Page 17 - br-may-2020

May 2020 May 2020

BRIANTSPUDDLE AND AFFPUDDLE up 7-days a week to do this.
As of mid-April, in excess of
NEWS 1400 assessments had been
completed. The aim is to
support household to help
AFFPUDDLE AND TURNERSPUDDLE PARISH themselves, providing
additional support as
COUNCIL required (such as food
parcels, medicine deliveries
and connecting volunteers
What a difference a month makes! who can check on them).
The primary challenge
Since our March meeting Covid 19 has dominated our thinking and our actions.
In response to the worsening situation the Parish Council invited representatives remains the availability of
online grocery delivery slots.
from all the organisations across the parish to meet. The purpose of the
We are encouraging those who can, to make other arrangements so that they
meeting was to decide on a community response and how best to organise and free up capacity for our more vulnerable people.
manage the effort needed to support parishioners. This meeting took place on

th
Monday 16 March and the minutes of the meeting are available on Parish
Council section of the Community Website www.briantspuddle.info The main Broadband
outcome from the meeting was the establishment The Parish Council Covid19
Group. Following on from my previous pieces about Broadband. We have now collected
and collated a very large amount of information regarding the poor performance
Since its inaugural meeting the Group has made rapid progress. You will be able of BT Openreach in the implementation of Superfast Broadband in the rural areas
to read about what has happened, what the Group can offer, the support given of Dorset. We requested one of our Dorset MPs to join us as the Westminster lead in
by volunteers, as well as the efforts of the Village Shop and Post Office throughout a campaign to improve this situation dramatically. I am pleased to say that Chris
this difficult time in a separate article in this edition of the Parish Magazine. The Loder (West Dorset) is that MP and he is proving very effective and influential. I
Parish Council would like to offer its sincere thanks to everyone who has come have already held several sessions with him on the subject although he needed
forward to help the community, neighbours and friends. little effort to bring him up to speed as he used to be a District Councillor for West
Dorset and knows the poor coverage both personally and across Dorset. We have
The Parish Council meeting on 8 April was held remotely in order to comply with
th
Government social distancing guidance. Until restrictions around movement and agreed to hold a video conference with the CEO of BT Openreach with myself
public gatherings are lifted, the Parish Council will be holding all meetings and Chris. Chris is then going to attempt to facilitate a meeting (electronic of
remotely and only handing urgent business. course) with the relevant Minister to argue our case. I hope this will help to force BT
Openreach to listen to our complaints and to pressurise them to improve
The meeting concentrated on agreeing details surrounding the Covid 19 Group dramatically.
which has been set up under the auspices of the Parish Council. A budget of
£1,000 was agreed to cover some items of expenditure. Decisions were also taken
to postpone the Annual Parish Meeting as well as the annual meeting of the Parish Garden Waste
Council. For the time being Councillor Sue Jones will continue to serve as The service will restart from April
Chairman and Councillor Charles Barter will continue to serve as Vice-Chairman. 27th as we now have enough
When public gatherings are once again permitted, the Council will agree an staff to cover it which we did not
appropriate time to reschedule these meetings.
have due to illness and
So far as ongoing monthly Parish Council meetings are concerned, members of reallocation to other more urgent
the public will be able to join the meetings which will continue to be held via tasks. We still do not (currently)
intend to reopen Household
Recycling Centres as they are not
Affpuddle and Turnerspuddle website: www.briantspuddle.info

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