Minutes:
The Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Services, Councillor Radley announced:
Contacts received by the Community Safety Team are steadily increasing (39 received in November 2020 – 66 in January 2021) - which means the message that support with Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) issues and vulnerability concerns is getting out to Hart residents.
A flyer has been designed to go out to all households with the Council Tax Bills advising correct reporting of ASB to Police as well sharing contacts for the team and detailing other crisis support numbers.
This will utilise the back of the existing Landlord promotion leaflet, so it is not a further paper resource.
Efforts are being concentrated on building connections with Neighbourhood Watch networks across the district as key partners in sharing of information and provision of reporting and intelligence – webinars are being offered to encourage engagement and hopefully drum up interest in these very valuable community resources.
A Hart Community Newsletter will be produced by the end of March to share with members and key partners - initially introducing the team and their scope of work and then monthly to spotlight ongoing issues, celebrate successes and share useful contacts, information and opportunities.
The Cabinet Member for Community, Councillor Bailey, reported
I am pleased to confirm that yesterday we started our lateral flow testing at the Council Offices, and it is currently fully staffed by teams pulled from different areas of the Council. I’m very grateful for the huge effort that has been taken to make this happen. The plan is over next couple of weeks the facility will be more staffed by volunteers that are currently being vetted and we hope they will be in place by mid-March.
Hart Response Hub – with the increase in the shielded patient lists over recent weeks we haven’t seen a significant increase in referrals through the Hub for support however a second tranche of additions to the shielded list is going to take place this week and as it is for many over 70 this may lead to additional support requests in the coming days. I can confirm that the Hub is well staffed and additional back up in place if necessary.
Community pantry for the District is being developed and continuing to progress well and I would like to put on record my thanks to St Edwards the developers who have donated a container due to arrive at Yateley Industries in the next week or so. This will be used to store the food and other donations and I will sending an email to all members in the coming weeks with details on how they can point residents to the Community Pantry who may want to take benefit to it.
The budget to be considered tonight is maintaining ongoing support for Homelessness an area we do extremely well as a Council. You will be aware the Government announced the eviction ban that has been in place for tenants during the Covid crisis has been extended for a further month to end of March. This does mean the types of cases our teams are dealing with are usually more complicated often people who are often classed as ‘sofa surfers’ and so we are mediating with landlords and tenants where there is sometimes friction for people in those situations. I can confirm currently we have 2 people in bed and breakfast in the district through our commitment to no ‘First Night Out’ so that we look for people to stay whenever they are threatened with homelessness.
The Cabinet Member for Environment, Councillor Oliver, reported:
The Harlington Covid-19 Vaccination Centre opened last week and is currently delivering over 1000 jabs a week for Hart residents. As a volunteer myself I can confirm that all the medics, volunteers and residents who use the service are very happy with the parking arrangements HDC have organised and that these are on a Free to use basis. Fleet Town Council, Hart Voluntary Action (HVA) and Fleet Lions also need to be congratulated on helping set the centre up with the NHS.
The centre is an 'invitation only' facility so, if you don't have an invite from your GP, do not attend. There are no spare vaccine doses left at the end of a day.