From the Chamber: Building a Borough where everyone can thrive

We want Wokingham Borough to be a place where everyone can thrive. This is what we aim for with the Wokingham Communities Vision. But right now, not everyone has the same chance to thrive.

Our ability to thrive depends on many things, including where we live, our homes, our jobs, and our communities. These are like building blocks of our health and wellbeing. Many people in our Borough have these blocks in place: they have what they need to be healthy, they have safe homes, good jobs, and supportive communities. But not everyone has these things. For example, in some of our neighbourhoods, people are far more likely to be living in homes that don’t meet their needs or support good health than in other parts of the borough. This might be because their homes are overcrowded, cold or damp. In these same neighbourhoods, people over 65 years old are more likely to be living alone, and children are more likely to be living in families with low incomes. 

When we don't have what we need, like warm homes or healthy food, and we worry about money, it can make us feel stressed, and affect our health. 

There is a lot of work happening in the Borough to make these building blocks stronger. But in some places and for some people, there are still unfair differences, and some blocks might be weaker or missing. This causes differences in our health, our confidence, our expectations and so in our opportunities to thrive.

Wokingham Borough Council wants to make these differences smaller, and the mission of our new council plan is to work with and for our communities to make sure everyone has the chance to thrive here in the Borough.

We are working with the Institute of Health Equity at University College London, and with partners and communities across our Borough, to reduce the unfair and avoidable differences affecting our Borough by using the ‘Marmot approach’. This approach has been developed over many years by Professor Sir Michael Marmot and his team. It is being used in many places across the UK to make communities healthier and fairer.

As a Borough we are proud to be doing this work. We want to keep you updated on what we are doing and how we are making Wokingham Borough a better place for everyone.

One of the important things we are doing to ensure people thrive is looking to the long term and making sure we invest to save, whilst driving up the quality of care. Bluebell House will be fully occupied with 50 beds by the end of this financial year.  It has been decorated and new safety features like new fire escapes and a state-of-the-art Nurse Call Bell system has been installed. Bluebell House is now a welcoming environment that offers high quality care to local residents. It is thrilling the positive things I have heard about the staffing and the way that the people living at Bluebell are respected, valued and given appropriate independence.

As a further investment to increase capacity in the local area, Wokingham Borough Council and Optalis have acquired The Hollies Care home in Burfield Common.  This home is in better condition than Bluebell was when we bought it and takes 58 people when full.  We are excited about this opportunity and Optalis are working with staff, residents and families to ensure a smooth transition from the previous owners.  This acquisition will support us to manage within our revenue budget, serving the taxpayers, while also making sure that the people of this Borough get the excellent care and support they deserve in their final years.

As an authority Adult Services is looking forward, using Marmot to help the forgotten people of our borough.  Likewise, we are investing to save, owning care homes so that we can charge a fair price and accommodate our own users while ensuring that any income we get provides an excellent service, rather than going into the owners’ pockets.

Cllr David Hare is Executive Member for Adult Services, Health & Wellbeing and Ward Member for Hawkedon