Most areas of Worcester have two tiers of local government; the City Council and the County Council, which provide the services most of us use daily.

However, in St. Peter the Great and Warndon Villages we are also represented by parish councils. In addition to my role as a City Councillor I also serve on Warndon Parish Council, which provides enhanced services to that particular area of Worcester. On Monday I attended our monthly Parish Council meeting at the Lyppard Hub, where we welcomed our new clerk Tanya Talbott who took over from Susan Howell this week.

On Wednesday I joined a Zoom call with the Worcester Twinning Association. Worcester now has five twin towns, with Gouzeaucourt in northern France joining our other twins of Kleve in Germany; Le Vesinet, west of Paris; Worcester, Massachusetts in the USA and Ukmerge in Lithuania.

Due to Covid restrictions most communication with our twin towns is currently undertaken through Zoom, but hopefully as the vaccine programme gets rolled out the day when we can once again meet in person gets closer.

Hopefully in early December visitors from our Twins will be able to attend Worcester’s Victorian Christmas Fayre so once again we can buy their local produce from stalls. When my wife Lucy was Mayor back in 2008/9, we were lucky enough to visit Kleve and hopefully we will travel to Gouzeaucourt later in my mayoral year.

Today I will be in Cathedral Square supporting the RAF Benevolent Fund Static Dambuster Ride. To have public events at long last in our city centre is such a morale raiser, after months of lockdown.