North East Lincolnshire Council has formally endorsed the appointment of its new chief executive, Tony Hunter.
The meeting in the Town Hall on Wednesday evening welcomed Mr Hunter to the post. He will begin his new role in September.  Mr Hunter has worked in senior local government roles for more than 13 years, including six years with Liverpool City Council and eight years at East Riding of Yorkshire Council as director of social services, housing and public protection.  Before that, he worked as a management consultant at Price Waterhouse, specialising in local and central government. He also worked at child care charity Barnardo’s, Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council and Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council.The council’s previous chief executive, George Krawiec, retired in April. North East Lincolnshire Council has formally endorsed the appointment of its new chief executive, Tony Hunter.The meeting in the Town Hall on Wednesday evening welcomed Mr Hunter to the post. He will begin his new role in September.Mr Hunter has worked in senior local government roles for more than 13 years, including six years with Liverpool City Council and eight years at East Riding of Yorkshire Council as director of social services, housing and public protection.

Before that, he worked as a management consultant at Price Waterhouse, specialising in local and central government. He also worked at child care charity Barnardo’s, Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council and Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council.

The council’s previous chief executive, George Krawiec, retired in April. 

Environmental Health Officers have asked people to make sure they “C” sense in the kitchen – to avoid becoming a food poisoning statistic.Food Safety Week, which runs from June 9 to June 13, is concentrating on the four Cs of food hygiene – Cooking, Cleaning, Chilling and avoiding Cross-Contamination.And Steve Mercer, North East Lincolnshire Council’s environmental health manager, said: “The food we eat has never been so safe – but there are still more than 5.5million reported cases of food poisoning each year.”This campaign encourages people to see the potential dangers in their cooking spaces to avoid becoming a food poisoning statistic.”As a phrase, “food poisoning” includes an endless range of infections, some of which may be only very mild in their effects and some can prove fatal. The vast majority will last several days, cause diarrhoea and vomiting and can be, at least inconvenient and at worst highly debilitating.There are undoubtedly a wide range of causes of food poisoning, but it is probably true to say that the most dangerous place for food poisoning is under our direct control – our own kitchens!Mr Mercer added: “Contrast your own kitchen with your favourite restaurant. If you saw cats or dogs in the restaurant, would you eat there? If you saw the proprietor washing his smalls in the kitchen would you leave immediately?”Would you expect to have efficient refrigerators and freezers and to know their temperatures, or for them to know how long they stored prepared food?”These are all reasonable presumptions and are legal requirements in a commercial environment, but they are generally not carried out in the home, yet this is where we consume most of our meals.”Mr Mercer offered some appropriate food safety tips to keep your home as a hygienic haven. These include:

• Washing your hands before preparing food, after using the toilet, eating or smoking, handling raw meat, poultry and vegetables and after going to the bin
• Keep the temperatures of refrigerators at 4-5oc. Any colder and you are wasting electricity, any warmer and you will allow bugs to grow and your food to spoil much more quickly.
• Keep frozen food at -18oc, the same principles apply.
• Know what the temperatures really are in your refrigerator, not just what the dial tells you. Invest in a simple refrigerator thermometer and try it on different shelves, you might be surprised at the differences
• Keep all open food covered, ideally in lidded plastic containers. Not only does this prevent contamination, it will also help preserve the food quality
• Try to make a note of the “use-by” dates on opened packs and transfer them to the lidded container, use a purpose-designed marker or sticky labels.
• Keep raw food, meat poultry eggs and vegetables on the bottom shelves. That way any leakage or spillages cannot drip onto and contaminate ready-to-eat items with harmful bugs
• Your refrigerator can only work efficiently if the air inside can circulate, so try not to overfill and leave space between items to allow the cold air to do its work
• Most commercial caterers also know how hot their food is, ensuring they have killed any germs that will have been present in the raw food — can you say the same thing?

Finally, Mr Mercer had some words of advice about having pets in the kitchen. He said: “We know they are part of the family and you would not want to make the kitchen a complete “no go” area for a kitty or pooch. But under no circumstances should we allow them on the work surface. They are not particular about cleaning their feet – would you put your own shoes on the counter before you prepared food?”And he also advised people to: keep food and water bowls scrupulously clean for their welfare, but never mix them with your own plates and crockery; after handling your pets is another good time to wash hands if you want to avoid the risk of a nasty bout of gastro-enteritis.Councillor Steve Beasant, portfolio holder for communities and neighbourhoods, said: “There are plenty of measures we can all take to ensure our homes are hygienically sound. Food Safety Week puts the spotlight on what we can all do to ensure cleanliness in the home and put a serious dent in these alarming food poisoning statistics.” If any of these issues give you cause for thought, then don’t hesitate to contact the environmental health department on 01472 324770 

 

RESIDENTS of the former Yarborough estate are coming together to take part in a community clean-up day on Sunday, June 22, 2008 as they continue to prepare for the major transformation of their neighbourhood.Shoreline officers, residents, neighbourhood wardens and young people deployed by the probation service’s Community Pay Back scheme will work together to clear the land.Shoreline neighbourhood officer Martin High said: “This project aims to create a better, cleaner environment. “It really shows the neighbourhood spirit the residents of Freshney Green have and it is a great promise for what this community can achieve in the future.”Neighbourhood warden Jon Nicholson, who has organised the event, added: “These community clean-up days have a proven effect in bringing about a real feel-good factor amongst residents.“Such events instill a real sense of pride into the community – I’m sure this weekend will have the same result.”Over the next eight years Shoreline and Stamford Homes will carry out the multi-million pound transformation of the estate creating a high-quality sustainable urban environment that will include up to 440 new homes and associated open space, a health centre, play area and traffic calming measures.The clean-up will take place between 9.30am and 6pm. Anyone wishing to take part should ensure that they wear suitable clothing. 

