Staffordshire County Council's aim is to provide high quality services which provide value for money and are focused on, and delivered around the needs of our customers and communities. Sixty two elected county councillors make decisions for the county and work closely with council officers to drive our overall strategy.
The county council provides Staffordshire's population of around 800,000 residents with vital services including schools, libraries, social services, trading standards, highways and planning. More information can be found at (http://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/yourcouncil/)
The council also works with partner organisations such as district and parish councils, police, fire and health authorities to help improve the prosperity, health, safety and environment of the whole county. We are partners in a number of environmental initiatives through the county, including the Forest of Mercia Partnership, Central Rivers Initiative, Newcastle Countryside Project, Cannock Chase AONB partnership and the Churnet Valley Living Landscapes Partnership to support local environmental initiatives. One of the principal aims of these partnerships is to encourage community involvement in local landscape improvements.
The County Council also contributes to the quality of life of Staffordshire residents through a wide variety of other activities. These include planning where major developments should take place across the county, and deciding whether planning permission should be granted for minerals extraction and waste disposal. We manage large amounts of information relating to the county's landscapes, its biodiversity, its archaeology and its historic built environment and also manage the county rights of way, open spaces and country parks, enabling improved access to the countryside. Information on the information held by the County Council’s Environment and Countryside Unit, and the work we do to safeguard the natural and historic assets of the county can be found by following this link: http://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/environment/e-land/
An important piece of work has been undertaken to assess the whole of the Staffordshire landscape, sub-dividing the landscape into areas of similar character, what we call Landscape Character Types. The quality of the landscapes has been assessed and this information has been used to prepare a document titled "Planning for Landscape Change" to inform the planning process. This information has been used to initially guide the planning of the Churnet Valley LLP area and is available as PDF downloads from our environment page.
Information on promoted walks in the area can be found at: http://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/environment/e-land/RightsofWay/PromotedRoutes/