News from Buckinghamshire Council

Dear resident

It feels like only yesterday that families, teachers and other school staff were preparing for a new academic year at school, and now the October half term school holiday is upon us. Dare I say it, Christmas will be here before we know it!

I wanted to draw your attention to some low-cost activities taking place during the break and to remind residents of the school-holiday support available from the council and partner.

I also want to make people who regularly travel on our roads, particularly around Aylesbury, aware of roadworks taking place over half term which may impact journey times into and out of the town.

What’s on over half term

There are some fantastic free and low-cost events and activities taking place across the county during the half-term holidays. Our libraries, leisure centres, and museums provide an array of enjoyable activities and events for children and families all year round. During school holidays, there’s even more on offer, with most activities being affordable or free.

Alongside the regular events, libraries have an exciting offer of autumnal arts and crafts sessions, sensory workshops and spooky story times. Visit the Buckinghamshire Libraries page of our website for more details on what’s happening in your local library this half term and beyond.

Buckinghamshire’s museums also have a wide selection of interesting and varied exhibitions plus great activities taking place. These include everything from creative autumnal art workshops and Mosaic Madness sessions to Trick or Treat trails, biscuit decorating, a Monster Hunt and other ghoulish games. Visit the museum websites by clicking on these links: Discover Bucks Museum Wycombe Museum Amersham Museum

And if you’re looking for fresh air and exercise, then I recommend visiting one of our leisure centres or country parks and award-winning green spaces. You can also check out our terrific ‘Simply Walk’ programme; this is available all year round and offers led walks of a variety of distance and ability. It’s a great way to meet people too.

Towards the end of the half term holiday, we will also see the last of our magical WhizzFizz Weekends of Wonder in Chesham. And from Saturday 1 November, Buckinghamshire Archives’ popular History Festival returns with a month-long event schedule for budding historians of all ages!

For a list of even more activities, visit Buckinghamshire Family Information Service website and find out what’s on near you. You can also see what’s on at our local theatres; check out the programmes at the Waterside Theatre, Aylesbury and The Swan in Wycombe.

We’ll be sharing more great half-term activities on our social media channels so be sure to follow us @BucksCouncil on Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok.

Support over the school holidays

I also wanted to remind eligible families that over school holiday periods we provide free digital food vouchers, funded by the Department for Work and Pensions Household Support Grant. These are issued to eligible families directly by your school or early years setting and need to be redeemed within the disclosed timeframe. See the eligibility requirements and find out more about the free digital food vouchers for the school holidays.

Jobs and our local economy

A buoyant local employment market is really key to our county’s prosperity and as a council this is a big focus. We want to make sure our residents have the right skills and opportunities for a meaningful career – to access a good, local job that provides an income, professional and educational development and that improved prosperity is truly ‘within reach’.

That’s why I’m particularly excited about a new initiative called Connect to Work launching here in Buckinghamshire in the coming months. Connect to Work is designed to help residents overcome barriers to employment and unlock job opportunities.

This programme is particularly for those who’ve faced challenges accessing the labour market – whether due to disability, long-term health conditions, or personal circumstances such as homelessness or caring responsibilities. By offering tailored support and matching individuals with employers who understand their needs, Connect to Work ensures that no one is left behind.

Through this national programme we have secured nearly £7 million to use over the next four years to support up to 1,640 residents. Please look out for more detail as this develops.

And make sure you take a look at our own ‘Skills Bootcamp’ programme too for free local courses designed for adults aged 19+ who want to build new skills in sectors like construction, digital, film and TV, hospitality, leadership and management, early years, and health and social care. Whether looking to start a career, upskill, change jobs or return to work, Skills Bootcamps offer a direct route to employment with a guaranteed interview at the end.

We are seeing incredible results from this programme – from our last cohort, 98% of more than 400 participants completed training with 84% interviewing and 70% now progressing into work, upskilling, or moving into self-employment. I congratulate all the participants on their hard work and I’m really proud that we have been able to support them by providing a direct route to progress their career through this programme.

Roadworks

Next week, road users travelling in and out of Aylesbury are very likely to feel an impact from roadworks as we have a number of scheduled works taking place at this time. Like everywhere, Buckinghamshire has seen an increase in the number of works needed on our roads by utilities companies and for other repairs and improvements works.

We work hard to schedule planned works in a way to minimise the disruption and use school holiday periods for precisely this reason. However, the volume of works is such that there simply is no easy time to put these in without impact, hence my wanting to forewarn you now of potential disruption next week.  

Road users are strongly encouraged to ‘Check before you travel’ by checking the council’s website before setting off and consider safely using a SatNav to see live travel times – even for familiar journeys.

See which roadworks are likely to impact routes into and out of Aylesbury. Roadworks in half-term impacting travel into Aylesbury | Buckinghamshire Council

Local Nature Recovery Strategy

This is a really important piece of work for this council and our strategy, supported by Milton Keynes City Council and the Natural Environment Partnership, was approved earlier this week by Cabinet. This strategy outlines exactly what its title suggests, how nature can be ‘recovered’ in our county to halt the decline in biodiversity. It’s very much a joint effort; the culmination of input from many partners, it outlines the locations that will have the greatest impact in restoring nature.

It’s not a set of instructions for landowners but provides a blueprint for how best to restore biodiversity in our local area. It sets out the habitats and species that are important in our area, a shortlist of priorities for nature recovery, and selected potential measures, or actions, to achieve them, showing the best-placed locations – be they on land or in rivers – to take those actions in our Local Habitat Map. I am really pleased that this important piece of work has reached this milestone.

Finally, I know many of you will also be attending Halloween and Bonfire Night events in the coming week or so and I hope these are enjoyable. Our Family Information Service offers advice for children and residents on staying safe and preparing for trick or treaters.

Don’t forget the clocks go back this weekend, offering an extra hour in bed and a timely reminder of the importance of wearing bright clothing to be seen when out and about while the days are shorter.