Your Council

Middlesbrough Council is here to serve the people of the town and provide the services they need to make it a healthy, successful and vibrant place to live. The town is at the heart of the Tees Valley and has a diverse community. 

Middlesbrough Council is accountable to local people through its 48 councillors, who represent 23 wards, and a directly elected mayor who represents the whole town. Ray Mallon, is the first directly elected Mayor or Middlesbrough, he was first elected in May 2002 and re-elected in May 2007. The Council  is one of 13 councils with a directly elected Mayor in England.

The Council priorities

The Council's strategic priorities are:

• supporting children and learning
• promoting healthier communities and effective social care for adults
• creating safer and stronger communities
• transforming our local environment
• meeting local transport needs more efficiently
• promoting the economic vitality of Middlesbrough.

These have been developed to support the Mayor's Raising Hope agenda and the achievement of the Middlesbrough's Partnerships Community Strategy.  Further details about the Council's strategic priorities can be found in the Strategic plan using the links on this page.

Council Services

The council is responsible for services as varied as street cleaning, schools, libraries and social services for more vulnerable people.  It also runs the places that are at the centre of the town’s cultural life, including Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (mima) and award winning parks.

Some of the key statistics about the services we run are listed below:

• Educating approximately 5,500 secondary school pupils, 12,000 primary school pupils and 2,000 nursery pupils.
• Providing support and care to approximately 11,500 older people, 1,300 people with disabilities, 1,200 people with mental health problems and 700 people with learning disabilities, looking after approximately 250 children and arranging adoptions.
• Assisting approximately 600,000 visitors to libraries, who borrowed 650,000 items.
• Accommodating over 180,000 visitors to our museums.
• Assisting over 1 million visitors to our leisure centres and teaching approximately 2,600 children to swim.
• Dealing with over 1,000 planning applications
• Making over three million household refuse collections, approximately 1,000 trade waste collections and approximately 20,000 bulky waste collections
• Maintaining and cleaning approximately 485 km of roads and 980 km of footpaths
• Maintaining over 1,100 hectares of land (11,000,000 m2), which includes grass, shrubs, cemeteries, sports fields, golf courses, flower beds and becks.

To achieve this the council employs more than 7,000 people, making it one of the largest employers in the area. It also works hard to make Middlesbrough an attractive place for private sector employers, both large and small, to do business.

Middlesbrough Council was assessed by the Audit Commission as being an Excellent Council