Cambridgeshire County Council Update - 24th March 2020

Published: 25 March 2020

Household Waste Recycling Centres
In light of the Prime Minister’s announcement last night, all recycling centres across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough will be closed from today (Tuesday) until further notice.

The decision to close sites has not been taken lightly but it is essential to encourage residents to stay at home and limit the spread of Coronavirus.

If you were planning to visit a recycling centre, please hold on to the items you were planning to take until they are reopened.

During this time, we ask residents to act responsibly and not place items such as DIY waste, garden waste, or recycling into their kerbside general rubbish collection.  This will take up space in the collection vehicles needed for general household rubbish.  Try to limit your food waste by home composting and using your freezer.  If you have food waste it can be disposed of in your general waste bin or in Peterborough, people should put food waste in their food waste caddys as normal.

For more information please visit our websites: Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
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Dr Liz Robin vlog

Every other day there will be a video blog from our Director of Public Health, Dr Liz Robin, explaining the public health advice. She will also be available for down the line interviews, please contact the news desk to check availability. https://youtu.be/khAI7ZOB1u

Latest Government guidance can be found here
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Support for schools

Despite the difficult circumstances, schools and early years settings across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough have already begun adapting to new ways of working, often with the support of parents and members of the local communities.  It may not quite be business as usual, but the show definitely goes on.

We are also supporting home to school transport providers to make sure they are not disadvantaged and during this challenging time are paid for any service disruption.  Across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, both councils have committed to continue funding transport operators up to Easter and post Easter we are going to fund 85% of the contract value as providers will not be incurring fuel costs on the routes.  This will be until the end of June at which point the position will be reviewed further.
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Peterborough City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council buildings

Following the Prime Minister’s announcement last night, we have taken the decision to close all CCC and PCC buildings to the public from today (Tuesday).  People can still get in touch with us, please visit our websites for more details – Cambridgeshire and Peterborough

In an emergency people can call Cambridgeshire on 0345 045 5200 and Peterborough on 01733 747474.

Archives - Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire Archives search rooms will be closed to the public until further notice.  We regret that we will be unable to offer our usual enquiry services during this period but we will continue to monitor and respond to emails as far as the available staffing allows.
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Health and Personal Care volunteers

A campaign encouraging people with experience of adult health and personal care to volunteer to provide additional support has been launched across social media.  This is to support out domiciliary care service, which assists older and vulnerable people who still live in their own homes, but require additional support with household tasks and personal care.  More than 30,000 people across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough have been reached so far since the campaign launched, and more than 310 have filled in a survey capturing their skills so far.  This is part of COVID-19 Coordination Hub Cambridgeshire and Peterborough councils launched last week to help those most affected by the Coronavirus outbreak.
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Services for older people and those with learning disabilities

Our day services that support older people and people with Learning Disabilities closed yesterday (Monday 23 March) until further notice.  Alternative home-based care provision has been arranged for clients of the day services who need this, and staff from the service are actively being redeployed elsewhere in the Council to support vulnerable people in the community.

Support for adults with Learning Disabilities and Autism at our Kingfisher Centre, Industrial Hub and City Centre Hub in Peterborough has been scaled back, providing support for the most vulnerable.
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Bus services in Peterborough

Service X4 Northampton - Kettering - Corby - Peterborough

The frequency will be reduced to hourly Mondays to Saturdays, two hourly Sundays - most of the journeys still operating via Lynch Wood.  This is due to commence from Monday 30th March.
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Cambridgeshire Customer Contact Centre

In order to re-direct our resources to critical services, we will be closing the Greater Cambridge Partnership, Parking Policy and Park & Ride phone lines from close of play tomorrow and the Trading Standards phone line from close of play on Friday.  This will allow us to focus and prioritise critical services which need to remain
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Registration Services

Following the update from the Prime Minister last night, as of today all ceremonies are cancelled until at least the end of April. A number of other changes have also been made to the registration services being offered by both councils to ensure the government advice around social distancing is being followed. Measures have been put in place for birth and death registrations. More information can be found here on our websites:
Cambridgeshire County Council https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/residents/births-deaths-and-marriages
Peterborough City Council https://www.peterborough.gov.uk/residents/births-deaths-and-ceremonies/peterborough-register-office

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Business Rates

Businesses who have been hit hard by the Covid-19 outbreak will be supported by Peterborough City Council over the coming months, following the Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s daily briefings over the past week.  The council is putting in various support measures in place and more information can be found in our news release available here
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Peterborough Council Tax

We are awaiting information from Central Government giving us details on how to make sure that city residents who need it the most, benefit from the £500million national Hardship Funding set aside by Government.  While we are awaiting this, the various decisions have been taken regarding income already due from council tax: more information can be found in our news release here

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You can keep up-to-date with any changes to our services on our websites:
• Peterborough - https://www.peterborough.gov.uk/healthcare/public-health/coronavirus/disruption-to-council-services
• Cambridgeshire - https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/residents/coronavirus/disruption-to-council-services

Our advice and latest information on Coronavirus can be found on both websites - www.peterborough.gov.uk/coronavirus and www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/coronavirus