Mayor Collier is having a well-deserved week off, this means I will be acting Mayor while she puts her feet up, so here’s ‘The Mayor’s View’ this week.
While we are still living in uncertain times as the government announces yet more restrictions and revised guidelines, I’m pleased to see certainty returning to the town centre as the works for the Market Place improvements have come to an end so we can regain another degree of normality within the town. I want to thank everyone for their patience, these changes have been planned for a very long time and the implementation of them did not come at a great time for anyone involved.
I am regrettably starting to see and hear of an increase in redundancies and general insecurity around jobs and income from many residents around the town. We’re lucky in Frome, to have some great resources which could help some during the coming months.
Frome is blessed to have two community fridges; one located next to the library and a new fridge that was set up by ‘Friends of The Mount, Marston & Keyford’ during lockdown, it’s located at the Community Garden, next to the Key Centre on Feltham Road (The Mount). Our community fridges are designed to prevent food from being wasted and ending up in landfill, this is a great way to stock up for a couple of days and not spend a penny!
We also have a fantastic food bank – Fair Frome – they do such an amazing job all year round and have really gone above and beyond during lockdown, please visit www.fairfrome.org for more information on how to access this service. I would also like to ask those who are able to, to donate essentials when you can into the various Fair Frome collection boxes – you can find these in Barnardo’s, Asda, Tesco Express and Co-op (Westway) to name a few.
Lastly I’d like to encourage everyone to keep up the great sense of community spirit we have fostered during lockdown, we are not out of the woods yet and the nights will be drawing in soon and the winter weather will be following too. We are about to enter a part of the year that many of our friends and family struggle with at the best of times so it’s imperative that we support each other and continue to look out for one another. This coming winter will magnify the negative effects of the times we live in and we should all strive to be more open about our mental health with those closest to us and form support networks where comfortable. There is no weakness in struggle and we’re all largely in the same boat in 2020. Let’s band together, we have shown what we’re capable of, let’s keep up the great work!
I’m only an email away, please contact me should you need help or advice about anything discussed in this column, my email address is awrintmore@frometowncouncil.gov.uk
