Supporting Communities Safely - advice for community groups and volunteer networks

The Improvement Service have asked us to make you aware of a new resource that has been published to support community organisations to carry out their vital work safely during the Covid-19 outbreak.  The below news item promotes the advice on infection control for community groups.  I’d be grateful if you would consider sharing this information with community councils in your area.

www.scdc.org.uk/news/article/2020/5/15/supporting-communities-safely-advice-for-community-groups-organisations-and-volunteer-networks

A direct link to the resource is available here:

https://www.scdc.org.uk/supporting-communities-safely

The resource is designed to be interactive and they will seek to respond to questions and observations from users and update where appropriate.

General information for Community Councils

Information for Chairs and Secretaries

Planning

The Council’s Planning Service will be restarting certain activities in the coming weeks which will allow more applications to progress. The Scottish Government have been clear that they wish the planning system to continue to function during the lockdown, so that there is a pipeline of consents ready for when construction resumes.

Last week some further changes to the service were announced using the Planning Edinburgh blog (the main Planning Service channel for communication to stakeholders at the moment):

 https://planningedinburgh.com/2020/04/23/planning-and-building-standards-service-covid-19-update-23-april-2020/

The upshot of all this is that if applications are being progressed in your area there may be a need for you to respond. This fits the criteria of a decision that needs to be made timeously and if you follow the steps below I’m content that a remote/electronic meeting is appropriate.

If you want more information please sign up to the Planning Edinburgh blog for updates.  The Planning Service have rationalised down their various channels as they have limited staff resource to provide bespoke replies to enquirers on changes to their service during this time.  It only needs an email address, and is easy to sign up to or unsubscribe from.

Read more: General information for Community Councils

General support during the current pandemic

 We have put together a set of web links to sites like NHS and City of Edinburgh Council which might provide communities with support at this time.

Access these links HERE 

City of Edinburgh Council has supplied a comprehensive list of contacts which can be found HERE