The agenda is available for the Council’s meeting on Wednesday 23 June. The meeting is at 8.00pm in the main hall of Coxhoe Village Hall.

You can access a copy of the agenda from the following link:

Agenda for the Ordinary Meeting of Coxhoe Parish Council on 23 June 2021.

A report which follows the agenda is available for the meeting on 23 June.

The press and public are welcome to attend this meeting. However due to current restrictions and risk assessment related to the coronavirus pandemic, the agenda is shorter than usual and numbers in the Village Hall will be strictly limited. If residents wish to raise a matter, you can also do so by emailing the Clerk at clerk@coxhoeparishcouncil.gov.uk  (by 5.00pm on Tuesday 22 June) who can take the matter to the meeting on behalf of the resident.

Measures will be in place to keep everyone present as safe as possible from Covid-19. No one must attend this meeting in person if they have any symptoms of coronavirus or should be self-isolating. All present must maintain social distancing of at least two metres and follow any directions from Parish Council staff.

A special thank you this week with it being National Volunteers Week to our volunteers with Coxhoe Cares who continue to provide support for those in our villages who have struggled due to the pandemic. Our wonderful volunteers continue to make weekly phone calls to people for a friendly chat, and do shopping as and when required.

Also a big thank you to all our brilliant volunteers with Coxhoe and Area Community Pantry and Foodbank, working out of Coxhoe Village Hall, to support residents in need and help to reduce food wastage by distributing surplus affordable food.

The Parish Council would like to say a special thank you to all the volunteers who have done so much in 2020 and the continued and additional support in 2021.

Thank you to you all.

The meeting of the Annual Assembly of Electors is to be held on Tuesday 1 June 2021 at 6.00pm at Coxhoe Village Hall.

This is not a Parish Council meeting but is a meeting of the electorate and it has its own special agenda. The agenda for the Annual Assembly of Electors meeting on 1 June 2021 is available here.

The minutes of the last meeting of the Annual Assembly of Electors held on 1 May 2019 are available here. A meeting was not held in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Residents are welcome to attend this meeting. The meeting must be held in person and there will be measures in place to cut down the risks of spreading the coronavirus, therefore numbers will be limited and those present are asked to follow all the safety measures put in place.

Elections are to be held as follows:

An election is to be held of Eight Councillor(s) for Coxhoe Ward of Coxhoe Parish.

An election is to be held of Three Councillor(s) for Quarrington Hill Ward of Coxhoe Parish.

Information is below and on the Notice of Election 2021 Coxhoe Ward of Coxhoe Parish, provided by Durham County Council, and on the Notice of Election 2021 Quarrington Hill Ward of Coxhoe Parish, provided by Durham County Council.

Candidates wishing to stand in County Durham elections on Thursday 6 May 2021 can submit their nomination papers from Friday 26 March, following the publication of the notice of election today.

Nomination papers may be obtained from the offices of the Returning Officer, Room 1/104-115, County Hall, Durham, DH1 5UL during the times stated below, and are also available on the Nomination Papers page of Durham County Council website. Nomination papers must be delivered, by hand, to the Returning Officer, Durham Room, County Hall, Durham, DH1 5UL, between 10am and 4pm on any working day from Friday 26 March 2021 (excluding bank holidays) but no later than 4pm on Thursday 8 April 2021.

If any election is contested the poll will take place on Thursday, 6 May 2021.

Prospective candidates or agents may book an appointment to submit a nomination paper by contacting the Electoral Services team on 03000 261212 or by emailing electoralservices@durham.gov.uk.

Candidates are asked to remember when delivering their nomination papers to follow current coronavirus government advice of Hands, Face, Space.

Further information is available by going to www.durham.gov.uk/elections2021.

All at  Coxhoe Cares would like to say a massive thank you to all our current volunteers in Coxhoe and Quarrington Hill. They are currently supporting our community who are vulnerable, self-isolating and needing some support during these challenging times. We would also like to say a massive thank you to Coxhoe United for their very kind donation.

