This has been an unusual part of the year for all of us, adapting to a new way of working, for some of us it also meant adapting to a new way of schooling for our children too, which is quite a challenge.
The schools in Lutterell Ward have been available for the children of key workers since the start of lockdown and the schools have been working very hard to keep parents and students well fed with education and up to date with the rapidly changing situation for schools. We’d like to thank all of the teachers, home teachers, and students for being so willing to adapt in these unprecedented times.
Progress is being made in the planning to knock down the Rushcliffe Day Centre next to the Heymann School Key Stage One site on Swithland Drive (behind the fire-station). The site has been used for parking for the teachers at Heymann School.
In the last quarter the Firecrews at London Road have attended both incidents related to dry weather and flooding, as well as making donations to Clifton’s foodbank, delivering PPE, and paying their respects on VE Day. They recently posted this picture
With the message “Red Watch at West Bridgford, London Road and First Responders (East Midlands Ambulance Service) would like to pay our respects to George Floyd and show our solidarity and support towards anti racism. We’re here to serve and protect our multicultural city which we take great pride in. “ It’s a real privilege to have these hard working and brave people working in our ward.
VE celebrations happened around the ward, with many roads having properly socially distanced street parties. At Stanhome Drive we even managed to string bunting from the lamp posts, socially distanced ladder footing made for an uneasy first two meters on the climb! We hope others had similarly good experiences for this celebration of remembrance.
Many residents across West Bridgford volunteered to help others who might be isolating themselves through the COVID crisis, it says great things about our community that there were more volunteers than there were people isolating, but still many people have been running errands for others and getting to know their neighbours better.
In Lutterell Ward we were coordinated by Craig Farina and a team of area coordinators. We want to thank all of these and were fortunate to be able to recognise one of them during Volunteers Week. Sarah Swain is a teacher and gave up a great deal of time to help others and make sure people felt comfortable with the arrangements. Her first reaction to being offered flowers as a gift was that we should give the equivalent money to a good cause or give them to another coordinator. They were well deserved.
As well as being ward councillors we also have responsibilities within the council, one of Cllrs Gray’s is as Leader of the main opposition. This role involves acting as a critical friend (occasionally very critical, sometimes not that friendly) to the controlling party. During lockdown these responsibilities have taken to the internet where we’ve been part of virtual cabinet meetings, the first virtual council meeting will take place on the 2nd of July, when Rushcliffe will appoint a new Mayor and agree councillors responsibilities for the year ahead. If you wish to see how our lockdown hair has grown please head to https://www.youtube.com/user/RushcliffeBC. Planning committees are also being streamed online. We think this is a great initiative and hope it stays as much as possible, as viewing figures are far larger than they would be if attended in person. For those who like political fireworks I would advise finding recent meetings at Bingham Town Council and Nottinghamshire County Council.
Planning is always a hot topic in local meetings and in Lutterell Ward there are many extensions being proposed, most likely inspired by spending all hours looking at the same four walls (and thinking we could do with a 5th!). Possibly the largest development on the horizon in the ward is to be proposed on Walcote Drive, in place of the garages. This is part of a scheme across Rushcliffe and the details are as below.
It goes without saying that we are always happy to hear from you with thoughts and comments about the ward or any developments that are happening. We hope you are staying safe and keeping well. If you’d like notifications or a copy of this ward newsletter delivered to your inbox please follow the blog and sign up to our mailing list by clicking this link.
Labour Party in Rushcliffe 