Loneliness and Green Redeem discussed by Big Society Panel

Projects are opening throughout Windsor and Maidenhead to combat the increasing problem of loneliness.

The Royal Borough is aiming to bring together organisations which are already attempting to tackle the issue in an effort to co-ordinate the schemes and ensure nobody slips through the cracks.

Following a Big Society panel in January, the council held a meeting with 13 organisations to discuss the work they were currently carrying out related to loneliness and isolation.

It also gave an opportunity for each group to air their concerns with the borough.

At the Big Society meeting last night, Councillor Natasha Airey (Con, Park) was keen to help Open Kitchen launch a daily coffee shop.

The project, ran by Sue Brett, is looking to give people who live alone the chance to socialise and Cllr Airey hoped the Royal Borough could provide a place to host the events, if only on a temporary basis.

Also discussed by the Big Society Panel at the meeting at Windsor Guildhall:

•  Parish councils will be given a greater say over how Royal Borough services are used in their areas.

The panel announced that the borough would be paying regular visits to parishes to hold in-depth discussions of how it can offer increased levels of support.

•   A website making it easier to find volunteering opportunities within the council could be launched by the Royal Borough.

The site, modelled on a similar scheme in Slough, could boost volunteer numbers by making the roles on offer more accessible.

•  More will be done to release information on spend, performance and council contracts by the Royal Borough in an effort to increase transparency.

There were 113 visits to the borough's transparency pages in April but council leader David Burbage (Con, Bray) argued that making more information available to the public should take priority over how it is used.

•  Changes will be made to the borough's Green Redeem scheme to enable more community projects to benefit from recycling.

Organisations will be given more time to collect the 200,000 points required to gain a £1,000 reward, as long as they are showing good progress.

Green Redeem rewards residents for recycling on a points basis, which they can choose to either spend on themselves or donate to a local cause.