 Last chance to donate to help child refugees
Our community has donated an incredible £30,600+ to help child refugees coming to the borough from Ukraine.
The Chance to Thrive fund will help children from Ukraine enjoy their time living in our area. The money will pay for essential school equipment like laptops, as well as the equipment and fees for sports clubs, scouts, guides, music lessons and more.
If you donate, we’ll show you how your money is making a difference once it starts getting handed out.
Crowdfunding closes on Wednesday (22 June), so it’s your last chance to join more than 470 residents who have contributed so far.
 Bus pass holders urged to provide up-to-date details
We’re urging concessionary bus pass holders in Wokingham borough to make sure we know their current address to avoid any disruption to their use of the service.
Every five years, we have to renew all 24,000 passes which we’ve issued to eligible residents. We're doing this next from 9 August onwards.
The passes are available to residents who’ve reached the state pension age or have certain conditions affecting their mobility for 12 months or more.
If you’ve got one and moved in the past five years without telling us, your new pass could be sent to a previous address and you might not realise until your old one expires on 30 September.
We’ll do our best to forward new passes on if they’re sent back to us. But to avoid any inconvenience, please get in touch at concessionarytravel@wokingham.gov.uk if you need to update us.
 No garden waste in general waste or recycling bags
We are getting reports that some residents are putting garden waste in their general waste or recycling bags.
Your grass clippings can be turned into a nutritious soil conditioner which improves soil structure and helps plants grow. Garden waste, if mixed with other recycling items or general waste, cannot be sorted and separated for recycling.
If you use our Garden Waste Collection Service, you can help reduce the amount of waste being burned or sent to landfill.
All garden waste collected from residents is sent to a composting site managed by re3, our waste management partner, where it undergoes a 12-week long composting process. During this period, your garden waste is screened, shredded and matured.
It is also sanitised under a high temperature between 65 – 80ºC for a minimum of seven consecutive days to kill off weeds, seeds and plant diseases, before it is bagged for sale at the re3 recycling centres.
 Ditch the car, get healthy and win prizes this summer
Residents, workers and students across Wokingham borough have burned 3.2 million calories by using an innovative new smartphone app that rewards users for leaving their cars at home. That’s the same amount found in more than 12,500 jam doughnuts!
Since the challenge launched three months ago, users have logged almost 65,000 miles travelling actively or using public transport. This is all part of the My Journey Wokingham Challenge, hosted on the free Innovation Valley Rewards app.
Users can record their trips on the app to earn ValleyCoins, which can be redeemed for shopping vouchers at a wide range of retailers or donated to charity. They can also earn ValleyTickets to enter weekly and monthly prize draws for ‘pots’ of ValleyCoins, totalling more than £100.
With summer just round the corner, even more people are urged to enjoy the benefits. You can download the app from Apple’s App Store or the Google Play store. Anyone registering with a Wokingham borough postcode is automatically invited to the local challenge.
 Proposals made for global research hub in Shinfield
The Natural History Museum has announced its plans to open a major research hub with a science and digitisation centre in Shinfield parish, which we welcome.
Subject to planning permission from us, it would build the state-of-the-art facility at Thames Valley Science Park in partnership with the University of Reading. This Government-funded facility would house about 27 million museum specimens - the biggest move from its collection since the 1880s.
The new, purpose-built accommodation would meet international standards, allowing it to move items currently at risk of deterioration and damage because storage conditions in existing buildings are no longer suitable.
It would also speed up the museum’s digitisation of its data, offering greater access to its 350 scientists and others from around the world, while freeing gallery space at its South Kensington site for more items to be displayed to the public.
Photo supplied by the Trustees of the Natural History Museum.
 Busy first month for new Borough Mayor
It’s been a busy and exciting month of engagements for newly elected Wokingham Borough Mayor, Cllr Caroline Smith. This includes her first ribbon cutting ceremony for a commemorative bench and a renamed walking route, a jubilee celebration garden party, a carers lunch, a jubilee refugee picnic, an open evening at Camp Mohawk and a citizenship ceremony.
Since 2019, Cllr Caroline Smith has represented Hillside and Radstock under Earley Town Council. She was born in Reading and moved to Earley 34 years ago. She is married to Cllr Mike Smith and they have three children and six grandchildren, with another due soon.
After working in a Wokingham charity shop for 23 years, Cllr Caroline Smith retired in December 2021 and now volunteers at a charity shop in Reading in her spare time. She has chosen the Wokingham Foodbank as her charity of the year.
The Deputy Mayor for the year is Cllr Beth Rowland who represents South Lake in Woodley. Cllr Rowland has been a resident of South Lake for almost 50 years and has four children, who were all educated locally, and eight grandchildren.
Help for rough sleepers during heatwave
The Met Office has issued a Level 3 Heat-Health Alert with temperatures expected to reach into the low to mid-30s across southern England today (17 June).
We are here to support the health and wellbeing of rough sleepers and have activated our severe weather emergency protocol (SWEP). This means we will provide free accommodation for anyone sleeping rough.
If you or someone else could use this help, please call us on 0118 974 6000. For out of hours support please find information on our website
What you might have missed
Each week we send daily updates across a range of topics to keep residents informed on what matters most to them in the borough. Here's everything from the last week:
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