From next week, the council will be launching a pilot asymptomatic community testing scheme for Covid-19 to help reduce the spread of the virus in the city. One in three people who have the virus do not have any symptoms, this is knownas asymptomatic. The Forest Fields and Hyson Green areas of the city will be the first to have an asymptomatic testing facility in place, opening at Djanogly Community Leisure Centre, Gregory Boulevard in the next couple of weeks. This location was chosen as we are prioritising areas with a high proportion of critical workers and those who must leave home for essential reasons.

The asymptomatic testing facility will be in place until March. The aim of the community testing is to pick up more infections before people become symptomatic and support them to isolate earlier. People will not need to display any symptoms to access this test and the results of positive or negative for Covid-19 can be given within hours. The offer will be for each person to access a test once a week.

We will work hard over the coming weeks to ensure the local community in Forest Fields and Hyson Green are aware of theasymptomatic testing centre, how to get a test and encourage as many people are possible to take advantage of the pilot. We will learn from this pilot and consider our approach to community testing in other areas of the city.

Find out more Asymptomatic testing pilot launched in Nottingham

If you are over 80 years old or support someone who is,please look out for the NHS letter requesting you to make an appointment for a Covid vaccination. To make it easy and quicker to book a Covid vaccination, an online booking system has been launched. Anyone over 80 years old in the city can now book online here for sites in Nottinghamshire including the Kings Meadow site in Lenton. ?

I have written to the Chancellor Rishi Sunak to urge him to retain an uplift in Universal Credit that was introduced at the beginning of the pandemic. I welcome the fact that the Government introduced the ?20 a week increase for Universal Credit claimants in March to help low-income families bear the extra cost of the Covid outbreak. But this increase ? which was not extended to those on Job Seeker, Income Support and Employment Support Allowances ? is due to end in April. Around 35,000 people are estimated to be on Universal Credit in Nottingham and the ?20 uplift has helped many to keep their heads above water throughout the pandemic as costs riseand incomes fall. I have asked the Chancellor to retain the temporary uplift beyond April, as well as extending it to claimants of other, so-called ?legacy? benefits who are mostly sick or disabled people and carers, and have been most at risk during this pandemic. See more here. Advice and support for anyone on Universal Credit is available on the Council website.

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The council?s award winning Public Realm team has completed just over a year of tree planting in local parks and green spaces, and has exceeded all targets with over 7,000 trees planted alongside annual flowers and plants, enhancing schemes to improve and create environmentally sustainable areas across the city.

These initiatives are not only important to the ongoing work of the Parks and Open spaces service, but form part of a wider commitment to plant 10,000 trees by the end of 2023 and to be carbon neutral by 2028. That target has now been increasedto 50,000 trees!

This incredible number of trees has been planted in conjunction with charities such as The Woodland Trust as well as volunteers from The Nottingham Open Spaces Forum and local horticultural groups, local companies, schools, and colleges. Local ward councillors have also been involved alongside Nottingham City Homes and Nottingham Trent University.

While some of the work is introducing or replacing established trees as part of annual park maintenance, many are young saplings which will create new glades and public spaces, improving the quality of the environment for us and for local wildlife.

For more information go to www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/trees

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