About

The Area

West Norfolk is a wonderful place to live with a diverse landscape including stunning beaches, historic market towns, picturesque villages and farmland. As well as our diverse history there is a strong arts and culture scene, a host of sports and leisure facilities (including those delivered by our wholly owned local company Alive West Norfolk: www.alivewestnorfolk.co.uk and a vibrant programme of events, many of which are delivered directly by the council. Events for 2024 are currently being finalised but you can read all about our past events programme on our events pages. 

Covering an area of 550 square miles, we are the largest district in Norfolk and the fifth largest in the country. You can find out more about our beautiful area at the Visit West Norfolk website

There is more information about King’s Lynn and our surrounding area in magazine and Hunstanton Town & Around

You can also find out more about working in the area at the Working in West Norfolk website, which also includes information about other current public sector job opportunities in west Norfolk.

Local people have a genuine passion for the area and are proud to #lovewestnorfolk; we are proud to work with local partners to promote the borough through our campaign to raise the profile of West Norfolk. You can find out more about this on the Love West Norfolk website.

The Council

As a council, we’ve set out our vision to establish West Norfolk as a place on the map rather than an administrative boundary and ensure it is a welcoming rural district, with vibrant communities and successful, growing businesses. We want it to be a place where people can thrive, the environment is protected, heritage is preserved, and development meets the needs of people as well as legislation.

You can read more about this in our Corporate Strategy. In addition, we have introduced an Annual Plan to highlight the particular priorities and projects we will be progressing during the year.

There’s lots of information about the council and our services on our website and you may find it particularly useful to look at the newsroom page to get the latest updates on projects and activities being undertaken across the whole organisation.

In October 2023 the council undertook a LGA Peer Challenge. Information about the peer review process along with the report produced by the Peer Challenge team and the action plan we have developed to progress actions identified during the review can be found Corporate Peer Challenge pages.

Our Plans for King’s Lynn

You’ll also be interested to visit Vision King's Lynn, which is the collective name for our investment, funding and plans for King’s Lynn. On this site you will find information about our Town Investment Plan along with details about the Town Deal Fund. £25m of Town Deal funding has been offered to King’s Lynn to fund a range of projects which will benefit the town, strengthen the local economy, and help secure the town’s future as a place of choice to live, work and visit.

Other projects and initiatives

As we’ve suggested, there’s a lot more going on here than may meet the eye – these are some examples:

  • The village of West Winch to the south of King’s Lynn has been earmarked as a major growth area with around 4,000 new homes to be built on a site that is of local, regional, and national importance. You can read more about the West Winch strategic growth area here.
  • We are working with Norfolk County Council Public Health and the Integrated Care Board to become a Marmot Place as part of the Institute of Health Equity’s 2024 cohort. Becoming a Marmot Place will enable the council to access world-leading expert advice and support on the health inequalities that exist in the borough and receive recommendations as to how to address them.
  • We are developing a Coastal Management Plan for Hunstanton’s coastline at a local level for the purposes of flood and coastal erosion risk management over the short term (2018-2030), medium term (2030-2060) and long term (2060-2118).
  • We have developed a climate change strategy and action plan and have a range of initiatives we are progressing to address this critical issue, read more at Our climate change work. One particular initiative is a new housing scheme ‘Florence Fields’, delivered by the council, which will provide 226 new homes close to the centre of King’s Lynn. This will be the first council development of homes to higher environmental standards and will see the enhancement of the adjoining nature area. Florence Fields is officially underway.
  • The Mayor supports communities across the borough from all walks of life, delivering a strong civic presence including visiting and supporting communities from across the borough and hosting a number of award schemes and local events.
  • We’re working hard to protect biodiversity in West Norfolk and have a number of sites chosen for biodiversity and nature conservation. These range from International and European to National and Local sites of importance.
  • Accelerated Towns Funding has already taken forward plans for a School of Nursing Studies in partnership with The Queen Elizabeth Hospital and the College of West Anglia. See media coverage of the school of nursing at King’s Lynn College of West Anglia School of Nursing Studies new training facility key for community healthcare
  • We’re developing a creative hub around the Grade 1 listed St George’s Guildhall, Britain’s oldest working theatre, A clear vision for the future of St George’s Guildhall and have discovered something exciting about the floorboards in the building! Vodcast - Cllr Ring talks about the St George's Guildhall in Kings Lynn
  • We are working with Norfolk County Council to deliver a Multi-User Community Hub (MUCH), which will repurpose a redundant town centre building to provide a new library and wider community and business activities and support. 
  • We’re also working with the County Council to delivery our Boost project which is helping young people to access training and employment opportunities. Originally funded as part of the Town Deal, this project has recently been extended through the use of shared prosperity funding. Boost project awarded £147,049 Shared Prosperity Funding to help more young people in West Norfolk gain skills and knowledge.
  • In the north of the borough we have commenced work on the Hunstanton Southend Road housing project.
  • There has been initial consultation on opportunities for Downham Market which will inform future regeneration/place initiatives.
  • We deliver our Lily service to help combat loneliness and isolation in adults of all ages across the borough. The Lily team also deliver ‘Food for Thought’ events which aim to improve the health and wellbeing of residents by providing real-world healthy cooking and eating advice – find out more about these events at Food for Thought Hunstanton - Week 2, 6 February 2024, inside the Community Hub in the Town Hall (youtube.com)
  • Teams from across the council have been working together to provide support to our local communities with the increases in cost of living and with energy advice. This includes a range of ‘Beat Your Bills’ events: Beat your bills this autumn.
  • We’re working with the other council’s to progress a ‘County Deal’ for Norfolk – more details of this are provided on Norfolk County Council’s website at A County Deal for Norfolk.
  • And in just the last few weeks we’ve received the announcement that King’s Lynn will receive an additional £20m in funding from the Government

