Opinion: ‘Enjoy the holiday - but stay safe’

It may surprise you to learn that late August is one of my favourite times of year.

Normally the Peterborough Beer Festival would be in full swing and despite the fact that the nights are slowly but surely drawing in, there’s the last bank holiday of the year before Christmas to look forward to.

The weather’s been a bit wet and wild lately so I hope things improve for this weekend and everyone can get out and enjoy themselves.

But it goes without saying that this year has been unlike any other and as such we ask you to please take care out and about.

Coronavirus hasn’t gone away and that’s why we’re urging everyone to keep caring for their communities by sticking to the rules around social distancing this Bank Holiday weekend.

By remaining aware and alert we can help reduce the risk of infection by taking some well-known simple steps to stop the virus in its tracks.

These steps include keeping two metres distant from anyone not in your own household, making sure to wear a face covering in public places, washing hands thoroughly, and more often and that everyone in a household isolates if someone in the home has symptoms until they’ve taken a test and the results are known.

So if you’re meeting friends or family outside, please remember to keep to groups of no more than six people from different households, and try to keep two metres apart.

Don’t forget that Coronavirus tests are available via phone by calling 111 or can be ordered free online from the NHS at https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/.

There are also drive-in testing places available across Peterborough.

This time of year also marks the last few days of the school summer holidays and the start of the new academic year.

Our schools will open their gates on Thursday, September 3, and I would like to welcome all pupils, teachers and staff back and wish them the very best for the year ahead.

The past year has been a uniquely challenging experience for all our schools and the way everyone involved has adapted to these challenges has been quite simply phenomenal.

I want to assure all parents and pupils that our schools are safe places to return to and we have been actively working with them to prepare for next week.

Over the summer, schools were asked to work through rigorous and detailed risk assessments, individual to their own environment and circumstances, as well as clarifying how they could meet the ‘System of Controls’ – steps set out by Government which a school must follow to minimise the number of contacts a pupil has during a school day.

Having worked through the assessments and implemented the necessary measures to ensure adequate cleaning and ‘social bubbles’ can be adhered to, we are fully confident our schools are safe spaces to return to.

As you may be aware, most of our schools remained open throughout lockdown, so we already have a lot of working knowledge and experience of how to make schools safe for pupils, teachers, staff and parents.

But please rest assured, we will never be complacent and will continue to thoroughly monitor the situation and adapt as needed.

Along with our schools staff, our Aragon maintenance teams have also been doing some exceptional work over the past few months.

In fact I recently heard someone describe them as our “heroes in high vis jackets” and that’s certainly a description I would agree with!

The start of lockdown posed quite a challenge for our refuse collection teams in particular, because with more and more people staying at home there was much more waste for them to collect.

As such we have taken on new staff and they are working hard to ensure that collections are carried out as normal.

But it’s not just waste collection that our crews do – they are fully committed to keeping our city and surrounding areas looking spick and span and have worked tirelessly inspite of difficulties posed by the pandemic to achieve this.

Some of the phenomenal achievements of our teams between April and June are highlighted below:

- They had emptied 28,000 litter and dog bins;

- Cut 190 km of rural grass verges;

- Cut 20 million m2 of grass verges and open spaces;

- Removed over 2,200 flytips.

That’s some going I’m sure you’ll agree, so I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved for their continued hard work.

Finally, next Thursday, sees Merchant Navy Day take place, where we take a moment to recognise the important role played by the Merchant Navy in both world wars.

Normally, a public ceremony would be held outside the town hall, but this year our plans have had to change due to Covid-19, so instead we plan to stream a special video instead.

Details of this video and how to watch will be published shortly and, as ever, I would urge everyone to please take the time to watch this.