Merry Christmas

I wanted to take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas.

I know this year has been incredibly challenging and this Christmas will be different for everyone, and indeed difficult for many.

We have seen terrible flooding across North Bedfordshire and my thoughts go all those caught up in this. I would like to give thanks to council staff, the Police and the Fire and Rescue Service who have worked so hard to protect local residents.

It is clearly not the Christmas any of us were planning. I have pencilled in our normal Boxing Day family get-together for the Saturday 26th June - a mid-year Australian style Christmas. If you can plan for something similar it may provide something to look forward to.

During this festive time, please do look out for others, many people will be struggling with their wellbeing - telephone, facetime or zoom relatives and have a chat and if you are finding life difficult please reach out. The Council's Wellbeing pages provide some links to staying active and also link to mental health charities, you can see them at https://www.bedford.gov.uk/social-care-health-and-community/public-health/wellbeing/

I emailed last weekend about the new Tier 4 Regulations and do not want to repeat them here, but you can see them at https://mayordave.org.uk/en/article/2020/1387382/coronavirus-tier-four and you can see the Council's latest Coronavirus Snapshot here - we recorded 829 cases in the week to 20th December and sadly had 14 deaths in the week to 12th December.

I have put some information on facebook about pharmacy opening hours here and bin collections here.

I have also put some festive photos from around Bedford Borough on my facebook page here which you may not have been able to see in person this year.