Published: Thursday, 25th Feb 2021

Update about Bolton Council's response to the pandemic.

Roadmap guidePrime Minister sets out roadmap to cautiously ease lockdown restrictions

The Prime Minister has announced the government’s roadmap to cautiously ease lockdown restrictions in England.

The roadmap, which has now been published on gov.uk, outlines four steps for easing restrictions. Before proceeding to the next step, the Government will examine the data to assess the impact of previous steps.

The first step starts with the return of all pupils to schools on 8 March.

Bolton Council leaders have welcomed the Prime Minister’s announcement but cautioned that people should continue to follow the rules.

Progress to each stage of the plan depends on the virus remaining under control and not spreading in the community.

Bolton Council leader, Cllr David Greenhalgh, said: “The Prime Minister’s announcement marks a significant step forward as we work hard to bring the virus under control and begin to return to normal. In the best interests of all of us, we need to work together to get our rates down in order to avoid this.”

Advice for the shielded – updated February 2021

You may have received a letter from the government in February asking you to shield when you have not been asked to do so before.

Education Secretary’s statement return to schools

This week, the Education Secretary, Rt Hon Gavin Williamson MP, gave a statement on coronavirus, provided an update on the return of schools and announced further elements of the recovery support package to help children and young people catch up on missed learning and development.

This will be supported with a new £700 million package for England which includes:

• a new one-off £302 million recovery premium for state primary and secondary schools. This builds on the pupil premium to further support pupils who need it most. The average primary school will receive around £6,000 extra, and the average secondary school around £22,000 extra.

• £200 million (from the £300 million announced by the Prime Minister in January to expand our successful tutoring programmes) will be available to fund an £83 million expansion of the national tutoring programme for primary and secondary schools, a £102 million extension of the 16-19 Tuition Fund for a further year; and £18 million funding to support language development in early years.

• £200 million (including the final £100 million from the Prime Minister’s announcement) will be available to secondary schools to deliver face-to-face summer schools. Schools will be able to target provision based on pupils’ needs but the government is suggesting they may want to initially target incoming year seven pupils.

• a range of online resources will be available for all teachers and pupils, provided by Oak National Academy starting from the summer term and throughout the summer holidays.

Business support

This week, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) updated the guidance on the Local Restrictions Support Grant and confirmed an extension until the end of March.

The grant supports businesses that were required to close due to the current national lockdown. A further payment will be made to all billing authorities, covering 16 February to 31 March.

BEIS has written to all billing authorities confirming their allocations of the grant which will be paid next week.

Find out more about grants and support for businesses in Bolton.

Celebrating Bolton’s unsung heroes

There’s still time to submit nominations to the Bolton News Lockdown Heroes Awards.

Set to take place on Sunday March 31, the virtual ceremony is planned to recognise and celebrate Bolton’s community heroes who have gone above and beyond in the last 12 months.

Hosted by television doctor, Dr. Hilary Jones, the awards will acknowledge a wide range of people who have made a difference, from social care and NHS staff, shop workers, volunteers, and young people to the emergency services as well as those working in business, education, and hospitality who have stepped up during the coronavirus pandemic.

The council is supporting the awards and will present the final award of the evening – the Outstanding Contribution Award. This award will recognise an individual or organisation that has embodied the spirit of #TeamBolton by helping in the fight against Covid, keeping spirits high, and showing leadership.

Nominations are open for all 12 award categories, and it is simple to enter by emailing: lockdownheroes@newsquest.co.uk with no more than 300 words explaining why the person/business should be considered for the award. 

For further details visit the Bolton News website. The closing date is tomorrow, Friday February 26.

Team Bolton magazine being delivered

The Team Bolton, the magazine from partners working to tackle the pandemic, is being delivered to people’s homes.

The magazine features articles from the council, NHS Bolton CCG and the Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, Bolton CVS, Bolton at Home, Greater Manchester Police, the University of Bolton, and Bolton Hospice.

The edition features information about getting a business grant, support from the Money Skills Service, help from the support hub if you have no one else to turn to, looking after your mental wellbeing, how vaccinations are being rolled out, help if you are recovering from COVID, and updates about the regeneration of our towns and villages.

