Wickford Town

Booking system planned for Essex recycling centres

A booking system will be trialled for all vehicles at Essex recycling centres. This is to help manage waiting times, reduce congestion, and improve the customer experience. The new booking system will come into place from Monday 13th March. The booking process has already been trialled for all vehicles using Rayleigh Recycling Centre, and also for large vehicles using the nine vanfriendly sites.

Both trials have been effective in smoothing the pattern of demand across operating hours and reducing queues and congestion both in and around the sites.

Site users visiting by foot do not need to book a slot.

Blue Badge holders do not need to book a slot and can visit any recycling centre in any vehicle, including vans at any ECC recycling centre.

Find out more about the booking system trial at the Love Essex website www.loveessex.org

Multiply in Essex with Essex County Council

We use maths every day without even realising. From helping children with their schoolwork,

If you are 19 and over, you can now access free maths courses across Essex. The courses will help to boost your confidence and gain a maths qualification up to NVQ2 (GCSE at grade 4 to 9 or A*to C). This can not only help you gain higher qualifications; it can enable you take advantage of new job opportunities and progress in your career.

Courses are flexible and available at different venues across the county. If you run a local business, we can also support you with free, tailored courses to upskill your employees. Find out more and sign-up to a course today via www.essexopportunities.co.uk/multiply

Time to get walking again!

With Spring on its way we start to think about getting out to walk in the beautiful English countryside again, but where to find new and interesting walks?

to cooking or as part of our job, maths is part of our daily lives. For lots of us though, maths might feel like a daunting subject. Multiply in Essex is a new programme aiming to change that.

Walking in Essex www.walkinginengland. co.uk/essex has loads of walks to download and print, free, it also has books of walks, details of all the walking groups in the county and much more. Whether you want to walk on your own or with a group all the information is there in one place.

John Harris (who maintains the website) said ‘There is so much walking information on the web but it is difficult to find. Walking in Essex (part of the Walking in England website) has brought it together in one place so whether you are walking from home, or away on holiday, you will be able to find a walk suitable for you’. With walks from half a mile to twelve miles plus long, and a note of suitability for pushchairs and wheelchairs, everyone can find a walk to enjoy. So home or away, check out the websites and get walking!

John Harris www.walkinginengland.co.uk john@walkinginengland.co.uk

How health has changed in your local area: 2015 to 2020

The start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic caused widespread changes to health in England.

This included a worsening of personal well-being, mortality, mental health, and economic and working conditions, but also some improvements such as reduced air pollution and crime.

The Office For National Statistics has released a new edition of an interactive tool recently, showing how health changed in each local authority area across England between 2015 and 2020, according to the Health Index.

The Health Index gives every local area in England an overall health score for each of the past six years. This overall score is made up of a wide range of measures, including physical and mental health conditions like diabetes or anxiety, local unemployment, road safety, and behaviours like healthy eating.

This score can show whether health in a local area is improving. The Health Index score has a baseline of 100, which represents England’s health in 2015. A score higher than 100 means that an area has better health for that measure than was average in 2015, lower than 100 means worse health than the 2015 average.

If we take a look at Basildon, you can see how health has changed over the past six years:

Health Index score for Basildon: 98.3

Basildon’s Index score decreased in 2020 and has an overall Health Index score of 98.3, which is down 1.4 points compared with the previous year.

Basildon’s best score across all subdomains is 110.7 for health relating to “physical health conditions”

“Physical health conditions” looks at cancer, cardiovascular conditions, dementia, diabetes, kidney and liver disease, musculoskeletal conditions, and respiratory conditions.

The second highest scoring subdomain is “access to green space” - Basildon’s score for health relating to “access to green space” is better than the score for England as a whole with a Health Index score of 103.6 for “access to green space”. The score for the East of England is 101.1, while England has a score of 99.9. On top of this, Basildon’s Health Index value for “living conditions” improved by 8.4 points in the five years between 2015 and 2020 and Basildon’s Health Index value for “economic and working conditions” improved by 3.1 points in the five years between 2015 and 2020. To find out more make your way over to ons.gov.uk and search The Health Index for England.

Insulated Roof Replacement Roof

Usable rooms all year around

Using “Superquilt” technology our roofs are cool in the summer and warm in the winter!

1 Day Installation

Our highly qualified team of professionals can install most of the roofs within 1 DAY!

Affordable Prices

With prices starting from as little as £1295, we have a solution to cater everyone’s price range.

Make It Your Own

Two types of finish, Cladding or Plasterboard

Tiled Conservatory Roofs

We also offer a full replacement service, which can completely transform the look of your conservatory. Using a timber framed roof system including over 150mm of insulation.

There is a stunning selection of tiles, varying between Tapco, Slate or Metrotile.

Our replacement roofs come with 6 downlights, a plastered ceiling, along with full fascias and guttering.

FIXED PRICES FOR ALL SHAPES & SIZES

Wickford in Bloom!

Would you like to sponsor a hanging basket in Wickford High Street?

We are now taking names from anyone… business, families, groups… interested in sponsoring a hanging basket in the High Street. The cost will be £115 to include a filled basket which will be supplied, installed and maintained by Windowflowers Ltd on behalf of Wickford In Bloom. The baskets will be hung May until October, weather dependent. Each basket will have a sign with the sponsors name on attached to the lampost.Sponsors will be thanked and promoted on our social media feeds also. It’s a great way to support your High Street and make it a more inviting and brighter place.

If you would like to sponsor, please email contact details to Wickfordinbloom@virginmedia.com and we will be in touch.

Wickford in Bloom… making Wickford a better place!