One Borough Newsletter Highlights 17 June

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One Borough Newsletter Highlights 17 June

Highlights from the Barking and Dagenham 'One Borough Newsletter' circulated to residents via email on 17.06.2020

How your Councillors have been helping during lockdown

Throughout the lockdown, Barking and Dagenham Councillors have been joining residents by volunteering and helping out in the local community. From litter-picking, to helping with food donations, and even donating fruit and veg grown in their allotments, they've been busy trying to support the community through this enormously difficult time. We'd like to say a huge thank you to all the volunteers who have been helping throughout the lockdown!

See what they have been up to HERE

New street cleaning equipment clean sweep

As part of our commitment to keep the borough clean and free of litter, we have invested in 30 new street cleansing barrows. They have all been kitted out with new equipment, including brooms, litter pickers, scrapers, shovels, and first aid kits.

We have also invested in more electric and mechanical sweepers. An extra three electric sweepers will help clean our town centres and shopping parades, and four new mechanical sweepers will clean the borough's roads.

Find out more HERE

Parking enforcement is being eased back in

When the lockdown started, we eased parking restrictions as we knew how important it was for people to drop off essential items to friends and family. That's why we introduced 30-minutes free parking for all residents and visitors across the borough, so you could look after your loved ones by dropping off food and medicine.

From this week, drivers will only be able to park for five minutes without a permit and visitors will need to start using their visitor permits. As this is a big change, for the first two weeks (until Sunday 28 June), our parking enforcement officers will only be issuing warnings to people about the change if they stay between five and 30 minutes without a permit. After 30 minutes, tickets will continue to be issued.

Then, from Monday 29 June, the council will start enforcing in full again if people stay longer than five minutes without a resident or visitor permit.

Advice for businesses reopening

During the lockdown our enforcement team have been working closely with local shops to make sure that government guidance is being followed to ensure the safety of their staff and customers. This is continuing as the lockdown eases, and as well as creating POSTERS that local shops can use to communicate the necessary rules for staff and shoppers, we've also thought up some top tips ? watch HERE

Use our green spaces responsibly

We know how important our parks and green spaces are right now, but we're asking you to use them in the right way. When you do your exercise or you meet small numbers of friends and family, please do it safely and at a two metre distance.

Please don't meet people in groups of larger than six in our parks or have barbecues as they are not allowed. This isn't just at the moment ? BBQs are a fire hazard, so aren't allowed in our parks even outside of lockdown.

And if you're visiting one of our parks, please put your rubbish in a park bin or take it home with you ? thank you!