Leader of Devon County Council John Hart writes for this title.

This will be the last column I write as leader of Devon County Council after my decision to step down.

 I have been nominated to become chairman of the council at our annual meeting and - if successful - I hope to meet many of you at events around the county over the next year.

 I would like to thank you for reading this column over the past few years and to the editor for providing the space every fortnight.

I have tried to avoid partisan party politics and explain how and why we reach the decisions we do and the constraints and pressures we face in running an organisation with a £1.7 billion annual turnover where demand for services for older people and vulnerable children is virtually limitless. I hope I have achieved some success in making County Hall more transparent and accessible

 Since my last column, Devon and Torbay have both voted to submit our final business case to the Government for devolution and, all being well, we will be ready to go in the autumn. 

We are going to concentrate on measures to begin to ease our county's housing crisis, boost our economy with new jobs, raise the skills of our workforce and deliver a Green agenda. We will be taking on new powers for skills and training and we will take over the responsibilities of the now-defunct Local Enterprise Partnership for economic development.

I believe devolution will be one of the most important and positive developments in Devon politics for years.

I have always said that, as leader, I wanted to ensure we looked after the old, the young and the vulnerable. To do that we have to ask you to help pay through the council tax but we have always tried to keep that as low as possible whilst balancing our books.

Last week I was delighted that, in my final Cabinet meeting, we heard that our budget for 2023/24 had come in, in surplus.

We were already due to approve an extra £10 million boost to pothole repairs and pre-emptive road drainage work. The successful outcome to the 23/24 budget meant we were able to add another £2 million to that total.

So the county’s budget for repairing potholes and drainage work will be boosted by a total of £12 million overall. This is a good example of the prudent financial management I have espoused leading to real benefits for the people of Devon.

Unlike many other top-tier councils, we have spent within our means and not come close to issuing the so-called notices of bankruptcy. Instead, after excellent work by our finance teams and our spending departments in getting the best possible value for money, we are now able to invest more cash on one of the key priorities for residents – starting to improve the condition of our roads and tackle the large backlog of repairs

Now we estimate that to do everything we would like to our 8,000 miles of roads would cost some £200 million so I am realistic. But this is a significant cash injection which will have a positive impact on the condition of our roads, not only by repairing potholes but also improving drainage to make our roads more resilient.

I know many people complain that potholes can be filled but that the next spell of bad weather and heavy rain just washes the repairs out. With this cash, we intend to do more patching work over a wider surface to alleviate those problems.

So I close with good news and very best wishes to my deputy, James McInnes, who will replace me as leader.