County Councillor for Gartree
MOVING HOME
Council, health and police senior officers have called on local residents to do the right thing so that the lockdown works – and supports the efforts being made to roll-out the vaccine in the battle to defeat COVID-19. Kibworth Old School Surgery is vaccinating for the local Primary Care Network when stocks of the vaccine are available.
Cases in Leicestershire are now rising faster than the national average, having shot up by 62 per cent in the past seven days up to 8 January, and stand at 374 per 100,000 people. In Leicester, the rate is 490, and in Rutland it is 242.
Crucially, this time, the pressure on the NHS is at a tipping point with hospital admissions well above what was seen during the first peak in April.
Mike Sandys, Leicestershire County Council Director of Public Health, said: “The figures make it clear that we’ve seen rates rocket. And this rise is across all ages and particularly acute in Oadby, Wigston and Harborough.
The new strain is now the dominant strain across the county and that’s adding to existing pressures so people do need to stay at home or we’ll be in real trouble.
The hope is that the lockdown has come in fast enough to choke off the worst of the increase, but it will take a while for that to be reflected in the figures. Rates will continue to rise over the next few days.”
I’ve just spent a couple of days moving from a very spacious house to a neat town house just off the A6. I tried very hard not to let it stress me but there were times when I would have gladly torn out any remaining hair! It’s a common view that moving to a new house is one of the most stressful things we can do; I can now fully appreciate this viewpoint!
UPDATE ON LOCAL CORONAVIRUS SITUATION
As regular readers of this column will know, I have been monitoring the positive case numbers and rates per 100,000 daily for the Kibworth and Great Glen Middle layer Super Output Area (MSOA) area since mid October.
The latest figures (up to 4 January) are showing much worse numbers – cases per 7 days were hovering around 30-34 (rates 247.5 to 280.5) but are now around 42 cases per 7 days (rate 346.5). Harborough District now has the second highest rate, after Oadby & Wigston, in the county (rate of 458.4 in 7 days up to 4 January). Lockdown 3 is now in force and I’m hopeful this will stem the tide of new cases
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and more deaths in our area.
SHIRE ENVIRONMENTAL GRANTS
A ‘virtual’ workshop is being held on Wednesday, 20 January to encourage community groups and organisations to apply for a SHIRE environment grant.
Grants of up to £3,000 are being offered by Leicestershire County Council to help reduce household waste across the county, and the workshop is open to anyone who would like to know more.
Examples of projects, which have previously received funding, include fixers’ groups in Hinckley and Market Harborough,
Senior figures across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland say the national lockdown has been brought in ‘just in time’ for our area – and it could be the last chance to prevent a catastrophic peak in cases.
County Council – Gartree News
which help residents repair broken household items and a series of waste reduction workshops run at Fearon Hall in Loughborough.
During the one-hour session, the county team will give an overview of the scale of household waste in Leicestershire and share ideas about the type of projects that could be supported, as well as guidance for the application process.
Projects must be located in Leicestershire, (not including Leicester City or Rutland), and should help reduce household waste. A simplified application process is also available for smaller grants of up to £300.
I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year, which I’m sure it might be, once the Covid-19 pandemic is over!
kevin.feltham@leics.gov.uk
Janet Arthur gets MBE