We have a number of volunteers making weekly phone calls to service users for a friendly chat, and doing shopping as and when required.  We also have volunteers doing deliveries such as leaflets and care packages. This week we will be delivering our Holiday Activities Healthy Food (HAWHF) Project for children. This project has been supported by a grant from the East Durham Rural Corridor Area Action Partnership (AAP).

We still have a number of volunteers available to support you, if you feel you are:

• isolated
• struggling to get your basic food needs
• have other difficulties, or
• would just like to chat to someone

Please do not sit at home worrying, call us and see what can be done. We will do our best to help you.

We continue to work with Coxhoe Village Hall and Quarrington Hill Community Centre to provide you support. If you live in Coxhoe please contact Claire or Angela by text or by calling 07988 283287.

If you live in Quarrington Hill, as well as Claire above, please contact Linda on 07766 385544

You can email Claire on clerk@coxhoeparishcouncil.gov.uk

If you can’t call the mobile numbers, call 0191 3773658. In the event of no answer please leave us a message and we will be monitoring this number as much as possible.

For more information on Coxhoe Cares go to Coxhoe Cares Coronavirus Community Response Volunteers Scheme page

Keep up to date with what is going on in the Parish.

The Chronicle July 2020 Edition is now available online. It features lots of news including:

• parish and village updates,
• youth club news, nature diary,
• information from local community groups and organisations, and
• an article on Coxhoe’s ‘Magic Mile’.

At this difficult time we want to look after the most vulnerable in our community and particularly our older people.

Our Coxhoe Cares volunteer scheme is about being available to help our older people. It is also about volunteers coming forward to enable us to provide that support. The Parish Council has limited powers and responsibilities in respect of public health. It can, however, act a voice for the community. It can also use its resources to help co-ordinate a community response to the current situation aimed at supporting the most vulnerable in the communities of Coxhoe and Quarrington Hill.

We know that our communities will be responding to those who need help. Family will be looking out for family and friends. However we want to make sure no one in our community is left isolated, out of touch or lonely where we can. We want to make sure that our older people have someone they can have a chat with if they are unsure about things. We also want to make sure that, during self isolation, those who have no available support from family and friends have someone who can go to the shops for them.

While we can act as a point of contact and co-ordinators we need more volunteers on the ground to support our older people. Please come forward to support our community.

Find out more on our Coxhoe Cares Coronavirus Community Response Volunteer Scheme page.

Coxhoe Parish Council approved its Website Accessibility Statement at its meeting on 6 November 2019.

The Parish Council must meet the requirements of new legislation by September 2019. Currently the Website does not meet the requirements of the law in a number of respects.

Currently:

• there are some headings don’t cascade inside some features on some web pages
• some pages contain the same or limited link text going to different pages, some link text referring to the same page requires consistency
• while the website has been developed using plain English there is a need to ensure consistency across the site including use of consistent and accessible dates and times and remove characters that are difficult to be read
• some images have duplicate alternative text or have no alternative text
• tables: generated table code is not HTML5 compliant
• we need to check that pdf’s we use now are accessible and convert pdf’s to text where possible.

We are working to put this right. We have developed an action plan to help us achieve this.

Access a copy of the Coxhoe Parish Council Website Accessibility Statement

A group of volunteers are poised to paint the Village Crossings gate over the weekend, weather permitting.

The Volunteers include Coxhoe residents, the Parish Clerk, Claire Llewelyn and the voluntary web administrator. Claire said, ‘We initially asked for quotes  to undertake the work professionally. However, a local resident responded to our social media publicity to suggest that volunteers might come forward while volunteering himself. We subsequently had a great response to further social media posts and a volunteer team was assembled. The Parish Council is delighted at the response by committed members of our community and thank them in advance for the work they are prepared to do.’

The work involves scraping off flaking paint, sanding the gates down, priming and top coating.

If you pass them at work over the weekend please give them a wave, or a toot if you are driving.