This week brings sobering news of 100,000 deaths to the virus, as every one of us must now feel the devastating impact of coronavirus on our family and friends. We want to pay tribute to the NHS teams and volunteers who have worked tirelessly throughout this pandemic to support and care for the vulnerable and the sick in our communities. We hope that that we can all keep focused on a time when we can return to some kind of normality.
The vaccination programme will pave the way forward; our mass vaccination centre at Stoneleigh opened this week, allowing many more people to have their vaccine and start to turn the tide against Covid-19. And even during the bad weather this week, we have been supporting those who needed to travel for their vaccine, by providing transport. Keep updated with the weekly NHS vaccine progress here.
But remember, we still need to be vigilant after having the vaccine, and continue to follow the guidance; stay at home as much as possible and prevent the spread of the virus.
We continue to provide much needed support to:
Businesses – we have paid out support grants to just under 900 business in the district who have needed help during the lockdowns. Please visit our website to find out what is available for your business and how to apply.
Charities – Our support grants of up to £3,000 are still available for any community organisations or charities who have incurred additional costs, supporting vulnerable people during this pandemic. It’s a simple process, just visit the website to find out how to apply.
With so many of us working from home and home-schooling, why not get out and enjoy our beautiful parks and gardens during this time? Take some exercise and look after your health and wellbeing. Find out a list of suggested activities you can enjoy during the pandemic, here. But why stop there? Why not sign up to our BetterPoints App and log your steps and activities? You can build-up points which can then be turned into a donation towards a local charity, or into savings from selected local businesses, when they reopen.
Good news for our electric vehicle owners this week, as we are preparing to install a further 40 charging points in our car parks across the district. This is a step towards reducing carbon emissions and improving air quality; and another step closer to becoming a carbon neutral district by 2030.
This week we celebrated a sign of the times, as our total views on YouTube passed 8000! These views are shared between 65 council committee meetings which means an average of 123 views per meeting. This is a significant increase on the requests received for recordings of meetings at the Town Hall when we met in person. It shows how much more accessible our meetings and councillors are, to our residents.
Accessibility and equality of opportunity are key priorities for the council and so it is important for us to support Race Equality Week next week. We want to reaffirm our commitment to providing an inclusive environment for all of our employees and our residents and we will continue to encourage open conversations with them, so that we can review this.
The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games will provide the perfect platform for celebrating our rich and diverse cultures as we welcome spectators and visitors to Victoria Park for the Bowls and Para Bowls. We are delighted to hear that £6m has been awarded by the National Lottery Fund and the Arts Council England to fund a cultural festival to showcase the area’s “rich diversity”. We are looking forward to hearing more about the exciting plans for that festival.