North East Lincolnshire Care Trust Plus (CTP) has published a guide to local NHS and care services called “Your Guide to Local Health and Adult Social Care Services 2008”.  The guide is a source of advice about the local NHS and social care services that are available in North East Lincolnshire. It is being delivered to households in North East Lincolnshire Council’s Linc Up newspaper. The guide, which has been produced by the Care Trust Plus, includes useful telephone numbers including emergency contact numbers, information on how to access services, and lists of nursing and residential homes. The guide also includes a fold-out section with a map of GP practices, pharmacies and other local services.  For people to make the most of local services, they need to know what services are available. The guide has been designed to give this information in a user-friendly way.  We asked a wide range of patient, user, and carer groups what information they wanted to see included and this has been included in the guide.  People who have not received a copy of the guide, or who would like additional copies can contact the CTP on (01472) 302832.  An electronic version of the guide can be downloaded from below:- 

your_guide_final_2008_with_map.pdf 

SOCCER teams in North East Lincolnshire are being urged to register for the Lifestyle Football Festival, taking place on Saturday, June 14 at the town’s Bradley Pitches.The festival combines both a boys and girls tournament and is open to school teams, clubs, community teams and anyone else who would like to take part. Deadlines for submissions is Monday, June 2 and spaces remain in the girls tournament for the under 10s, 12s, 14s, 16s and the open age woman’s category.For the boys tournament they are spaces remaining for the under 12s and 14s categories.There is a nominal fee of £5 per team.For further information or an entry form, contact Louise Smith, sports development officer on (01472) 323379.

Negotiations between North East Lincolnshire Council and local bus companies have brought about a result that’s just the ticket – with the introduction of free travel at any time for eligible pass-holders residing in North East Lincolnshire, starting from the earliest bus services on June 2. Currently, pass-holders can travel free on any local registered bus service between 9.30am and 11pm, in accordance with a national travel scheme. From Monday these time restrictions will be removed.

People have told us that they need to travel outside the hours of the national scheme. We have listened and removed the time restrictions for North East Lincolnshire residents.  Liz Jones, the council’s interim head of paid services, said:  “I am delighted that we have been able to complete the work in order to reintroduce peak hour concessions quicker than we anticipated.”The scheme applies to people over 60 years of age and to people with certain disabilities. This enhancement to the scheme applies to any bus journey starting within North East Lincolnshire.The new England wide concessionary bus fare scheme for the over-60s and others who qualify started on April 1.The scheme is of significant benefit to many deserving people and also supports the council’s CO2 emissions and climate change policy by getting more people to use public transport as an alternative to using cars. 

North East Lincolnshire Council has invested £101,110 in a new state-of-the-art gully wagon to help keep clean the 33,000 road gullies the council is responsible for. North East Lincolnshire Council has now spent £480,000 since last summer's deluge on flood repair and prevention.The latest investment from the Council is in a hi-tech road sweeper, the new SC52 gully wagon, which was purchased to replace an existing vehicle that has gone off lease and is the latest addition to the council's fleet of vehicles.Nearly one year on from last summer's floods, residents are still fearing a repeat of the disastrous deluge.Glenn Greetham, head of neighbourhood operations, said: "The new vehicle was purchased through the council's five-year procurement programme, funded through the capital replacement programme."The machine will be called upon in times of flooding; it can also assist the police in the finding of weapons discarded down gullies, and the public in the retrieval of lost keys."

Last year, the Grimsby Telegraph ran the Drain Watch campaign, after blocked drains were blamed by the public for exacerbating some flood water levels'  This was one of the campaigns which won them the title of Community Newspaper Of The Year 2008 from the Newspaper Society.

Nearly 200 readers sent in locations of blocked drains and gullies - and the council responded, clearing out 152 and visiting more than 184.

The SC52 is effectively a large vacuum cleaner. Pressure is built up in the rear tank, the large pipe on the side of the wagon is then lowered into the gully pot and suction is created, thus removing all debris from the gully pot.  Skilled operatives then refill the gully with water to check that all is running freely. In cases where the connection to the main sewer is blocked and water does not flow, operatives then use a 100m high pressure jet reel to the rear of the wagon to unblock it.

The vehicle is a Mercedes-Benz Axor chassis cab with a Whale combination unit for gulley cleaning and drain pressure jetting. Weighing in at 18 tonnes, the wagon is fitted with a tracking system which logs each gulley once it has been cleaned.