Town Hall View: Thanks for following the rules

In Peterborough the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with shops reporting good levels of business - around 50 per cent of what they would usually expect - and shoppers on the whole adhering to social distancing measures.

On the opening day some shops, such as Primark, had long queues of shoppers and others, such as Parrotts Fish Bar on Hereward Cross reported their best day’s trade in quite some time.

A big thank you to the shops for enforcing the measures so well and of course to the shoppers for following the rules and ensuring our city centre hasn’t so far had the issues that other places have experienced. Thanks to the police too for increasing their presence in the city centre in case there were any issues.

If you’ve not visited yet, then it may be helpful for you to know that we have lots of measures in place to help keep you safe, like wider pavements, additional street cleaning and bench markings which show you how to keep a safe distance from others. We’re also continuing free parking in all council-owned car parks until the middle of next month.

Our shopping marshals are out in force all this week too, guiding people through the new measures. Many of them have said they’ve enjoyed speaking to shoppers and seeing the city centre thriving again – a point echoed by the Mayor of Cambridgeshire James Palmer when he visited the city on Monday.

The next phase of our plan to reignite the city centre involves creating a social distanced cafe culture and we have funding in place from the Combined Authority to take this forward. The hospitality/food and beverage sector has been hit hard by COVID-19 and will find it difficult to trade profitably under current social distance guidance, so we are looking at how we can provide the infrastructure to allow all-weather casual dining outside in the city centre.

Please support our city centre shops and businesses if you are able to – their future lies in your hand.

This week we’ve launched a new initiative to support small businesses and charities that have been impacted by Covid-19. After receiving £1.5million discretionary funding from government, we are inviting businesses to apply for grants of up to £10,000.

This fund is in addition to the current Small Business Grant Fund (SBGF) and Retail Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund (RHLGF) and is specifically aimed at certain small businesses who did not qualify under these schemes.

To qualify for support, businesses will have relatively high ongoing fixed property-related costs and will need to demonstrate they have suffered a significant fall in income due to Covid-19.

For further information visit https://www.peterborough.gov.uk/healthcare/public- health/coronavirus/coronavirus-covid-19-small-business-discretionary-grant-fund#policy-0-8

In last week’s PT there was a story about Peter Peckard who, amongst other things, was Dean of Peterborough Cathedral in the 1700s.

His name is not well known locally, which is a great shame when you consider that he was one of the leading figures behind the movement to abolish the slave trade. He educated many people about the realities of the slave trade - in fact it was one of his sermons, “Am I not a man and a brother”, that became the slogan for the abolition movement.

We need to make his name more recognisable than it currently is and so I will be asking the council’s Honours Panel to consider how we might create a lasting memorial to Dean Peckard to recognise and celebrate his life and the huge contribution that he made.

Our Armed Forces do a sterling job across the globe and to recognise this the council supports the annual Armed Forces Day.

The event usually features a public flag raising ceremony outside the Town Hall, but sadly this can’t take place this year. However, to show our support a virtual service will be broadcast on the council’s Youtube and social media channels on Monday.

The service can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/user/PboroughCityCouncil. We’ll also be flying a special Armed Forces flag from Peterborough Town Hall all next week.

You’re probably aware that we’ve had to suspend brown bin collections this week because of the number of drivers off sick or self-isolating and the increase in waste and recycling being collected.

This is never a decision we take lightly, but one we have not been able to avoid given these unprecedented times and the need to prioritise waste and recycling collections.

Normal service will resume next week, with those who were due to receive a collection this week receiving one next week, and those who were originally due to receive a collection next week receiving one week commencing 29 June and so on. And of course, collections are still free for those who have previously subscribed since May.

Our bin crews have done a fantastic job in recent months and many of these key workers have voluntarily put in hours of overtime to ensure our bins can be collected at a time when we most need it.

You can rest assured the council will continue to work hard to keep services going and its residents safe and well and to keep the city moving.