Rugby League World Cup 2021 – launch of volunteering recruitment campaign

World-class sport is coming to Bolton this Autumn with The Rugby League World Cup 2021 England v France game and Quarter Final match being played at the University of Bolton Stadium.

RLWC2021’s campaign to recruit volunteers and local ambassadors for the tournament opens this week and as part of Team Bolton, please help us promote these fantastic opportunities to your contacts using your communications channels.

Please follow, like, share and retweet the posts from @rlwc2021 and from @boltoncouncil.

Follow the Rugby League World Cup 2021 on Facebook and Twitter.

Bolton CVS and Bolton at Home – 3 x Peer Navigator job opportunities   

A team of Peer Navigators support communities in Breightmet, Halliwell, Johnson Fold, Westhoughton, Farnworth, Deane and Hulton.

As a Peer Navigator you’ll drive community activities and involvement, and support local people get to where they want to be by helping them to overcome issues holding them back.

Three new opportunities are available through Bolton CVS to join as a Peer Navigator for Breightmet, Farnworth or Johnson Fold.

Hours of work: 16 hours per week on a flexible basis

Closing date: Monday 15th March—12 noon

Interviews: Monday 22nd — Thursday 25th March

Salary: £8,952 per year

Contract length: 18 months

For an application pack or to find out more, please contact Natalie Holt on 07899605733 or natalie.holt@boltonathome.org.uk

The Census 2021 is coming

The census is important and impacts us in so many ways.

The census is used to estimate the number of people and households in each area and it informs decisions on where billions of pounds of public funding is spent on services like transport, education, and health.

Help us promote it by sharing with your contacts and follow @Census2021 on social media to encourage everyone to fill in their returns online on March 21.

Find out more online or go to the ONS website for more info and to access their downloadable resources.

New Jubilee Centre planned for 2022 thanks to council investment

Bolton residents could have access to a state-of the art disability day centre and community pool as early as next year under the latest plans to upgrade and relocate the Jubilee Centre.

Bolton Council has allocated an additional £700,000 to the project, bringing the overall investment to £5.7m

Work at the former Firwood School site could now be completed as soon as November 2022.

Ash dieback disease forces council to remove dangerous trees

Bolton's ash trees are under threat from a devastating fungal disease - and the council may have no choice but to remove trees which have become infected.

Council’s budget to protect care and services

Bolton Council has agreed its budget for 2021-2.

A Full Council meeting on Wednesday February 17 agreed a 1.3% increase in the general council tax rate with a 2.5% rise for adult social care to protect those most vulnerable adults, as part of the budget for 2021-2.

The Big Active Conversion - Working together towards our Greater Manchester walking and cycling ambitions

On Monday March 15 Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and GM Moving partners are hosting the first of a new series of quarterly stakeholder gatherings.

These gatherings will bring people and partners across Greater Manchester together to share and explore progress, stories, challenges and expertise as we work together to make Greater Manchester a better place for everyone to walk and cycle.

The focus for this virtual conversation will be on widening access and participation in walking, cycling and active travel. There will be a number of breakout groups offering the opportunity to explore the multiple barriers to access and participation and how we best address these, for example: for disabled people; younger and older populations; women and girls; LGBTQ+ community; Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups and people living in poverty and on low incomes.

Speakers will include:

Andy Burnham (Mayor of Greater Manchester)

Chris Boardman (Greater Manchester’s Commissioner for Walking and Cycling)

Dr Richard Nickson (Director for Walking and Cycling, TfGM)

Eve Holt (Strategic Director GM Moving and GreaterSport)

Beth Sutcliffe (Strategic Director GM Walking and GreaterSport).

Consultation launched to improve Manchester’s railways

A consultation on improving the performance on the rail network in and around Manchester has been launched.

Passengers are being presented with 3 options that feature increasing levels of change from the pre-COVID service patterns. The 3 options affect different routes, and which routes have direct services to Manchester Oxford Road and Piccadilly stations, and Manchester Airport.

The agreed option, scheduled to be introduced in May 2022, will significantly improve overall reliability while maintaining the pre-COVID travel connections for the vast majority of passengers. Some changes may mean making different choices for travel.

This change will give passengers a more reliable service with less risk of knock-on delays, while longer-term infrastructure changes are developed that will enable more services to be added in the future in a sustainable way.

The consultation is open until March 10.