Political structure of the council

There are currently 21 councillors in the Conservative Group, 21 in the Independent Partnership Group, 11 Labour and 2 in the Progressive Group.

The cabinet is made up of the Leader, Deputy Leader and portfolio holders. Each portfolio holder has specific responsibilities over an area of the council's activities such as Environment, Regeneration, Community, and Health and Wellbeing. Details of our portfolio’s can be found here: Committee details - Cabinet (west-norfolk.gov.uk).

Our Cabinet, Full Council and Panel meetings are live streamed and available to view on our YouTube channel WestNorfolkBC - YouTube.

Two parliamentary constituencies (North West Norfolk and South West Norfolk) cover parts of west Norfolk, and our borough has 35 wards and 101 parishes, which you can explore on Election Maps (ordnancesurvey.co.uk). The parishes include town council’s in Hunstanton and Downham Market. In addition a new area committee for King’s Lynn is currently being constituted, to be known as the ‘King’s Lynn Area Committee (“KLAC”)’ REPORT TO CABINET (west-norfolk.gov.uk)

General Conditions of Service

Our general terms and conditions of employment, unless otherwise specified in the contract of employment, will be those of the National Joint Council for Local Government Services, together with locally-negotiated conditions. Pay grades and annual pay reviews are locally determined, including a system of performance-related pay.

All new entrants to local government are subject to the completion of a satisfactory probationary period of six months.

Your hours of work will be as required to fulfil the requirements of the post. Our basic working week is 37 hours. You will be required to attend democratic meetings in person including working groups, Panels, Cabinet and Full council, which are mainly held in the evening. Our current hybrid working arrangements (to be reviewed during 2024) enable some employees to work from home for one or two days per week. However, our expectation is that our Chief Executive will work from our King’s Court office for the majority of their time, in line with the arrangements in place for other senior officers undertaking corporate-wide responsibilities. 

Your annual leave entitlement will be 24 working days per annuum, increasing by 3 days after 5 years’ continuous service, plus 8 statutory holidays and 4 general holidays (3 of which are taken between Christmas and New Year each year).

In addition to duties as Head of Paid Service, the Chief Executive also undertakes duties in relation to elections as Electoral Registration Officer and Returning Officer/Deputy Returning Officer) for which additional fees are payable).If required, further information on these roles can be found on the Electoral Commission website.

Relocation Package

We offer a relocation package of up to £8k to newly appointed officers who move their home into the borough. The package includes financial assistance with relocation expenses including such items as temporary accommodation expenses, removal expenses and travelling and house purchase expenses.