Durham County Council issues further information on schools reopening

Durham County Council has issued further information on school returns after new scientific advice was published on Friday 22 May and due to concerns that key issues outside of its control have not yet been resolved. Full details here:

The advice from the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), states there is 'a consensus that evidence on the role of children in transmission of COVID-19 is unclear with a number of gaps in understanding'. It also says there is some evidence to suggest that children are as susceptible to COVID-19 as adults but advised that is not conclusive. Scientists have also advised government that the messaging to parents and teachers had to be 'robust' in order to 'enhance confidence and willingness to return.'

We have also acted in response to data which shows the North East having the highest coronavirus infection rate in the country.

Our action is also in response to delays implementing the national Test and Trace system - seen as vital in managing children returning to school. The system will not be fully operational by 1 June, the date previously announced by ministers as when the phased reopening should begin. 

The information we have provided to schools advises that 15 June, the date the government has put forward for secondary pupils to return, is a more realistic date for the phased reopening to begin.

Cllr Olwyn Gunn, Cabinet member for children and young people's services, said: "Our priority has always been the safety of staff, children and communities and we have issued extensive advice and guidance to headteachers and governing bodies with the emphasis on reopening only when risk assessments have been carried out and found to be of a high enough standard.

"We have at no point stated schools should return on 1 June. And in the light of the new scientific advice, high infection rates and the unacceptable delays in implementing Contact Tracing, we believe 15 June is a more realistic timeline for all schools to work towards, subject to government scientific advice and individual school risk assessments.

"Ultimately it remains a decision for schools to open when they feel it is safe to do so and I would like to place on record our sincere thanks to all headteachers and staff for the tremendous work they are doing to this end."

Environmental issues at Crimdon, Hesleden and Blackhall Rocks

I've received a significant amount of comments and queries over the past few days regarding a number of environment-related issues in our area. Rather than report on them individually I've listed them all together in one article.

I've listed them by location and I'll update on progress with each issue when I have a response from the agencies and authorities responsible:

Blackhall Rocks:

• The damaged and dangerous pavements between Blackhall Rocks and Crimdon (A1086) and Blackhall Rocks and High Hesleden (Mickle Hill Road) have been reported again to the council with a request for an update on repair timescales. Both of these incidents have been reported in the past but I need an indication of when repairs are scheduled to be carried out
• The two overfilled bins at the Blackhall Rocks picnic area and at the top of the steps leading to the beach have been reported. I understand that one has already been emptied but there are access issues to the bin at the steps. I'm advised that this will be sorted out soon
• The litter accumulated at the kissing gate at the side of the pathway between Blackhall Rocks and Blue House Gill has also been reported to the countryside rangers for removal

Hesleden and High Hesleden:

• Residents have reported a number of off-road bikes riding through Hesleden Dene and also along the Haswell to Hart walkway as it passes through Hesleden. I have also received reports of dog dirt along the walkway. These incidents have been reported to the countryside rangers and to Peterlee police for their attention
• Concerns have been expressed about the condition of the pond and the seating area adjacent to the Haswell to Hart walkway at the bottom of East Terrace. I have asked the council's environmental design team to consider which options may be available to address residents' concerns *UPDATE article: Thursday 4 June 2020
• Walkers have reported the damaged pavement along Mickle Hill Road between Hesleden and High Hesleden. This query has been reported to the highways section for inspection

Crimdon:

• I received reports over the weekend of filled dog bags hanging on the fence at the bottom of the steps leading from the car park along the front at Crimdon. I've asked for the area to be cleared and I've also issued a request for a dog/litter bin to be installed at this location if possible. I have also asked the council to consider installing additional bins at other locations
• Residents and visitors alike have reported the poor condition of the walkway through Crimdon Dene. This is an issue that has been raised on a number of occasions in the past. I have asked the council for an update on a request I submitted for this matter to be addressed (please see post dated Thursday 27 February 2020 for further details)
• I have also received a report about the poor condition of the surface of the road linking the A1086 Coast Road and the front at Crimdon, especially as it runs beneath the viaduct. The council's GIS system indicates that this road is privately owned and maintained so I've asked for the repairs request to be passed to the relevant section for further investigation.

Roadworks in Blackhall Colliery next week

Durham County Council has received notification of the following telecom duct works scheduled to be carried out in Blackhall Colliery later this month (please see post dated Wednesday 13 May 2020 for full details of road and footpath closures).

