The telephone number for Wokingham Borough Community Response (WBCR), if you’re contacting them for help, is now 0300 330 1189. It’s no longer 0118 978 7258.
Since its launch, some 700 volunteers at WBCR have delivered more than 2,000 food parcels and picked-up more than 500 prescriptions for people without friends, family or trusted neighbours who can help. You can learn more about what WBCR’s been doing in this new animation.
WBCR’s aid isn’t going to change but now that supermarkets have new ways of getting shopping to their customers it means people can potentially get hold of a wider range of groceries. If you’re contacting WBCR for help, it will still look at the best way to support you but if none of the new supermarket methods work for you, it will continue delivering your food parcels.
There are also plans to relocate WBCR’s distribution hub from St Crispin’s School when it welcomes back its pupils in the next few weeks. We’ll keep you posted on that. But don’t worry, WBCR has no plans to stop its fantastic work.
The strong sense of community during this crisis has underlined the strength of people coming together to help others. Hundreds signed-up as volunteers at the start of the pandemic but many will now be returning to work or have other obligations so they may not be able to volunteer as much time. Local voluntary organisations are therefore looking for new volunteers which is timely with national Volunteers Week starting on Monday.
We must sadly begin to reintroduce civil parking enforcement to keep roads safe and clear and restore important income to your services now we’re gradually emerging from lockdown.
Parking charges at our country parks and in our town centres ensure better access for you by preventing valuable spaces from being used all day.
‘Soft’ enforcement will start tomorrow at our country park car parks. This means if you overstay or don’t pay you’ll only receive a warning and not a fine. From Monday, this will also begin at all our car parks; again a warning rather than a fine. This ‘soft’ approach will only be for a short period however, to help you get used to it again.
We decided to suspend enforcement, except in exceptional circumstances, when the lockdown began to protect those of you in difficult situations. But as our borough attempts to reopen, with some children returning to school and more businesses up and running, it’s time to return to full enforcement in a managed way.
We’ve moved all our adult education courses online for social distancing meaning you don’t need to leave home if you need new skills for a new job because of lockdown, or want a career change.
The teaching is interactive with tutors on hand to guide you and answer questions. The new online courses being rolled out during the next few weeks include:
- English and maths
- English as a second language
- Mental health and wellbeing
- Creative writing
- IT skills
- Debt management
- Online job searching and how to succeed in a virtual interview
- Coding for beginners
Additional courses will be added so it’s worth checking back to see if there’s something of interest to you.
If so, we want to make sure you’re getting the support you need during this crisis and if not, help us shape the services you need.
National evidence shows this virus is having a disproportionate impact on Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities so we’re closely monitoring this locally working alongside the BME Forum.
Please let us know about any challenges or issues you’ve faced because of Covid-19. Email us at: community.engagement.localities@wokingham.gov.uk
Support is available and we are determined to break down any stigma that could be associated with catching this virus.
The BME Forum was set up in partnership with us in 2002 as a sounding board and influencer to make sure our services do what they should for all our communities across the borough.
You can apply for this new grant, aimed at specific types of small businesses affected by Covid-19, from Monday until 15 June.
This support is for those small businesses with high fixed property-related costs that weren’t eligible for the existing grant schemes we’ve been administering.
It will initially be funded from the same government pot. Money will be allocated on a first come first served basis until the funding runs out.
Details on who can apply, and how you go about it, is available here.
As you’ve seen all over the media yesterday, the government launched the NHS’s new Test and Trace system as one of its tool to manage the spread of Covid-19.
If you’re still a bit confused about how it will work, our Public Health team had updated our special coronavirus information page on our website with all sorts of information about Test and Trace.
How Covid-19 is affecting our services
Advice and help for local businesses during Covid-19
Wokingham Borough Community Response
Public Health England and Department of Health and Social Care guidance
NHS England advice
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