The Hamlets’ Voice , Duloe, , Upper Staploe, Bushmead and ………………………………………………………………………

Issue 29 – June/July 2020

In times of a pandemic

Our last Parish Newsletter was published in February 2020, in a time of blissful ignorance of what was to come. The Parish Council was planning a curry night, a community litter pick and a Fathers’ Day picnic and advertising Begfest, East West Rail consultations and Open Gardens. Little did we know that, due to the global outbreak of the virus causing COVID-19, we would be in lockdown a month later and most of these events would be cancelled.

The curry night did go ahead at the beginning of March and raised £425.50 for the Village Hall rebuilding fund. The money is being held in reserve by the Parish Council. Our thanks go to Jane Thomson and Ged Meola for their organisation and to Jane Arnold and her family team for the delicious food. The event was well attended; it appears that the word has spread about Jane’s delicious curries because a good number of residents also joined us, which helped increase the takings.

We held our first virtual Parish Council meeting on 17th March on Skype. The link was published on the agenda and we were delighted that two members of the public joined us. We use audio but not video as some residents and councillors still have very slow broadband connections and a video session would be impossible for them.

The pandemic has affected each and every one of us - in many different ways. In this issue of Hamlets’ Voice, we include contributions from parishioners describing their experiences, along with our regular updates. News from Borough Council

Coronavirus Bedford Borough has the highest rate of coronavirus infection in the East of . We need your help to slow the spread of the virus and save lives. You can do this by: 1. Staying at home as much as possible 2. Wearing a face mask when you go on public transport 3. Staying 2m away from others when outdoors 4. Continuing to regularly wash your hands with soap and water, or using hand sanitiser when that’s not available. Anyone with symptoms, including a new persistent cough, high temperature or a change or loss of taste or smell should immediately self-isolate and arrange a test via www.nhs.uk/coronavirus or by calling 111.

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Council urges residents to look after their wellbeing in Bedford Borough With the infection rate remaining high in the Borough and residents advised to continue to stay home where possible, Bedford Borough Council is reminding everyone of the support and advice available to look after your mind and body.

In April, the council created a new webpage, www.bedford.gov.uk/wellbeing, offering advice to Bedford Borough residents on how to look after themselves whilst at home during the coronavirus outbreak and beyond.

With regular updates, the site offers advice and signposting to help residents stay healthy such as this Sunday’s free online yoga sessions, as part of International Yoga Day.

This page also includes a range of materials, such as: • Exercise tips including indoor games for kids, live fitness classes, and seated exercises • Mental health advice and links to services that can provide help • Food and nutritional guidance including Change4Life resources, recipes and cooking videos • Further Public Health advice including sexual health, stop smoking, drugs and alcohol, health checks and emotional wellbeing

Cllr Louise Jackson, portfolio holder for public health said, “It remains vitally important that people can continue to look after their health and wellbeing while staying safe at home.

“For all of us, where possible, this means keeping active, eating healthily and looking after our mental health. To help this we set up our webpage www.bedford.gov.uk/wellbeing. It’s full of useful advice, information and links to help you stay on top of things and offer support through this difficult time.”

“Local Offer” Website The Local Offer website is the first port of call for anyone seeking information about SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) services. It provides signposting and guidance as well as support. If you know of useful services that are not on the Local Offer, but perhaps should be, or if you have any suggestions for how the site can be improved, the Local Offer team would love to hear from you.

To access the website please visit https://localoffer.bedford.gov.uk/kb5/bedford/directory/home.page

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Bedford Borough Local Plan Review Local Plans set out where growth and development will take place - everything from houses and jobs to schools and infrastructure.

Bedford Borough Council already has a Local Plan in place up to 2030, and is now looking beyond that period. Next week’s Executive meeting is set to discuss a Local Plan Review.

Government requires councils to plan for a certain level of housing growth in their local plans. As part of the next Local Plan, allocations may need to be made for between 5,000 and 15,000 additional new dwellings over a plan period up to 2040. The exact number will depend on forthcoming revisions to the Government’s housing-need formula.