Unclssified	Coronation Avenue, Aspatria Avenue, Blackhall Colliery	Install telecom ducts	Phased road closure (8:00am - 5:00pm)	26 May	8 June	Virgin Media
Footpath	MeadowAvenue (back), Elizabeth Street, Hepscott Avenue, Blackhall Colliery	Install telecom ducts	Phased footpath closure (8:00am - 5:00pm)	26 May	8 June	Virgin Media

Collapsed culvert at Blackhall Rocks

Earlier this week a resident reported what appeared to be a sinkhole in between the two fields and close to the pathway to and from the railway bridge directly to the south of Pattison Crescent in Blackhall Rocks.

Council workers isolated the immediate area to make the location safe until engineers had carried out investigative works. Preliminary works have now been carried out and drainage engineers believe that the hole, approximately 3 feet deep, has been caused by a collapsed culvert running beneath the field.

The area around the hole has been made safe until repair works can be carried out. These are scheduled to take place next week so please try to avoid this area in the meantime.

Funding for Community Venues

Community venues across County Durham are being encouraged to apply for financial support to help them through the coronavirus pandemic. Please see full details in the council's press release below:

With the government’s Business Support Grants scheme having now been extended, Durham County Council is urging community centres and venues, which might not have thought themselves eligible, to apply.

To date, the council has already paid out 8,693 grants totalling more than £92 million, almost 95 per cent of the total it’s expecting to pay, and council officers are now working hard to increase the number of businesses that will be supported.

Extensions to the Business Rates grant scheme are allowing the authority to prioritise small businesses in shared spaces, regular market traders who have fixed premises costs associated with their business but who don’t have their own business rates assessments and bed and breakfast operators who pay council tax.

The extension also covers charities that pay little or no business rates because of charitable rate relief, but who otherwise would have been entitled to small business rate relief or rural rate relief and are therefore eligible to support under the original scheme.

Under the current scheme the council is reaching out to not for profit organisations, community centres and venues across the county to encourage them to make a claim for a grant.

With support of the council’s Area Action Partnerships (AAPs), three community centres have already benefitted from a one-off grant of £10,000 to help meet ongoing costs.

Cassop, Quarrington Hill and Coxhoe community centres have each been awarded the grant.

Jane Bellis, East Durham Rural Corridor AAP co-ordinator, said: “We’ve had several community centres ask for help. One applied for £600 to cover urgent expenses for utility bills but we were able to direct them to the grants relief instead and they found they were eligible for a £10,000 grant. That will help to keep the centre afloat during the crisis as well as helping with future planning, and we really would encourage other centres to look into their eligibility too.

"Cllr Carl Marshall, Cabinet member for economic regeneration, said: “We’re pleased that we’ve been able to pay out more than £92 million in grants to help more than 8,600 businesses across the county but we know that there are other businesses who are eligible for this support too who have not yet made an application and we’re determined that they access that.

“Many businesses, particularly those not for profit organisations such as community centres across the county, might not have realised that they’re eligible for the £10,000 grant and we’d encourage them to apply. We know that money would make a big difference, in not only helping their efforts to support out local communities during these difficult times, but also in ensuring they are there for our communities in the future.

“We welcome the extension to the scheme to help support those businesses that were not eligible under the initial scheme and are pleased that the government has listened to our request to expand it. Details of the extension were only published on 13 May and we are working to ensure that we make the scheme available to those businesses that can now be supported as quickly as possible. The funding is limited and the scheme will need to reflect that so not all businesses will be eligible for a grant but we will do whatever we can to ensure everyone who is eligible is provided with these grants.”

Guidelines around which businesses are eligible for the grant have been set by the government.

Businesses can find out whether they are eligible and get more information by visiting http://www.durham.gov.uk/ndrgrants

Roadworks scheduled for the Blackhall area

Notification has been received of the following roadworks scheduled for the Blackhall area over the next few weeks (please the separate post dated Wednesday 13 May 2020 for full details of the works scheduled for Aspatria Avenue and Coronation Avenue):

Road No.	Location	Description	Traffic Management	Start Date	End Date	Responsibility
A1086	Coast Road, Blackhall Rocks	Carriageway remedial works	3 way lights (8:00am -5:00pm)	19 May	21 May	Northern Power Grid
Unclass’d	Coronation Avenue, Aspatria Avenue, Blackhall Colliery	Install telecom ducts	Phased Road closure (8:00am - 5:00pm)	26 May	8 June

Update on Waste and Recycling Services

The county council’s Head of Environment has issued an update on progress with a number of waste and recycling services. Please see full details below:

Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs)

In my last update to you I outlined our plans to open all twelve of our main HWRCs from Monday 18 May I am pleased to confirm that this is the case, and that they will be able to accept the full range of materials. We will continue to operate the E-Permit system for those larger vehicles or vehicles with trailers and residents will be requested to show their permit details through their vehicles closed window. Residents will be able to apply on line for the electronic permits from tomorrow (15^th May).

