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 Dressing up in garish, ghostly or gory costumes is a key part of many Halloween events. While this can be great fun, it should be remembered that Halloween costumes can be more flammable than normal clothing. This is particularly a problem if your celebrations involve candles or an open fire.
- Buy all costumes from reputable retailers, and check that any you buy carry a CE mark on the label
- As with all clothing, Halloween and fancy dress outfits should always be kept away from fire, lit candles and all other naked flames
- Use flameless candles where possible
- Ensure children can be seen in the dark; ideally they should wear something reflective such as a reflective strip, and carry a torch
- Remind older children how to cross the road safely and supervise if they are younger.
- Children should always be supervised by a suitable adult
Around Halloween, drivers should also remember to take extra care. There will be lots of excited ghouls and goblins out and about trick and treating so look out for the extra pedestrians around on Halloween.
For more information visit the Public Protection Partnership website.
Last year, we gave residents the opportunity to understand the pressures we face when setting our budget by asking them to create their own budget, using our online simulator.
We had a great response and lots of good ideas on how to balance the budget, so we’re running the ‘Budget Challenge’ this year too. For the year ahead (2022/23), we have around £147 million to spend.
We’re now asking local people to decide how to divide the budget between core services, such as education and libraries, rubbish and recycling, and social care, while closing a gap of £9 million between the income we receive and the money we need to spend. Can you do it? Why not take part and find out!
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Half-term events at Shaw House and West Berkshire Museum |
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 There are lots of fang-tastic events this October half term at Shaw House and West Berkshire Museum!
With indoor puppet theatre at Shaw House, ‘The Bag that went BOO!’ will be taking you on a fantastical journey of paper bag proportions on Monday 25 October. Or if you have a budding artist, why not join the family art workshop ‘Dinosaurs!’ at West Berkshire Museum, whether you are a dinosaur expert, or if you don't know your Ankylosaurus from your elbow, you'll enjoy this great illustration workshop from Armadillo Art Experience on Thursday 28th October. Then head over to Shaw House for a ‘Spooktacular Fun Day’ on Sunday 31st October, with a family friendly Halloween trail of activities and games outside in the grounds, followed by an indoor craft activity and every child will receive a goody bag of trick or treats to take home!
Click here to book or find out about our upcoming Christmas events.
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 We might not be heading to Glasgow, but that's not stopping us from having our own version of COP26!
Join Council Leader, Lynne Doherty and Cllr Steve Ardagh-Walter as they discuss our environmental work and answer your questions.
You will have an opportunity to learn more about the work we've already started as well as our aims and ambitions going forward.
We will be streaming on YouTube at 5pm on Monday 1 November live from Newbury College's Renewables Centre.
If you have any questions you would like to submit beforehand you can email them to pr@westberks.gov.uk until Wednesday, 27 October.
 We've recently awarded a major contract which will deliver Full Fibre infrastructure to schools, doctors' surgeries and public libraries across Berkshire by March 2022.
The contract has been awarded to Virgin Media Business and will see the £1.7m project upgrade connectivity at more than 80 locations upgraded - with more than 26,000 school pupils able to benefit from future-proof full fibre connections.
Covid-19 has led to schools dramatically accelerating their digital learning programmes, which has caused challenges in harder to reach rural areas. Full fibre infrastructure will support digital learning and can power the next-generation of connected services. For schools and other public sites, it offers the potential for them to benefit from gigabit speeds, and can support connections of more than 1,000Mbps.
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West Berkshire Museum opening hours |
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We are delighted to announce that the West Berkshire Museum will be reopening on Sundays from the 24 October. Entry is free but donations are most welcome! It now means the opening hours for the Museum are Wednesday to Sunday from 10am – 4pm.
You can find out more about the current exhibitions on our website.
And finally...
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