Bassetlaw Council leader has fingers crossed for D2N2 funding bid

If this is successful, it could pave the way for the creation of a skills and education hub in Worksop.

Back in August 2018, the council purchased Bridge Court, a prominent town centre building, and since then we have been working with a number of partners to turn a shared ambition into a reality.

Earlier this month, the council put its final business case forward to the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership Board, a condition of being awarded a share of the £44.4 million fund.

Should the bid be approved, it will kick-start a vision to improve the futures of local people, address skills shortages in our district, bring a long-term and prominent empty building back into use and improve the prospects for businesses in our town centre.

We are very much looking forward to hearing of D2N2’s decision and, along with our partners, we hope to enable local people to gain skills in areas such as the health, digital and green technology sectors, to learn and train close to their homes and to make sure that our brightest talent stays in Bassetlaw.

I am also pleased to tell you that from next week the council will be launching two rapid Covid-19 community testing sites in Worksop that will offer tests to asymptomatic people of working age.

Around one in three people who are infected with Covid-19 have no symptoms and could be spreading the disease without knowing it.

By stepping up testing to identify those showing no symptoms will mean finding positive cases more quickly, and break the chains of transmission.

We are working with the Department of Health and Social Care and Nottinghamshire County Council to offer tests to residents who do not have the option to work from home, may have to go into their place of work or who may be self-employed.

The testing centres will be located at Manton Sports from Tuesday, February 2 and Crown Place Community Centre on Sandy Lane from Wednesday, February 10.

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Coun Simon Greaves is the leader of Bassetlaw District Council.