You may be interested in viewing our video developed by communications and marketing on  https://youtu.be/jbBQB3Qmyxw , and provides advance notice to users of the service of what they might expect. For our monitoring purposes, please don’t share this in advance of the social media messaging which will be released in the coming days. Our advance planning has also allowed us to develop some FAQ responses which I attach and can be adjusted if needed if new queries come in.

As you will be aware we have needed to generate robust traffic management plans for each of the sites. We would emphasise that in line with Government guidance, trips should be made only if considered essential, and even then to seek to spread out visits to lessen queuing. I am pleased also to confirm that for most sites the opening times remain as normal, we are additionally extending the opening of Hett Hills from weekend only to every day, but in order to safeguard access for refuse collection vehicles and other HGVs, we are having to change the Monday to Saturday opening hours of Annfield Plain, Coxhoe and Thornley to start in the afternoon, but continue to the early evening (8pm), which indeed may be more convenient for those that have recommenced work. Summary is as follows:

HWRC	Days open	Opening hours
Annfield Plain	Every day	Monday - Saturday, 2.00pm - 8.00pm Sunday, 9.00am - 8.00pm
Coxhoe	Every day	Monday - Saturday, 2.00pm - 8.00pm Sunday, 9.00am - 8.00pm
Heighington	Every day	9.00am - 6.00pm
Hett Hills	Every day	9.00am - 6.00pm
Horden	Every day except Friday	10.00am - 4.00pm weekdays 9.00am - 6.00pm Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays
Middleton-in-Teesdale	Every day	9.00am - 6.00pm
Potterhouse Lane (Pity Me)	Every day	9.00am - 6.00pm
Romanway	Every day	9.00am - 6.00pm
Seaham	Every day	9.00am - 6.00pm
Stainton Grove (Barnard Castle) - HWRC only*	Every day	9.00am - 6.00pm
Thornley	Every day	Monday - Saturday, 2.00pm - 8.00pm Sunday, 9.00am - 8.00pm
Tudhoe	Every day	9.00am - 6.00pm

We are ensuring regular feedback and alerts if sites are busy through a network of Wardens and Civil Enforcement Officers present across all sites back to our communications team who will be provide updates on our social media channels and website as appropriate. In common with the experience elsewhere we do anticipate a return to more normal levels of demand relatively quickly. We will of course update on opening time for those sites with afternoon/evening when it is considered that there will not be an adverse impact on core services.

Bulky Goods Collections

I can confirm that these are scheduled to start on 18^th May. It may be of interest for you to know that in the last few days we have already taken 632 bookings for the service. As a reminder appointments for collection can be made through the Councils website (awb://www.durham.gov.uk/bulkywaste) or contact 03000 260000

Garden Waste Collections

I am pleased to confirm that the service has grown in popularity, with now at 61,447 sign ups across the County (not including Teesdale where Rotters collect). The vast majority of customers are aware of their new collection dates, and the tonnages of garden waste after the first rounds of collections have been record breaking for us. It is with some excitement that colleagues in the service share with me photos of large steamy mounds of garden muck at our new facility at joint stocks and assure me that its composting down very nicely indeed. Subject to passing environmental audit, later in the year we will be exploring the opportunities of returning this to residents and community groups.

Waste Statistics

Demonstrating the massive additional effort our collection crews have had to put into maintaining the service compared with this time last year residual waste has increased in April by 15.02% and recycling by 25.6% . This is also a challenge to our waste treatment contractors and we are continuing to work closely with them to ensure we maintain a high standard service.

Road and Footpath Closures at Blackhall Colliery and Blackhall Rocks

Durham County Council has received notification of temporary road and footpath closures scheduled to take place later this month for a period of two weeks at Blackhall Rocks and Blackhall Colliery.

Please see full details below in correspondence received from the county council's highways department:

Various - Blackhall Rocks and Blackhall Colliery

Phased Temporary Footpath and Road Closures

An Order is being made under the provisions of Section 14(1) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 the effect of which will be to close to pedestrian traffic from 8.00 am on Tuesday 26 May 2020 the following:  

1. a 121 metre length of footpath on Meadow Avenue from the junction with Cemetery Road in a south easterly direction to 1 Meadow Avenue

2. a 116 metre length of footpath on Elizabeth Street from number 1 in a south easterly direction to number 33

3. a 101 metre length of footpath on Hepscott Avenue from number 1 in a north easterly direction to number 22

4. a 67 metre length of footpath on Aspatria Avenue from number 1 in a south westerly direction to number 25 and a request for the closure to vehicular traffic of the following:

5. a 127 metre length of carriageway on Coronation Avenue from junction with Coast Road in a north easterly direction to number 22 Coronation Avenue

The phased closures are necessary to enable excavation and installation of Virgin Media duct works to be undertaken and are required from Tuesday 26 May 2020 and for the duration of the works anticipated to be 2 weeks.   

