Opinion: A city generations will be proud of

As regular readers will know, I’m a proud Peterborian and I take particular pride in the recent steps we’ve made to enhance our historic city.

Looking around you now, the city has so much more going for it than it did just five or ten years ago with Fletton Quays transforming the skyline, our city centre regenerated and exciting plans for Northminster and our new university progressing.

I want to help build a city that future generations will be proud of and that’s why we’ve submitted a £25 million bid to the government after Peterborough was chosen as one of the 100 towns and cities it wants to invest in through its Towns Fund, seeking to support our future growth.

If our bid is successful, the money will be spent on:  Creating a masterplan for the embankment and the new university campus, as well as building an additional bridge across the river for pedestrians and cyclists,

- New and improved visitor and cultural attractions, including a national Bronze Age themed extension to the museum and activity centre at Ferry Meadows.

- Creating a welcoming route from the train station into the city centre and creating space for the development of new homes and offices.

- The creation of a new enterprise training and business incubation hub to support new businesses and start-ups, and a training centre for green technology skills, aimed towards the construction and automotive sectors.

- Creating safer, easily accessible routes for pedestrians and cyclists to the train station and city centre along with better public realm spaces to support the wellbeing of residents and helping our goal of becoming carbon neutral.

As you can see, this exciting initiative has huge potential and can further transform Peterborough, creating a city of growth, prosperity and opportunity.

The time really is now for Peterborough. Our economy has begun to bounce back from the lockdown and investment in the city continues to be strong with lots of new development planned, or already underway.

The government is set to make decisions this autumn and we will keep you informed of progress.

Following Vivacity’s decision to terminate its contract with the council, we have been working closely with them to determine how leisure and heritage services will be run going forwards.

Our intention is for culture, heritage and library services to transfer to the City College Peterborough and leisure and all other services to transfer to Peterborough Limited (Aragon Direct Services).

In the meantime we are actively working to reopen services across the city and I am pleased to tell you that Central Library opened to the public this week while our other libraries will open from August 24.

Fitness fanatics will be pleased to hear that Vivacity Premier Fitness, the Regional Swimming Pool and the Athletics Track will open on Monday (17 August). Jack Hunt, Bushfield, Hampton and Werrington leisure centres are set to open before the end of September.

The past couple of months have been a complex and difficult transition for everyone involved and I want to thank residents and Vivacity staff and members for their continued patience.

We are fully committed to ensuring this city has a thriving heritage and leisure scene and we’re confident this move will help us continue to achieve this.

As you will be aware, levels of Covid-19 cases in Peterborough have remained above the national average in recent weeks.

Protecting the public is our utmost priority and that’s why we’ve launched a locally enhanced contact tracing service this week.

Working closely with the NHS, we will be contacting people who have tested positive for Covid, giving them help and advice to self isolate.

Our dedicated Environmental Health Officers and Regulatory Officers, who have undergone special training in contact tracing will be following up on people who who haven’t responded to a call or email from the national service, and getting details about their close contacts.

Our officers will initially make contact by phone, text or email asking people to call a local number.

But if this fails, the officers, who will all carry Peterborough City Council identification - will make house to house visits to reach those people who have tested positive.

Residents will be given advice on how they can stay isolated to break the chain of infection, and prevent it spreading to their household contacts.

They will also be asked to share details of others they have been in contact with.

We have already done a tremendous amount of work in raising awareness about Covid and how our diverse communities can protect themselves and their friends and families.

But we will never be complacent and working with partners will do everything we can to help bring down local infection rates.

You can rest assured that we will continue to work hard to keep you safe and to keep the city moving forward.