Hull City Council has been crowned Local Authority of the Year for the Yorkshire region at the Insider Yorkshire Property Industry Awards last night.
Councillor Steve Brady, Leader of Hull City Council, said: I am absolutely delighted that our Council has, once again, been recognised for the work we are doing to make Hull a wonderful place to live, work, study, visit and invest.
Whilst many other authorities have been reducing budgets in art and cultural activity, we have had the faith, commitment and confidence to realise that, by investing over £100m in transforming the city centre, revamping cultural venues and constructing our new £30m Hull Venue, it will reap huge benefits for our residents and businesses. These decisions, at a very challenging time for Council finances, are clearly paying off as we are now seeing a substantial amount of major private sector investment coming into Hull and we look forward to continuing to see the city flourish long into the future.
The Local Authority of the Year award is given to those that have effectively supported development, driven growth and aided commercial operators to complete developments across all sectors of the marketplace.
Matt Jukes, Chief Executive of the Council, said: The accolade of Local Authority of the Year is the result of a huge team effort from staff at the Council and our many partners and demonstrates our collective determination to move the city forward and improve the economy of our city and the wellbeing of our residents.
Winning the award for the £26m public realm improvement works in our city centre is also very significant and substantiates our belief that improving the quality of the city centre environment was the right thing to do to improve the vital economic heart of the city for our residents, our essential city centre businesses and our many visitors.
These awards are the result of Councillors, Council staff and private sector partners working together with a clear vision of how we need to change Hull for the better. We want to thank our partners, residents and businesses for their unwavering support, because, without this, achieving such a striking change to the city landscape would have been impossible to achieve.
Since 2013, the city has seen around £3.3bn of investment, with 6,500 jobs being created in the past five years. Eighty-nine business start-ups or change of use to premises have occurred in the city centre bringing with it 550 new jobs in the visitor economy, along with hotel occupation up by 18%.
Hull was last week announced as the most enterprising place in the Britain at the Enterprising Britain Awards for the success of the citys 10-year City Plan.