Throughout the period of closure, alternative routes will be available for pedestrian and vehicular traffic.

Household Waste Recycling Centres (skips) to re-open

Following revised government guidance recently on how and when Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) might re-open we have received notification that skip sites across the county are scheduled to re-open from Monday 18 May.

We've published in full below the advice we've received from the county council:

Household Waste Recycling Centres

You will be aware that in compliance with the “stay at home” regulations, nearly all Councils nationally had their Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) closed. Last week  the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government announced that he will be asking councils to reopen their facilities over the coming weeks. The guidance to accompany this has now been received. It does not set a date for the opening of sites, and leaves this to each local authority to determine. It emphasises that householders should only take waste to a HWRC if it cannot be stored safely at home and no alternative disposal options are available.

In anticipation of the guidance, the Council has been working with our contractor, HW Martins to consider the practicalities of re-opening. As a large Council, this means developing plans over each of its twelve sites. Consideration includes the following:

• Range of materials that can be collected and stored (recycling markets are currently struggling, and many supply chains need renegotiating).
• On site arrangements to ensure social distancing (limiting the numbers of vehicles on site, ensuring space on walkways, reconfiguring lay-out, signage).
• Training of staff, PPE and washing facilities as well as changes to user practices, such as no assistance to be provided in lifting items out of vehicles.
• External traffic management – some of our sites risk spillage onto main highway or blocking access for key businesses/services. This element of work includes highway signage, consultation with and advice from the Police.

I am pleased to confirm that we are planning to have all twelve facilities open, with a maximum range of materials, for Monday 18^th May. I do appreciate that some Councils, possibly with fewer sites, or different supply chains, or restrictions on waste types/vehicles may open slightly earlier, however the Government guidance does make it clear that a risk assessment should be in place for both staff and householders, and it is vital that we get this right. I will advise closer to that date regarding opening times, and am pleased to confirm in addition to cars without restriction,  we are able to take vans, pickup, minibus or vehicles towing a trailers providing they have an electronic permit – a system that has been in place for the last two years.  

I hope that this does address what will be a common query from your constituents, especially given the national profile of this topic. Whilst some Councils are proposing an appointment or selective (eg number plate) system, we want to have the new opening as close to normal as we can, and provide maximum flexibility. This requires the implementation of robust traffic management systems, currently subject to Police consultation, which we can scale up or down according to demand at each site.

Bulky Goods Collection Service

Whilst the reopening of household waste sites will be welcomed by many, for those without use of a vehicle it provides no relief. You will be aware that the bulky goods collection service has needed to be suspended, and deployed to assist the main refuse and recycling rounds.

We have needed to give careful consideration to the safety considerations of recommencing this service, especially for larger items requiring two people to lift. I am pleased to confirm however that following national guidance, and with the provision of personal protective equipment we have been able to develop safe working procedures. As a result we are able to take bookings for this service from Tuesday 12^th May, with the first appointments for collection itself starting on 18^th May. The website will be changed over the next few days and from Tuesday residents can either book online (http://www.durham.gov.uk/bulkywaste) or contact 03000 260000.

Bin Collections this Bank Holiday Friday

Although this coming Friday is a Bank Holiday there will be no changes to the scheduled bin collection rounds, so please put your bin out for collection as usual.

Click on the link below the image for a rubbish and recycling calendar showing the dates for each bin collection round:

Rubbish and recycling calendar - Friday - week 1 (PDF, 65kb)

Planning Application for the Coastal Hub at Crimdon

Earlier this year we published an update on plans to construct a coastal hub at Crimdon (please see posts dated Thursday 27 February 2020 https://robcrute-blackhall.blogspot.com/2020/02/crimdon-visitor-centre-development.html and Wednesday 14 October 2020 https://robcrute-blackhall.blogspot.com/2020/10/crimdon-coastal-hub-start-date-confirmed.html for background details and links to previous articles).

We've now received notification that a planning application has been submitted which starts a statutory period of public consultation. We've been working alongside the Durham Heritage Coast partnership and the county council for some time on this project so please make sure you take the chance to have your say in shaping this development.

Please follow the link below for more information, including details of how you can have your say on this proposal:

Single storey buildings to provide a coastal hub comprising cafe, volunteers room, public toilets, baby changing, and changing places room with associated car parking and soft and hard landscaping - Land To The South Of Crimdon Dene Holiday Park Crimdon Park Blackhall Rocks Hartlepool TS27 4BN

Ref. No: DM/20/01087/FPA | Received date: Tue 28 Apr 2020 | Status: Pending Consideration | Case Type: Planning Application