CHERWELL District Council has praised the work of its officers after seeing a satisfactory or 'better than' progress on 96 per cent of its targets.

It comes as the council approved its annual report looking back over the town centre regeneration scheme, superfast Broadband investment and delivery of 322 affordable homes over the past year.

Council leader Barry Wood said: "Over the past year we have delivered innovations and top quality services while keeping customer satisfaction high.

"We are especially proud of these achievements given the fact that we have been working towards ambitious targets in a challenging economic context.

"It has been a privilege to see projects such as the designation of Bicester as an NHS Healthy Town, the delivery of over 1,500 extra recycling bins and the speedier processing of Housing Benefit claims, all come to fruition."

Other achievements raised over the past year include over 1,000 jobs being created in the district last year.

Mr Wood added: "Cherwell currently receives only eight per cent of the council tax that its residents pay, and this has been frozen at the same rate since 2009."