Peterborough primary schools now serving up free breakfasts

A number of primary schools across the city have received funding that will allow them to provide free breakfasts to pupils.

Led by councillor Alan Dowson, and supported via the Mayor’s Charity, the funding initiative has seen up to 56 of the region’s primary schools receive the necessary sponsorship to put the scheme into practice.

It is hoped the scheme will help those children living in households that have been hit particularly hard by the cost of living crisis.

Councillor Dowson outlined the initiative to the Peterborough Telegraph:

“At the moment, we’ve given 26 primary schools out of 56 a grant of £250 each,” he said.This, he insisted, will help ensure any child who needs it will be able to receive “a breakfast in the morning before they start school.”

The mayor of Peterborough chooses local charities to raise money throughout their term in office.

This is generally achieved by donations and holding fundraising events.

This year has been slightly different however as councillor Dowson has donated his salary for the year (£6,000) to the charity, and convinced a local law firm to make a hefty contribution of £14,000.

“All together the mayor’s charity has raised over £22,000,” the councillor said. “We’d like to do more but it depends if the fundraising is going up.”

As well as helping to fund primary school breakfast clubs, the Mayor’s Charity has earmarked a significant amount of cash to tackling local dwindling bus services.

Councillor Dowson didn’t mince his words when describing the availability of public transport outside of the city.“It’s pretty bad,” he said, “particularly in rural areas where they’ve been withdrawn.”

The councillor has a vision that an indirect bus service running from Stamford to Peterborough will help many village dwellers in the area feel less isolated.

“We’re hoping, in the next month, to get an experimental bus service going,” he explained.“It will leave Stamford and make connections with the villages which haven’t got any bus services and collect people twice a day and deliver them back to the village.”If all goes well, the experimental bus route should receive an official go-ahead within the month.