Round-Up: Holiday Lunches, Counselling, a Railway Petition, and Llamas

October 9th 2020

Generations church holiday hunger project

Generations Church will be providing holiday lunches for three days this October half-term to schoolchildren in Louth, at Cannon Street House. These lunches will prevent holiday hunger in children whose families would be struggling - something that has become much more difficult to cope with as a result of Covid.

Councillor David Hall and I have between us provided £1000 to help to fund this project, and also to fund some of the food treat boxes that the project will send out at Christmas time. This comes from the Covid Resilience section of our Councillor Community Grants. We felt it was important to consider food as one of the basics of life, and to give families something that helps them keep going in difficult circumstances.

I want to pay tribute to Jo Read, Sue Partridge, and the team at Generations Church for running this project over the summer and for stepping in to organise this important initiative.

Mental health help at 13 Plus

Another of the major impacts of the pandemic has been on people's mental health. The uncertainty around jobs, health, socialising, money, and the way we live our lives in general has taken its toll widely. This has been particularly acute for many young people, whose exams have been disrupted and whose school and further educations or apprenticeship plans have been deeply affected.

The 13 Plus Project at Park Avenue will be putting on counselling sessions in the coming weeks for young people who would normally go to their sessions. These can be delivered in small groups over videoconferencing. These sessions with professional counsellors will help young people deal with this challenging situation.

I have provided £640 from my ELDC district councillor grant towards funding this.

Llama farm

On a lighter note, a planning application has gone in for llama trekking on land near Julian Bower in Louth. This includes a classroom, reception area, and a picnic area. The plans are reference N/105/01742/20 on the ELDC planning portal.

Resomarium

Louth Town Council met on Tuesday 6th October, and one of the things they discussed was a resomarium. This is a funerary option that involves using an alkaline solution as an alternative to burial and cremation. Basically, the dead are dissolved and then what is left is cremated. A company wants to come to Louth to do this. They tout themselves as a green alternative. Councillors raised questions about such things as emissions, the effect on the AONB, and the effect on chalk streams.

There is no planning application available for this yet, so there are plenty of unanswered questions about a resomarium as yet.

Petition to reopen the railway

Another thing the Town Council considered, and backed, was a petition to reopen the East Lincolnshire railway line. This is the line that ran from Grimsby to Louth and then south via Boston.

Although certain areas of the old track have been developed with housing, not all has, and an extension of the route between North Thoresby and Fotherby is still possible, given funding. The government announced money for restoring lines cut by Beeching, of which the line through Louth was one, before the Covid crisis hit.

The petition has attracted over 2700 signatures to date. View and sign the petition here.

Council Tax consultation

The Council Tax scheme will be going out for its annual consultation. Whilst it’s a largely similar scheme to last year's, one proposed change is to allow three month’s backdating for working age claimants, rather than the current one. This is due to the disruption currently caused by Covid. Go here to respond to the consultation before the 6th November 2020.