Chief exec retirement 'right time for council reset'

The outgoing chief executive of Warrington Council said it is the right time for him to hand over for a "reset" of the authority.

Professor Steven Broomhead will retire after spending nearly 20 years in charge of the authority over two separate terms, and he was also the head of the former North West Regional Development Agency for seven years.

The 69-year-old said he had seen "a lot of positive changes" during his time as chief executive, but said the biggest issue was "adequate and proper funding" for local government.

Steve Park, currently the council's executive director for place, will take up the role on an interim basis on 1 July.

Prof Broomhead was the local authority's chief executive from 1997 to 2003 and then took up the role again, initially on an interim basis, in 2012.

From 2003 to 2010, he was the chief executive of the North West Regional Development Agency.

Prof Broomhead said during his time in charge at Warrington Council, he was proud of the redevelopment of the town centre, in particular the council's Time Square development.

"I'm proud about how we've managed to deliver so much, given the level of funding we've had," he said.

"We work here in Warrington really well in a partnership way with the private sector.

"I think we've done some really good things here, we're often held up as a beacon of how to do regeneration."

But he also highlighted his work at the NWRDA, in particular the regeneration of MediaCity in Salford, and said the agency's work is still noted more than a decade after its closure.

"People still approach me about it and talk about the things we did because they triggered lots of other investments.

"MediaCity was just the BBC moving out of London with seven departments, but it's been a great economic success and other media companies, including private companies, have joined MediaCity.

"There's examples of that all round the North West."

The regional development agencies were closed in 2012 and replaced with local enterprise partnerships, which were now set to have their functions merged with councils and combined authorities after the withdrawal of central government funding.

He said he hoped devolution would provide an alternative.

Cheshire and Warrington was currently going through the devolution process and was set to elect its first mayor in May 2026.

"I hope what you'll see is the combined authorities, which we hope we'll have a full set of within a year, they'll work co-operatively around the economic agenda."

Warrington Council has faced controversy in recent years, especially around its investment programme which has led to it building up around £1.8bn in debt.

A government inspection was ordered after concerns about the level of debt, and it has been recommended that ministerial envoys be sent into the authority.

Prof Broomhead said his decision to retire was not linked to the recent inspection and he thought now was time to handover for a "reset".

"Someone else will lead [the council] in a different way than I have for the last 20 years, so I think now is the right time," he said.

See more Cheshire stories from the BBC and follow BBC North West on X. For more local politics coverage, BBC Politics North West is on BBC One on Sunday at 10:00am and on BBC iPlayer.