 Thursday 5 October
 This week, we welcomed children from The Forest Academy and John Bramstom Primary School, with our partners, to the opening of Hainault Forest Country Park, which marked the official completion of the restoration project.
We have delivered the £7million restoration project in partnership with the Woodland Trust, Vision RCL, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Greater London Authority, and the Garfield Weston Foundation.
The Victorian barns have been completely renovated, and we've created a new visitor hub with an event space, café, artist workshops and a Woodland Trust visitor centre. The children were excited to see the brand-new woodland-inspired playground and newly renovated Foxburrows Farm.
 Don’t forget our Green Garden Waste collections are stopping towards the end of October and will resume again next spring. Week 1 collections end Friday 20 October, and week 2 collections end Friday 27 October.
 We recently hosted our latest Redbridge in Conversation event in South Woodford.
Redbridge in Conversation events are organised to facilitate community conversations, empower our neighbours to share views on our local area and provide guidance and support.
Council Leader Cllr Jas Athwal gave a presentation at the South Woodford event, sharing information on council investment in the area, the Broadmead Road closure and help available with the rising cost of living.
The police also provided an update and a Q&A session for local people to ask questions and share feedback.
Redbridge in Conversation events take place regularly in different locations across the borough.
 Broadmead Road, Woodford, was closed to traffic in July due to significant structural defects reported following an inspection of the bridge. As soon as the defects were discovered, the road was closed immediately to prevent potential loss of life or serious injury.
We are working closely with Transport for London (TfL) to speed up the survey work where possible. To reopen Broadmead Road will require extensive construction work and is expected to take a significant amount of time. At this stage, we are continuing survey work to establish what works are necessary to ensure the bridge section of the road is safe.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause our neighbours.
 The Council already supports over 17,000 households with their Council Tax liability through its Council Tax Reduction scheme.We want your views on the four options we are considering for our Council Tax Reduction Scheme for 2024/2025.
Please complete our online survey and share your thoughts on these proposals. Your responses are completely anonymous. The survey should take no more than 10 minutes to complete.
 As it gets colder outside, we spend more time indoors, which unfortunately means the flu and COVID-19 can spread more easily.
Vaccines are our best protection against flu and COVID-19. Over the last few years, they have kept tens of thousands of people out of hospital and helped to save countless lives.
The NHS are offering both flu and COVID-19 vaccines to those at greater risk of serious illness, this will include everyone:
- aged 65 and over
- pregnant women
- care home residents
- people aged six months old or above with certain health conditions
- frontline health and care staff
- unpaid carers and household contacts of those at higher risk
COVID-19 appointments can be made by downloading the NHS App or visiting the NHS website. If you or anyone you know can’t get online, call 119, and you can make a booking.
Flu appointments will be available nationally from early October at NHS seasonal vaccinations page.
 An innovative machine that can fix potholes in as little as two minutes is being trialled by Redbridge Council to give road users a smoother journey.
The first of its kind to be deployed in the borough, the Injection Patcher, carries out rapid pothole repairs using a pioneering technique known as Injection Spray Patching.
The process is faster, enabling more pothole repairs in a day than conventional methods. It’s also greener as no excavation, waste or heat is involved – leaving a significantly lower carbon footprint on the borough.
 We are excited to be hosting a range of events across the borough this October as part of Black History Month.
This year's Black History Month is set to be bigger than ever before in Redbridge, featuring:
- previously untold histories from Redbridge communities
- celebration of black authors in children's storytimes
- celebrations with music, drumming and delicious food
- film screenings highlighting the lives and contributions of the Windrush generation and much more
Our partners at Ilford Business Improvement District will also be in a celebratory mood between Friday 13 October and Sunday 15 October, when they will host a mini food and cultural festival in Ilford to mark Black History Month.
The festival will take place outside Redbridge Town Hall and feature food and craft stalls from across the world, town centre dance performances, music, and much more.
 Uphall Primary School in Ilford recently marked the completion of their School Superzone project with a special event.
The GLA funded the project and focuses on areas the children would like to see improved around their school. For Uphall, this has included work on cleaner air, healthier eating and enhancing green spaces.
Cllr Jo Blackman, Cabinet Member for Environment and Sustainability, and Deputy Mayor, Councillor Saira Jamila, attended the event to congratulate the school on reaching this important milestone.
Cllr Jo Blackman said: "It was really inspiring to meet with the fantastic pupils at Uphall school and see the impact of the recent improvements to the bike lane and pedestrianised area outside the school."
A small part of the Superzone project funding was used to purchase a number of bikes and scooters to support physical activity during break times and to increase the number of pupils able to participate in cycle training. During the event, pupils tested the bikes on the newly revamped cycle path outside the front of the school.
 Libraries Week is an annual showcase and celebration of the best libraries have to offer.
This year, Libraries Week is going Green. From 2 to 8 October, we are celebrating the work in libraries across the UK focused on sustainability and climate change.
Redbridge Neighbourhoods Team would also like to invite the local community to come together and brighten up the local neighbourhood with a Community Planting Day on Saturday 7 October, outside Wanstead Tube Station from 10 am to midday and Seven Kings Station from 2pm to 4pm.
 We are carrying out essential upgrades to the system that help us manage housing support requests from 8am on Thursday 5 October, to midnight on Sunday 8 October, meaning that some queries may take a little longer than usual. Normal service will resume on Monday from 7am.
We anticipate the maintenance will last for approximately four days. Rest assured, we will still receive your query and respond as soon as possible after our system is back up and running.
Some of the affected service areas will include:
- Tenancy sign ups
- Accessing or providing information on rent and leaseholder accounts
- General information about tenancy and leases to answer customer enquiries
If you need to contact us about the above areas during this time, please bear with us; we will respond as soon as possible. For urgent matters, please get in touch with our customer contact centre on 020 8518 2400.
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