, and Newbold Comyn on the edge of Leamington combines woodland, meadow and cycling trails. Victoria Park in Leamington has hosted national lawn bowls championships for many years. Rangers and grounds teams maintain play areas, allotments and sports pitches across the four towns.

Leisure centres at Newbold Comyn, St Nicholas Park, Abbey Fields and Castle Farm in Kenilworth are operated on the council's behalf and include swimming pools, gyms and sports halls. The Royal Pump Rooms, built as a spa establishment in the early nineteenth century when visitors came to take the waters, now houses Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum, a library and a cafe, and its collections record the growth of the spa town.

The council supports events in its parks and town centres through the year, from outdoor cinema and food festivals to remembrance services. It publishes spending and performance data online, and its climate change programme covers matters such as tree planting, home energy advice and reducing emissions from its own buildings and vehicle fleet.

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