Authority’s boss keen to keep growth of town at the forefront

Bill Cullen wants to build on area’s recent successes

ENSURING Hinckley is ‘the’ place to be remains the aim of the man set to step into the most important shoes in the borough.

Bill Cullen is no stranger to spearheading the changing face of Hinckley and Bosworth and in January, when he assumes the mantle of chief executive, he wants that to continue.

Having first served as head of planning and leisure he has performed various roles over the last 13 or so years, rising to the position of deputy chief executive before being announced as successor to current council boss Steve Atkinson.

The appointment of the former Putney schoolboy who was the first in his family to go to university was unanimously agreed at a full council meeting last week.

He heads up an altered senior management structure with himself at the helm and three directors undertaking the essential roles of community services, corporate services and environmental planning.

Having the backing of councillors, no matter what party, was important to Mr Cullen, a family man with three children, two grown up and one teenager, who enjoys five-a-side football, running and surfing. “I’m very much a participator not a spectator”, he says.

As leader of the multimillion pound organisation with 430 or so employees and responsibility for more than 48,600 households Mr Cullen knows only too well the nature of the role is to work for the benefit of the council and the 107,000 plus citizens it serves.

Progression of these past successes is what Mr Cullen hopes to achieve. Enhancing staff performance, ensuring customer focus and improving the environment to support the improvement of lives are priorities.

Partnership working too with other councils, economic agencies, big business such as DPD and Horiba Mira, statutory service providers and of course local communities is a major responsibility.

Aims range from the fundamental such as delivering excellent services to residents and supporting councillors and staff to the aspirational including developing town teams and assisting with neighbourhood plans to the ambitious like lobbying for the dualling of the A5 from the M42 to the M69 and influencing a striking construct for the old leisure centre site on Hinckley’s Coventry Road.

Mr Cullen said: “It is such a significant site, a gateway to the town centre, it would be wonderful to see some landmark development. The Hinckley Shard maybe? And why not - it should be something we are really proud of.”

Passionate about architecture and regeneration, Mr Cullen worked in Sunderland, Hertfordshire, York and Bedfordshire after gaining a degree in people’s town planning at Newcastle University.

Special projects and redevelopment were his forte so when he came across the planning and leisure vacancy at Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council it was a challenge he could not resist, as well as being personally fortuitous as it brought his wife closer to her family.

“The key challenge was around the regeneration agenda,” said Mr Cullen. “I think my experience of that was within the first two weeks going along to a planning committee meeting with a packed public gallery very, very much opposed to the Morrisons scheme which had been proposed for the bus station.

“So I set myself the challenge of making something really positive happen there and withdraw the negativity and concern.”

Now with The Crescent open, almost all units occupied and attracting shoppers and diners, his town centre vision has come to fruition, thanks as well, he is keen to point out, to the support of a great staff team and enthusiastic and determined development part- ners.

A new leisure complex was also an aspiration and the state-of-the-art sports facility at Argents Mead, along with The Crescent, he believes has now totally transformed Hinckley’s centre, bucking the national trend and marking out Hinckley and Bosworth as an attractive proposition to both visitors and potential investors.

While these two projects have been key Bill was also eager to see how the rural parishes could be encouraged and enriched.

He was instrumental in establishing the parish and community initiative fund, a scheme which is being enlarged to support initiatives in villages and countryside communities.

It is this improvement and investment idealogy which is a driving force. He said: “I want to ensure when I look back at the legacy I have left it shows I have made a real, tangible difference in the community I have worked in.

“A legacy in both its physical appearance but also about what people think of services in that area and how they have been provided.”