The Knot interviews Jane Ashworth, leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council
The most powerful person in Stoke, Rochdale-born Jane tells Hannah Hiles what drew her to The Potteries and why the city’s reputation is starting to change…
Staffordshire’s own Samuel Johnson famously wrote: “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life”. But when Jane Ashworth felt she had had enough of living in the capital, she decided to start a new chapter in Stoke-on-Trent.
It might not seem the obvious place for the chief executive of a national sports charity to choose to spend their retirement years, but the StreetGames founder felt the city had everything she needed – green spaces, affordability, ‘agreeable’ people and ‘lots of friends’.
It didn’t take long to feel at home. She lived in a flat in Burslem for a couple of years while she – in her own words – ‘got [herself] sorted’, before buying the house where she still lives in 2018.
Rochdale-born Jane, who was awarded an OBE in 2011 for services to community sport, told The Knot: “I moved to Stoke-on-Trent because I was sick of living in London. I was a few years off retirement and decided I wanted to move somewhere I’d enjoy living, where I had everything I needed, and lots of friends.
“It’s very green; people are agreeable; you can afford to do things. It’s an easy place to live because of people’s attitudes. It has its difficulties, but we all know that.”
Having been involved in The Labour Party since a young age – even becoming chair of the university Labour Club during her undergraduate degree in sociology at Durham – she says getting involved in politics ‘seemed like a natural thing to be doing at the point of retirement’.
Making Sport Accessible to All
She quickly became a key figure on the city’s political scene and was elected as a city councillor for Burslem in 2019, the same year she stepped down as chief executive of StreetGames, and the following year she was appointed leader of the Labour group, which had been in opposition since 2015.
Jane spent most of her career in sport-related roles around the country – with spells in Newcastle upon Tyne, Salford, Southwark and Merseyside – and worked for Sport England for 10 years before founding StreetGames in 2005.
The ethos behind StreetGames encouraged young people to get involved in ‘doorstep sport’ by taking activity to the estates at the ‘right time, right place, right price and in the right style’.
This type of ‘mucking about sport’ aimed to break down traditional barriers to getting involved, particularly for young people from low-income backgrounds. And through the network of more than 1,500 local organisations who were delivering the programmes on the ground, Jane heard about the common challenge being faced in communities across the country – children were turning up to activities where they should have brought a packed lunch with no food.
The charity responded by launching the Fit and Fed scheme, a forerunner of the Government’s holiday activities and food (HAF) programme, which is coordinated in Stoke-on-Trent by the city council and The Hubb Foundation.
This meant that she was already familiar with issues in Stoke-on-Trent when she moved here, where so many people were struggling to makes ends meet even before the cost-of-living crisis sank its teeth into the city.
Cleaning up Burslem
Another of Jane’s priorities on being elected was to clean up her ward, which was blighted by fly-tipping. A clampdown on fly-tipping in the city known by the acronym IDIOT – Illegal Dumping In Our Town – kicked off in June 2023, while the city council was also among the first local authorities to increase its charges for environmental crime fixed penalty notices in January 2024.
Jane said: “I was shocked at the way that places like Burslem were not kept in decent condition. It was just filthy. I’d drive around all the streets in Burslem and take photos of fly-tipping – and the difference now is incredible. Now when I drive round I only find one or two spots, whereas in the past there would have been more than a dozen. Making it less socially acceptable and fining people a lot of money has made a big difference, although there are still problem areas,” she admitted.
“In Burslem there’s a sort of network of community activists who are easy to work with and have lots of ideas. In another ward it might be more difficult, but they make it easy for me,” she added.
The council leader considers the blitz on dumping to be one of the authority’s recent success stories, along with tackling damp and mould, and getting to grips with the city’s potholes.
Overcoming bankruptcy
But these campaigns were dwarfed by the ‘very real risk’ of effective bankruptcy faced by the city council in September 2023. Described at the time as the ‘most challenging position [the city council] has ever faced, the authority was being crippled by the ‘exponential increase’ in demand for adult and children’s social care and soaring inflation costs, as well as a decline in revenue support grant from the government – and faced a projected shortfall of up to £30 million.
In February 2024, the immediate crisis was averted when the government agreed to allow the city council to borrow £42.2 million of emergency support over two years – enabling the authority to balance its books and invest in early support for struggling families in the city.
Jane said: “In terms of successes, we didn’t end up going effectively bankrupt. We deflected it by negotiating with the government, but it was a real risk. It wasn’t just down to the reduction in revenue support, but it was also the wrong-headedness of the previous administration who cut early help and support to struggling families. Early help works, so all you are doing is setting up problems.”
The costs and the number of children in care going up steeply without politicians noticing it was a problem, she said. “We are now trying to keep children safe at home with families where possible. It’s a mirror image of the past process which led us to have the most children in care in England. We want to first make sure kids in care are on a reunification path if appropriate, and secondly build alternative structures of support – and that doesn’t happen overnight.”
Fairer Funding
She backs calls by the Local Government Association for a fairer funding formula to ensure that poorer cities like Stoke-on-Trent get the support they need, instead of having to cut services or put up council tax.
She said: “We need a fairer funding formula to make the connection between need and funding, which the Conservatives promised to do but never did. Labour hasn’t had time to sort this yet but I’m expecting it to be improved in future years.”
Jane is more circumspect about the city council might tackle next, saying it’s ‘a question of viability – what’s important, what we can afford’, but one thing that many people would like to see improved is the state of the city’s heritage buildings.
An expert panel facilitated by Historic England recently visited the city to explore and advise on potential opportunities for regeneration in Burslem, while the city council received almost £320,000 from Historic England to carry out urgent repairs to the Wedgwood Institute and prevent the iconic building from deteriorating further.
The city council also announced last month that it is introducing a ‘fit and proper person test to ensure heritage doesn’t fall into the wrong hands’, while 22 Notices have been issued to owners of buildings in Tunstall’s conservation area in the past three months.
Jane said: “We need to make sure that people who want to buy a heritage building will look after it properly. We’re not having it that individuals land bank, vandalise them by neglect and hope someone will turn up with a sack of money to sort it out.”
While there’s still a lot of work to do, it seems that, like Jane, people are beginning to see a move to Stoke-on-Trent as a viable proposition. She said: “I think people’s perspective on Stoke-on-Trent has changed because we’re getting more applications for council jobs from outside the city. The Conservatives ran it into the ground, and it was hard to get people to come in.
“Stoke-on-Trent’s reputation is growing as a city which is trying to sort itself out.”
Join the conversation and share your experiences of Stoke-on-Trent City Council and what they need to be focusing on next as our centenary year approaches…
A guest post by Hannah Hiles
This guest post was written by Hannah Hiles, a freelance journalist and writer with a strong interest in heritage, regeneration, arts and culture. She previously worked as a senior journalist at The Sentinel and Stoke-on-Trent Live and the Birmingham Mail.
Hannah believes deeply in the power of local journalism to shine a light into dark places and to celebrate all the things that are great about our city.
 | A guest post by
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Jane comes across as being the right person for the job and has the credentials to improve things, an all-round good interview.