If approved by Executive, the ‘Local Plan Review - Issues & Options’ paper will go out for consultation this summer asking people for their views.

This review and consultation will mainly focus on developing a strategy to guide housing and employment growth and identify the infrastructure needed to support it.

It will also look at policies around climate change, protecting the natural environment, quality of development, self and custom build homes, open space in new developments, and policies around the town centre.

The town centre was the subject of a separate consultation last year, which has led to the development of a draft Town Centre Plan. This will form part of the background to the Local Plan review and people will have another chance to have their say in this consultation.

This process will also open a ‘call for sites’ where people can put forward land to be allocated as a site for development in the next local plan.

Mayor Dave Hodgson said “This report going to Executive sets out the possible scope of our Local Plan review and, if approved, the consultation this summer will be a great opportunity for the public to have their say right at the start of this process. This ‘Issues & Options’ consultation really is looking at the very basics – how long a time period should the next local plan cover, what do you want us to look at as part of the plan, and more.”

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VE Day Celebrations

On Friday 8th May, with the village still in lockdown, parishioners celebrated the 75th Anniversary of VE Day with flags, bunting, woodfired pizza, and a poetic scarecrow:

We are living in ISOLATION And some days it feels like SUFFOCATION I drank the wine before FERMENTATION And ate all the sweets in DESPERATION They've cancelled the kids EXAMINATIONS But it is fine as we are all 'high on MEDITATION' V.E. Day is an inter-nation CELEBRATION War 6 years, us 6 weeks so no EXCLAMATION Let's show emotion and MOTIVATION Stay safe and well.

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Woodfired Pizza Van

The woodfired pizza van visited for VE Day and was a great success. It will visit again on Saturday 11th July.

10-inch pizzas • margherita: £8 • pepperoni, ham & mushroom, Hawaiian: £9 • chicken, chorizo and roquito peppers £9.50 • red onion, pesto and chilli flakes: £9.50 12-inch pizzas, all £2 extra.

Please call Janet and Dave with your order and payment on 07976 223584.

Highways Update

In February, Staploe Parish Council and Borough Councillor Tom Wootton convened a meeting with Bedford Borough Council Highways Department and three other parishes to raise the issue of the condition of Bushmead Road and the need for a 50mph speed limit.

The Borough spent £70,000 patching Bushmead Road shortly before the meeting. The Parish Council thanked them for the work done and asked why some areas had not been repaired. They explained that there was no money in the budget for further improvements. It was last top-dressed more than 5 years ago and will be top-dressed again in the next 3 years. This

6 should help seal the surface. The road will then be resurfaced (at a cost of approx. £500K) about 10 years later.

The Borough have agreed to install data recorders once traffic returns to normal to assess the need for a speed limit on the road. They agreed to meet with County Council regarding new developments at and Staughton Moor Industrial Park and the potential development of Moor Road as an alternative access route.

In September 2019, speed limits were reviewed and new limits proposed, to include a 20mph zone in the narrower part of Staploe and 40mph limit in Gypsy Lane and between Duloe and Staploe. Bedford Borough Council Highways Department have advised that the proposed limits need to go out for consultation but they are seeking new ways to consult with the public while many newspapers are not publishing. We have suggested a number of publications that they could use. Defibrillator

The Parish Council received a grant from Borough Cllr. T. Wootton’s Ward Fund to purchase a defibrillator.

This has been purchased and we are currently assessing options for installation.

Blueline Security

Blueline Security operate a private security service called 3 Shires Patrols for the deterrence and displacement of crime in rural villages in our area. They are currently covering the villages of Kimbolton, Stonely, Hail Weston, Great Staughton, Little Staughton, and (plus others further afield). They aim to deter crime and gather evidence to pass to the police. They charge a one-off £20 joining fee per household and then a subscription of £25 per month for two visits per month after the hours of darkness. They may be able to offer a “response only” service for a lower bespoke price if required. They need at least 10 people in the parish to sign up before it becomes viable for them.

