Now is the time to pull together and stay calm

The pictures of empty shelves in supermarkets across Peterborough that have been sent in to us are a big concern. There has been panic buying and, understandably, supermakets were caught out and should have restricted the sale of some items sooner. Hopefully the message of moderation is now getting through. We do need reasonable stocks of some items but we don’t need to horde huge quantities. Supermarkets also need to revise donation mechanisms for Foodbanks - perhaps allowig shoppers to make financial donations at tills without taking items off the shelf. Then Foodbank volunteers can ‘spend’ those donations in the store at an agreed time. Now is the time to stay calm, and stick together and behave responsibly.

Fund should be spent

The Communty Leadership Fund gives city councillors £1,000 to spend on local projects in their ward. It’s a great opportunity and some great things have been achieved - with some councillors even teaming up to pool their cash for bigger projects. The PT highlighted the fact that the city council’s Community Leadership Fund was only about half spent at the start of February - a few days before the deadline for cash to be used and 28 out of 60 councillors hadn’t spent anything at that point. There was a flurry of activity and most councillors utilised the cash before the deadline. But there are still three that haven’t - and it’s hard to understand why. I’m sure the councillors concerned do good work in their wards. At least one contacted us to accuse us of ‘being negative’. The answer is simple. If the money had been used there wouldn’t be a reason to be negative.