YOU CAN FIND OUR ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT HERE

Welcome

To Woughton Community Council

Woughton Community Council is the council closest to the residents in the parish of Woughton. The Community Council is here to support residents by representing their views on issues affecting them. We provide environmental and community facilities. On our website you will find information about Woughton Community Council’s services, as well as news about upcoming events and projects.

You can also get information at our office, based in the Local Centre on Coffee Hall. We are open each weekday between 9am – 5 pm (except Friday, when we close at 4pm and Wednesday, when we close at 1pm for staff training). More details on our ‘Contact Us’ page.

PLEASE NOTE OUR OFFICES ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED BUT WE ARE OPENING THE COMMUNITY FRIDGE

YOU CAN ACCESS OFFICERS, DOG BAGS, INFORMATION, ETC. VIA THE COMMUNITY FRIDGE, WHICH IS OPEN TUES AND THURS BETWEEN 10AM – 2PM

Community Fridge Update

Rules for accessing the Community Fridge

Following our post and comments on Facebook yesterday, we think it is important to clarify a few issues:

• The Community Fridge is something that WCC chooses to provide to reduce food waste. It is NOT the Food Bank, it is NOT something that WCC has to provide, but offers an additional service that means there is less food waste and enables free food.
• If you are attending the fridge, the rules apply. A face covering is essential to enable us to open safely. This may be a mask, a visor, cloth, disposable, etc. You will also be asked to maintain social distancing, use sanitiser and use the ‘Test and Trace’ check in.
• If you cannot wear a face covering of any sort, please contact us where we will be able to offer alternative options.

Throughout the pandemic, we have offered free face coverings. If you do arrive at the fridge without a face covering, we will happily provide a disposable mask, but would ask that this is the exception, rather than the rule. We would also ask you to bring a bag.

You will have seen that other food providers have closed, as they feel unable to keep people safe – both staff and customers. We are trying NOT to go down this route but will be monitoring this and, if we do need to close then we will. Due to our need to protect more vulnerable staff and visitors, we will be reducing our opening and only offering 2 sessions each week – Tuesdays and Thursdays. This will be the case until further notice.

We continue to see high numbers of infections across the city and across the parish. We are seeing public sector workers lose their lives to the virus. With up to 1 in 25 people infected and many of them not showing symptoms, we must manage the risk associated with this service. This is about keeping staff, volunteers and people who visit the fridge, safe.

In order to keep the service operating and the fridge open, we have to ensure that we are able to operate safely and ask for your support in this matter – this is about all of us working together to keep each other safe.

We have posted this on the Facebook page, updated the original post to clarify and will continue to update as and when things change.

Coronavirus News

With the new ‘lockdown’, there is a lot of change and news happening each and every day. Whilst we will keep our main coronavirus page updated, we will also add any recent developments here on the homepage.

Settled Status Support

Waste Collections for Christmas and New Year

Community Fridge News

We are please to say that the Community Fridges are now open again, different times and a different system, but back up and running. PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FRIDGE IS CURRENTLY CLOSED ON WEDNESDAYS, DUE TO STAFFING AND SAFETY ISSUES 

You will be asked what you need from a list of what we have. A maximum of 10 items per visit – hand sanitiser provided and please wear a mask when visiting. If you have symptoms, please don’t attend, but if you are in need, give us a ring and we can sort something out.

Keep an eye on our Facebook page for ‘one off’ openings, if we have lots of stuff and enough staff / volunteers!

Coronavirus

For information about Covid-19 (known as coronavirus) and the steps that Woughton Community Council are taking, click HERE

Following advice from Central Government and in line with safety precautions, as from 17th March 2020 the following actions have been taken to protect local residents and staff and help reduce the impact of the virus:

• Our buildings (Hub, No 95, all community centres) closed with immediate effect. 
• All public facing services (advice, wellbeing, youth, Community Fridge, Community Café) stopped operating any public access sessions . Services will remain accessible via email, phone and Skype, where suitable.
• All meetings with external partners are postponed or will take place online

This is clearly a difficult time and these decisions have not been taken lightly. We have to protect our staff, our councillors, our residents and those we come into contact with. Whilst many of us don’t fall within the ’high risk’ categories, many of us do and the need to protect everyone is paramount.

For further information about sources of support, click HERE

And for details of resources that might be useful during this period, click HERE

We have also published resources that can help talk about the situation, click HERE

*NEW* Gazette (and previous copies!)

You can check out the Winter edition of the Gazette, which includes information about the Priorities and Budget consultation, Remembrance Day, a review of the year and loads of other stuff from around the parish.

You can also still look at previous editions of ‘My Woughton Gazette’, going back to 2015 (and a few from even earlier).

Councillor Surgeries
PLEASE NOTE THESE ARE CURRENTLY SUSPENDED

You can find details of our Ward Councillor surgeries by clicking HERE

Click Here to see our current vacancies

Annual Returns

As part of our governance and to make sure that we are compliant with all the laws and rules around local councils, each year we provide an ‘Annual Governance and Accountability Return’ (sometimes known as an AGAR) to external auditors. Local electors have a right to see this return and, if requested, to see our accounts, etc..

You can find our annual returns for the past year HERE

If you have any questions or queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us