For further information, see their website: https://www.bluelinesecuritylimited.com/3- shires-patrols#join

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Broadband in Honeydon

Openreach contractors (Opals) were installing fibreoptic broadband in Honeydon on Monday 22nd June and they expect it to be available to customers by the end of June.

The Parish Council would like to thank Darren Edwards of Honeydon for all his hard work to chase this and ensure the project was completed.

Duloe Village Hall

An architect has been commissioned to submit a pre-planning application for a new, slightly extended hall. Minutes of meetings of the Village Hall Committee can be found on the parish website: https://staploe-pc.gov.uk/meetings/village-hall-meetings/

Green Bin Collections

Due to staff shortages at Bedford Borough Council, green bins are only being collected once per month. The schedule is different for Staploe and Honeydon compared to Duloe. In Duloe, the next green bin collection will be on 6th July. In Staploe and Honeydon, it will be on 20th July. You can check your collection dates on the Borough’s webpage: https://www.bedford.gov.uk/rubbish-recycling-and-waste/household-bins-and- recycling/check-bin-collection-day/

A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet improvements scheme There have been some changes to the scheme in response to the consultation last year. You can comment on the changes in a consultation opening on 24th June and closing on 28th July. For more information see: www.highwaysengland.co.uk/a428 WhatsApp Group Mark Potts of Duloe manages a WhatsApp group for the three hamlets - ‘3 Hamlets Watch Group’ - to share local information about suspicious behaviour, missing dogs, items available in the hamlets such as seedlings, eggs etc. If you would like to join, please send your phone number to Mark on: 07930 718749. 8

Nature Reserves

We are lucky enough to have a very rare wildflower in our parish. The Spiked Star of Bethlehem or Bath Asparagus (Ornithogalum pyrenaicum) usually only grows in a few locations near Bath and our parish is one of very few others in the country.

As a result, many of our roadside verges have been designated nature reserves and should not be cut until mid- August when the Bath Asparagus has seeded.

Due to the success of this wildflower, the roadside nature reserves were extended in 2018 and Bedford Borough Council are in the process of installing posts to mark the new reserves at the time of writing.

The extended reserves are as follows: Woodhouse Lane from the bridleway to the bridge by the pylon; the northern half of Shakers Way from the litter bin to Staploe end; Gypsy Lane from Silver Birches to just before Tally Ho; Bushmead Road from the junction with Shakers Way to 350m beyond the junction with Cadbury Lane (excluding 10m either side of the junction with Gypsy Lane); all of Cadbury Lane; the eastern half of Manor Farm Lane; a 470m

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stretch from Lower Honeydon Farm extending east to the footpath; Begwary Lane from 40mph sign to White House Farm; 500m of Honeydon Road either side of Coxfield.

In exceptional circumstances if there is a safety issue (e.g. at a junction or on a sharp bend) we can seek permission from the Borough Council to cut half a metre. If you are concerned about any of the verges, please contact the Parish Clerk.

There have been occasions where helpful residents have cut the verges in the interests of tidiness without realising that the Bath Asparagus was there, but hopefully this article and the new signposts will help raise awareness and protect these rare plants.

For a map of the extended reserves, please visit our website at www.staploe-pc.gov.uk, click on “Our Parish” and then “Footpaths and Nature Reserves”. The Nature Reserves link is at the bottom of the page.

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Open Gardens

The Old Vicarage in Great Staughton will be open every Wednesday from 2pm to 5pm. They have suggested a donation of £1 per visitor, to go to the Red Cross (Cambridgeshire branch).

Falling Water House and Old Farm Cottage, Staploe, opened on 6th June with the National Gardens Scheme and raised approximately £360 for nursing charities. Both gardens will open again on 4th October (1-5pm).

Old Farm Cottage, Staploe

Our Postman

We would like to express our thanks to Mark Saunders who has done a fantastic job as our postman for the past 8 years. We wish him well in his future endeavours.

