Cafes, pubs and restaurants must close, says PM

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Cafes, pubs and restaurants must close from Friday night, except for take-away food, to tackle coronavirus, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said.

Night clubs, theatres, cinemas, gyms and leisure centres have also been asked to close "as soon as they reasonably can".

Mr Johnson said that, at present, "we need to keep people apart" - but that the situation will be reviewed each month.

The government is to pay 80% of wages for employees not working, up to £2,500 a month, Chancellor Rishi Sunak says.

Llangollen votes against Business Improvement District plan

Businesses in Llangollen have voted against a Business Improvement District (BID).

A total of 49 eligible businesses voted against adopting the scheme to enhance the town by charging a levy on those with a rateable value above £2,500.

As only 39 cast their votes in favour for the BID, this didn't achieve the 50% majority required for the scheme to go ahead.

According to voting figures just released by the county council, the total number of votes cast in the ballot, excluding any given on ballot papers rejected was 88.

The scheme aimed to boost the area’s trading potential by raising extra cash on top of their rates to pay for projects over and above what the local authority would finance. This would include marketing and promotion and parking.

The intense battle over the BID led to the resignation recently of town councillor Andy Andy Beech who was staunchly opposed to it. 

Graham Timms, the Llangollen county councillor who was in favour of the BID, said: “Whilst I am disappointed with the result, under the current circumstances it is probably not the most important issue on people's minds.

"However, I'm sure that there will be an opportunity to discuss the underlying reasons for the rejection of the BID in the coming months.”

Former town councillor Karen Edwards, who led a campaign against the BID, said: "I was never convinced that a BID was the way forward for this unique town.

"I feel enormously relieved for all the small businesses here that were extremely concerned about their viability, especially give the current coronavirus crisis.

"I spoke to enough of them so I was fully aware of their concerns."

The official results ...

Collen Players' 'closed' show to be streamed live on Facebook to beat virus

* The Collen Players at their last sell-out music hall show in February.

Unable to perform in front of an audience because of coronavirus crowd restrictions, a group of old time music hall enthusiasts in Llangollen have come up with a high-tech way of letting people see their next show.

Llangollen Players was formed late last year by the town’s vicar Father Lee Taylor, who himself is a big music hall fan, to revive the Victorian-style of entertainment.

So far they’ve donned their period costumes to present three sell-out shows in the Community Hall which is always dressed for the occasion to recreate the atmosphere of a turn-of-the-century theatre.

The Players’ fourth production was supposed to be on May 1 but when they realised there was no way they would be able to perform to a live audience because of government advice on the infection risk of large crowds they decided to do it online instead.

And so at 7pm on Wednesday April 1 they're going behind closed doors when at least four of the group will perform on their usual stage while the show is streamed live on their own Facebook page, The Collen Players https://www.facebook.com/collenplayers/

Father Taylor, who acts as on-stage chairman for the shows and also performs comedy songs in them, said: “When it became clear we wouldn’t be able to get ahead with our May 1 show in front of our usual audience we got together and decided the best way was to stream something live instead.

“We’re going to do it a month earlier than planned because I expect quite a number of our regular audience will by that time be self-isolating and we’re aiming to cheer them up best we can with our show.

“Naturally, we’ll be taking every necessary precaution to ensure that none of our performers are at risk of passing on any infection.

“We will all be allocated individual rooms or spaces in the Community Hall on arrival so we don’t have to worry about coming into contact with anyone. They’ll then perform on stage one by one.

“It will be a shorter performance than usual, with songs and monologues and things like that, and at the end we won’t be socialising as we usually do but all heading straight home.

“We hope that the show will bring a little happiness in all the gloom surrounding coronavirus and that as many people as possible will tune it to see it.”

Friday coronavirus update on county council services

* County Hall, Ruthin.

Denbighshire County Council has provided an update on the latest closures and services affected, due to the on-going situation with Coronavirus. 

Update  from Denbighshire Leisure Ltd:  Denbighshire Leisure Ltd has decided to close all of its sites until further notice.  

Closures with effect from 4pm, Friday 20^th March, include SC2 & Ninja TAG, Rhyl Pavilion and 1891 Restaurant and Bar, NOVA Prestatyn,  all leisure centres, North Wales Bowls Centre, Ruthin Craft Centre and Caf頒, Rhyl Town Hall and Llangollen Pavilion.   

