Minutes:
41.1 The Chair invited the Leader, Councillor Morley to make her announcements.
41.2 Councillor Morley made the following announcements:
This second COVID-19 wave was worse than the first last Spring and she was horrified to see the current level of daily deaths and hospital admissions.
The Council was in a third national lockdown, but it was going to take a long time before a significant reduction in rates of infection, hospitalisations and deaths was seen.
Suffolk had been badly hit like all regions; and the public awareness and messaging campaign must continue. Mid Suffolk needed everyone to stay at home and follow the lockdown rules and she urged Members to promote these messages across all their communities.
The District Council was of course continuing to support residents, communities and businesses in response to Covid-19 and she wanted to highlight a couple of particular elements from all the information Councillors received on a fortnightly basis.
Firstly, the Closed Business Lockdown Payment grants, the Council had started to pay qualifying businesses this week. As the Council already held the data regarding many businesses, automatic payments were being made and these will reach approximately 70% of the businesses with a rateable value who were eligible. In addition, new grant applications had been launched for any businesses, who had not previously received a lockdown grant from the Council. The website had been updated accordingly and it was the best place to refer any businesses in Councillors’ Wards that may have contacted them.
(www.midsuffolk.gov.uk/business/business-rates/grant-funding-schemes/ - Just in case)
There were now a variety of Government grants available and full details were on the Council’s website, including a comprehensive infographic describing them all; and the Council was guiding businesses through this to make it as simple as possible to ensure businesses swiftly receive all of the money that they were entitled to.
Secondly regarding the Covid-19 vaccination programme. Many of the Districts most vulnerable residents have already received their first vaccination.
Concerned residents had contacted Councillors as to when they would receive their jabs, how they would be informed, where they would need to go and how they would get there. These are exactly the conversations that she had been having, alongside Councillor Hicks, Councillor Passmore, and fellow Council Leaders at the Local Outbreak Engagement Board meetings to ensure that the communication to all residents was effective, clear and timely.
There were now 19 (Primary Care Network) vaccination sites in place across Suffolk. For Mid Suffolk these are located at:
· Debenham Leisure Centre
· The Mix, Stowmarket
· Woolpit Health Centre
In addition, all three hospitals – James Paget, West Suffolk & Ipswich were all vaccinating, and an additional large site would be provided in Ipswich shortly. Two further pharmacy sites (Ipswich & Lowestoft) have also been approved.
There was also an increasing supply of the Oxford vaccine available. This vaccine did not have some of the same logistical challenges as the Pfizer vaccine which should enable more people to be vaccinated more quickly. At the moment however there was what was being referred to as a ‘Push model’ in place i.e. local NHS was not responsible for managing the supply of the vaccine, but they hoped to be able to move to a ‘Pull model’ shortly, so they could draw down the level of vaccine they needed based upon demand. In any event they remained on track to achieve the first two Government milestones of vaccinating all care home residents and staff by 24th January and all of the first four cohorts by mid-February.
She was pleased that an excellent new Suffolk wide website sneevaccine.org.uk had now been launched but Councillor Hicks and Councillor Passmore and she would continue to push (and support) the NHS with regard to effective communication to all residents.
The Council was not directly involved in the delivery of the vaccination programme but were supporting and facilitating it in a number of ways. Just two examples of this were the work that the planning, assets and legal officers were doing in support of the Woolpit GP Surgery, with the neighbouring housing developer, to deliver an expanded car park which would enable the acceleration of the vaccine programme in that area; and the provision within Council’s existing car park sites such as in Stowmarket to support delivery of the vaccination programme at The Mix.
The Council was also a partner on the Suffolk-wide ‘resources cell’ and so would continue to redeploy officers where possible, and when needed, to ensure the delivery of not just the vaccination programme but also the new testing programme for asymptomatic workers, who are unable to work from home. This testing programme was expected to be rolled out over the next few weeks.
Last night there was the first of what would be a regular meeting for the district and county councillors to hear from and pose questions to the NHS. She hoped Members had taken this opportunity up. Those who attended would know that she had asked a number of questions on the Council’s behalf.
Tonight, was also the second equivalent community session for members of the public.
She was proud of how the Council was still continuing to deliver on the wider priorities during these difficult times and she wanted to mention the fantastic news, published this week, regarding the successful purchase of 121 new council homes including developments in Haughley, Stowmarket and Woolpit. This was of course in addition to the work already underway to build 130 council homes at the former Needham Market Middle School site and at the former headquarters.
She was also pleased to announce, in line with Customer Strategy to support customers to contact the Council at a time that suits them 24/7, that a pilot scheme would be launched tomorrow, that enabled customers to easily access online information through new and innovative automated telephony and chatbot services. Through this enhancement, customers would be able to log queries such as missed waste collections, find out information about environmental services and receive links to the online forms via SMS text at any time of the day or night. The pilot would run for twelve months and provide valuable insight into how customers wished to engage with the Council, which will further inform plans for digital services in the future.
Finally, she wanted to highlight the Cabinet’s recent decision to move the Council’s fleet of vehicles, in particular waste and housing vehicles to Hydro-treated Vegetable Oil rather than diesel. In line with commitment to tackling climate change this alone will cut approximately a quarter of the Council’s total CO2 emissions and 90% of the Council’s vehicle emissions.