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Coronavirus Stories

TESS W, DULOE

It's a strange and exhausting experience; working through lock down. I am not a key worker but cannot work from home. Part of me wanted to be furloughed so I could safely lock myself at home but, at the same time, I was relieved and grateful at the thought that perhaps my job might just be safe (for now, anyway). Every day there is a nagging doubt that this could be the day you catch the dreaded Covid from a colleague or even be the one to pass something on.

Office life gets turned upside down. Your desk is moved into the depths of the office to avoid human contact. A new routine starts. Only use these doors. Don't enter these parts of the office. Sanitise on entry/exit to the office. Join an office sanitisation rota, cleaning all commonly touched items. Don't make colleagues a drink. Don't touch each other's stuff. Suddenly you feel like a long-distance email pen-pal with your work colleagues. You walk around the office dodging and dancing around. It's all rather like the ministry of funny walks. You find yourself watching a colleague washing their hands in the toilets and judging their hand washing skills. Was that 20 seconds? It didn't seem to be. Were they thorough? You start to secretly eye-ball each other watchfully.

Today one of my team is back from furlough. I asked them what it was like. I imagined lovely sunbathing, gardening, work-outs, & cooking. The truth is my colleague struggled with the lack of routine and human contact. We both of us have battled with our own different sources of stress and both feel shattered. We are all of us in the fight but hopefully we will find the resource to battle through and come out the other side. I think of generations past during WW2 and think: well - if they could do that, surely I can do this?

DEBBIE AND JEAN, STAPLOE

Debbie lives in Suffolk and she visits her 91-year-old mother, Jean, in Staploe twice per week. She is a part-time Assistant Practitioner in the emergency department of a hospital in London two days per week. As with many A&E departments, theirs has been remarkably quiet during lockdown but it is now beginning to pick up with mental health-related attendance.

Debbie noticed a lot of patients coming into hospital with Covid-like symptoms in December and January and she had a terrible cough herself in December so suspected she had already had the virus. However, to her surprise she had an antibody test last week and it was negative.

Jean had a couple of falls in early March with a suspected urinary tract infection. On 17th March, Debbie visited to find that Jean had a temperature of 39°C and was coughing. A district nurse attended and advised that she should be admitted to Hinchingbrooke Hospital. They

12 confirmed that her oxygen saturation was low, put her on oxygen and did a Covid test - which turned out to be positive.

At that stage Hinchingbrooke were allowing visitors so Debbie went to see her mum in hospital. She was very ill. Her chest x-ray was bad and they didn’t think she would survive. Debbie signed forms to request that they should not ventilate if Jean deteriorated further but, to everyone’s astonishment, she started to improve 24 hours later.

Jean spent three weeks at Hinchingbrooke and was very confused and unable to stand after her ordeal. She was then transferred to a rehabilitation hospital in Ely where she recovered enough to return home in mid-May. Debbie said Hinchingbrooke were fantastic and looked after her mum really well.

MARK T, STAPLOE

Making a face mask...

(and learning new sewing skills!)

CRAWFORD FAMILY, STAPLOE

We have all fared well in lockdown. Our boys were both in exam years and so had A-levels and GCSEs cancelled. William (17) has managed to get a part-time job working for an actuary doing some data crunching and Tom (16) still has some school work to do and has been doing a bit of gardening work and chatting to friends online.

Mark is Commercial Director of a company that imports fresh cut fruit such as mango and pineapple from Ghana, Egypt, South Africa and Brazil and supplies it to supermarkets across Europe – employing 5,500 people and putting over £80m per year into the local economies of their source countries. The business had (until 23rd March) a total dependence on the use of cargo space in the holds of passenger flights. In less than ten days, they had to switch 13 completely to cargo planes and production in the UK, buying a new £60,000 processing machine to keep supplies going.

During the European lock downs, the company has had to close its factories in Benin and Brazil whilst scaling back operations at the others. The hardest part of the crisis has been knowing that closing factories and cutting staff has a huge effect in countries where there are no benefits or safety nets. In fact, in one of our factories we looked to make one of three delivery drivers redundant but the other two agreed to take a 30% pay cut to keep him on. Such fellowship has been humbling.

