County Matters

As we go into late spring and summer, we hope the covid pandemic is receding but as we all know is still in the background. Many businesses are now reopening, and I wish them all a safe and busy season. I hope we can all support our local firms and businesses going into the remainder of the year.

The County library service is opening again for face to face contact with the appropriate rules being taken to protect us all. Grange Library is now open Monday and Wednesday mornings and with all the online services being maintained.

At the recent Annual Meeting of the County Council I presented the Annual Scrutiny Report which is available on Council web site at cumbria.gov.uk  This covered the whole of the covid emergency from the last 12 months and how all members of the Council engaged in the actions taken by the County Council from highways and environment departments to children’s services and adult social care. I wish to thank especially our public health directorate which has done a magnificent job over the past year.

Council is now looking into post-covid ways of working. New working practises could include home working and rethinking the future of the workplace for example office layouts as well as future IT software support and training.

Over the past year our NHS staff, care sector and voluntary organisations and other local volunteers have done a brilliant job in making sure in these difficult times we have all had the support and help we needed. We all owe them our sincere thanks for their selfless commitment to our local community.

Kindest regards

Bill Wearing

Conservative County Councillor Grange Division