Bromley Bloomers
Our first plant up was great, the weather was sunny and beautiful.
We found lots of worms whilst we weeded and took them to our wormery and gave them some food. The children loved pulling up our leeks, cabbage and kale.
We took some home to eat, looked for grubs and had a wonderful day preparing the garden for the new season.
Childcare crisis
The DFE announced changes to nursery regulations for funding. There is huge concern about the new rules that prohibit nurseries from charging parents for meals. While I understand the intention behind this, I strongly believe that it has unintended consequences that negatively impact the quality of care provided by nurseries.
As a owner of a nursery, I have seen first-hand the challenges that nurseries face in providing high-quality meals to children while adhering to the law. Many nurseries struggle to absorb the cost of meals, which can lead to a reduction in the quality of food provided, staff layoffs, or even nursery closures.
Furthermore, this law can create an unfair burden on nursery owners and staff, who often have to subsidise the cost of meals out of their own pockets. This can lead to financial difficulties and stress, which can ultimately impact the quality of care provided to children.
I also have 3 people with quite severe allergies at our nursery and I don’t know how I will be able to manage these with people bringing in external meals. Parents might not be able to afford to bring food into nursery, as the cost of living crisis has not gone away.
Currently at our setting they are getting a healthy diet, and we are teaching them how to eat heathy food and it is equal for everyone. This is not the case if we don’t provide the meals to everyone.
I have been working hard to write and work with our local authority and MP to reconsider this law and explore alternative solutions that would allow nurseries to charge parents for meals in a fair and transparent manner. This could include:
– Allowing nurseries to charge a reasonable fee for meals, which would be capped at a certain percentage of the nursery’s overall costs
– Providing government subsidies or grants to support nurseries in providing high-quality meals
I believe that these solutions would help to alleviate the financial burden on nurseries, while also ensuring that children receive high-quality meals that meet their nutritional needs.
I have attended a meeting with our MP and other nurseries to look at strategies and see what we can do to help.
I worked with Cllr Wesley to prepare an urgent item for her to read at Council and am making as many people aware of the situation as possible.
I have also set up a Cheshire East Providers’ group to bring together providers and network with other childcare providers to come up with solutions and strategies to fight these challenges. This group will be part of a national group called Early Years Voice which is lobbying for better childcare funding, to maintain the service for families who need it.
If parents can’t get affordable childcare, they can’t work, and we know this particularly affects mothers.
Antisocial Behaviour
Some of our local shops have been targeted by some youths that have been crossing lots of mayhem in their stores and I have been working closely with the security guards, police and store assistants to try and end this antisocial behaviour.
I have been visiting the shops and bringing the incidents up at our Community Safety meetings to promote awareness of the incidents, bring the different stores and professionals together to end this problem.
Buglawton Meeting
I have recently attended the Buglawton residents meeting which was very useful to attend and listen to some of the concerns raised by residents about fly tipping.
This linked in well to some of the Fly Tip work and back ally problems that I have been working on with Bromley Farm residents. It was a good opportunity to discuss with the group what can be done and how we can make it better for them. It was great to attend the meeting with other professionals such as the police, Plus Dane Housing and all the Buglawton community groups.
I have been listening to what the residents and liaising with the council. I also have worked closely with the Residents Forum on Bromley Farm and they too have issues with fly tipping. I set up a meeting with Plus Dane Housing and had a look at the maps of the areas, problem spots and discussed different strategies with them on how to prevent fly tipping and work together as a Councillor, the Town council and Plus Dane Housing to make the area better and lower the fly tipping problems. this has been really productive and it’s been nice to see some of the community work that’s been going on which is amazing.
Town Hall and Assets
I have been working as part of the council to look at the performance and help develop the Town Hall, the Information Centre and the Streetscape Service.
We are looking at ways we can make use our Town Hall such as board game nights, getting the most out of our town hall bookings and developing the youth council.
We have also been discussing arrangements for this summer at the Congleton Paddling pool.
Volunteer work
I have been volunteering at the Stay and Play group running a group on Bromley Farm for children aged 0-4.
We have been doing lots of exciting activities and providing lovely meals tor the children.
Meeting Attendance
I had an eye operation in April so missed a few weeks of meetings. My attendance is still 67% overall for the two months, for both Committee meetings and Working Groups.
Here you can see my previous blogs.
The Equality Party 