Denbighshire Leisure will be freezing all Direct Debit payments for fitness memberships and swimming lessons, effective immediately. They will not be making any more collections on direct debits until further notice. Customers don't need to do anything – the service will do this on their behalf and let people know in advance when they will be restarting, once the Covid-19 situation becomes clearer.

Food Safety:  If you are a new or existing food premises offering food delivery or take away/delivery service for the first time, due to the current covid-19 situation, the Council would like to hear from you.   It is essential that you assess the risk associated with this type of food service, to ensure you keep your customers safe in relation to allergens, food safety and social distancing.  We can advise you on these matters.  Please contact the Food Team on 01824 706405 food.safety@denbighshire.gov.uk

Community Support Services:

• Cefndy Enterprises has stopped taking new orders and will close today (Friday). Some staff will be in work next week to dispatch any current orders.  
• Day & Work Opportunities closing today (Friday) enabling staff to be redeployed as required. 
• Dolwen Day Care closing today (Friday) enabling staff to be redeployed as required. 
• Additional drivers being drafted in for the Integrated Community Equipment Services to support hospital discharge

Housing maintenance:  As a precaution, only emergency and/or urgent repairs will be attended as a result from the 23 March 2020. Please could you only contact us during office hours on 01824 706000 or on 0300 123 30 68 out of hours if it is an emergency. To report a general repair, visit https://www.denbighshire.gov.uk/en/resident/housing/council-housing/request-a-council-housing-repair.aspx and we will respond to your enquiry as soon as we can.

Bulky waste collection: The Council has taken the decision to suspend all new bookings for the Bulky Waste Collection Service from Monday, 23 March, to ensure front line workers and fleet are reserved for the collection of other waste streams.  If it is possible to retain your items at home until the service resumes, please do so. 

Whilst our Household Waste Recycling Centres  remain open at this time, we are advising people to only use this service if it is unavoidable, due to the social distancing measures we have put in place.  The employees at the 3 Household Waste Cs are not able to assist visitors to remove their waste from their cars.

Garden Waste: The Council has taken the decision to suspend all kerbside garden waste Collection Services until further notice, to ensure front line workers and fleet are reserved for the collection of other waste streams, such as food waste and black bin/pink sack service).

The Council will extend all household subscriptions for the same number of weeks the service will be suspended.  We will be unable to process refunds for any households who have had a collection of garden waste within their collection years.   If it is possible to retain your garden waste at home outside in  your garden until the service resumes, please do so. Further guidance on “how to compost at home” will be provided on the Council website in the next few days (www.denbighshire.gov.uk) .

Public Conveniences:  All public conveniences in Denbighshire will close from 5pm today until further notice.

Church revives ancient tradition during virus outbreak

* Father Lee singing the Angelus Prayer at noon today. 

St Collen's has brought back a time-honoured tradition during the coronavirus outbreak - the ringing of the Angelus Bell.

Vicar, Father Lee, says: “Many of us rely on alarms and alert sounds on our mobile phones to remind us of things. The tolling of the Angelus Bell, which goes back to the 11th century, was to alert people of a time of prayer.

“At 12noon each day the Anglus Bell will ring (three sets of three with a pause in between, followed by nine rings).”

The first session of the bells being rung while Father Lee sings the Angelus Prayer was held at noon today.  

It was streamed live on the Facebook page of Llangollen Group of Churches.

Below is the Angelus Prayer.

Welsh Government pledges to protect businesses and jobs

Welsh Government Economy minister Ken Skates (pictured) has made a bold pledge to protect every good business and job in Wales - but it relies on the chancellor bringing in a wage subsidy.

The Economy chief spoke this morning at a press conference to lay out how they would back the business community in Wales.

But he said it was now up to UK chancellor Rishi Sunak to bring in a wage subsidy to support workers.

For the full story, see: https://www.business-live.co.uk/economic-development/welsh-government-pledges-every-good-17953062?utm_source=businesslive_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Link714&utm_campaign=wales_newsletter

Tidy Town Team get new strimmer thanks to McDonald's

Llangollen's busy Tidy Town Team now has a new strimmer courtesy of McDonald's in Chirk.

The latest piece of essential kit for the voluntary group comes on top of a set of new hi viz jackets donated by the same restaurant recently.

The strimmer was handed over to team co-ordinator David Davies (left) by manager Rich Monaghan.

Mr Davies said: "We we are extremely grateful to McDonald’s for this latest donation which will come in extremely handy as we go about our work across Llangollen.

"We would like to thank Harry Davies, who saw us working in Centenary Square last year, for his introduction contact with McDonald’s."