One of the lighter moments was when the business struggled to find cargo space. At that moment someone in West Africa decided to fly a brand-new Ferrari into the country and Mark’s company were able to use the freight space on the return journey.

Many of Mark’s UK team have been furloughed and so he spent most of March and April chained to his desk doing about 6 people’s jobs and working long hours - very conscious that thousands of jobs in developing countries depended on the survival of the company. At the time of writing things are improving week by week and he is optimistic that the company will survive.

Lucy works from home as Parish Clerk and so little has changed other than that Parish Council meetings are now online. She has loved the way everyone in our hamlets has joined forces to support those who need shopping delivered, prescriptions collected and all the exchanges of eggs, seedlings, flour etc. The lockdown appears to have brought out people’s community spirit.

Meanwhile we meet regularly with our church and our families via Zoom, we have learned new haircutting / hairdressing skills, made lots of bread and had a monumental game of Risk (the board game) which is still going at the time of writing!

HARRY W, STAPLOE

I contracted Covid-19 shortly after lockdown, probably from work, as I am a key worker. I have never felt so unwell. I had a fever, headaches and a horrible cough which prevented me from getting much sleep. Any sleep I did get was achieved by sitting up in a chair.

I stayed isolated for ten days, with food and drinks being left outside my bedroom door so that I had no contact with the rest of my family.

It’s now three months later and I’m not yet fully recovered. I still have a cough, although it’s slowly getting better. 14

EMILY AND FELICITY, HONEYDON

Our Account of the Coronavirus and Subsequent Lockdown

The coronavirus is an illness and disease that has affected the whole world. The coronavirus started in animals and then went to people. It has made people have to stay at home, there’s no school and most shops, cinemas and restaurants are shut as we have to social distance.

Things we like about the lockdown

• People helping each other more • Spend more time with our (immediate) family • No school (apart from home school)

Things we don’t like about the Lockdown

• People are dying all over the world • The news on the radio and TV is scary • We miss our (extended) family and friends

What we’ve enjoyed and learnt during the coronavirus

• Growing our own vegetables • Baking cakes and selling them to raise money for animals in need • Playing in the pool in the garden • Exploring the countryside and litter picking • Learning to ride our bikes without stabilizers

We are enjoying living and spending time together during the coronavirus and feel like sisters. It’s been strange not to go to school and see our friends and family. We hope there will be a vaccine for the coronavirus soon, so we can get back to normal.

Written by Emily and Felicity from Honeydon (8 years Old) 15

Keep in Touch with Parish News

WEBSITE The old Parish Council website closed at the end of March and a new site is now up and running at www.staploe-pc.gov.uk Councillors contact details can be found on the website at the bottom of the Parish Council page. The Parish Council would like to thank Borough Cllr. T. Wootton’s for the ward funding he donated for development fees for the new website.

EMAIL The Parish Council send out regular news updates by email. If you would like to receive these, please e-mail the Parish Clerk (contact details below; note new email address)

FACEBOOK Search Facebook for ‘Staploe Parish Council’. There is also a community Facebook group where parishioners can post: www.facebook.com/groups/325908041268638/

PARISH CLERK: Lucy Crawford 33 Staploe, St Neots, PE19 5JA. Tel: 01480 471526 Email: [email protected]

THE OIL CLUB GARDEN CHICKENS TREE SURGEON, DULOE Group your oil order with For Point-of-lay Pullets, others in the local area to Chicken Arks, Feeders and Andrew Brightman save money Drinkers. 07970 546293 www.oil-club.co.uk Rookery Road, 07597029425

GARDENING SERVICES, THE WOODFIELD ‘JUST ASK’ VILLAGE AGENTS STAPLOE PHYSIOTHERAPY CENTRE SCHEME

Steve Smith 01234 378996 Teresa Moon 07908 857706 www.woodfieldphysio.co.uk 01234 771418

The Hamlets’ Voice | Issue 29 | June/July 2020 Editors: Emma Thompson and Frank Squire | Email: [email protected] 16