Councillor Kevin Nicholson, cabinet member for Health and Housing, said: “We’re proud to be recognised by the Health Secretary for our gold standard in community testing. It’s fantastic to see so many people taking tests at one of our six testing sites. “We were the first town in the North-East to have our mass testing scheme, and we now leading the way in the UK. Our community testing programme interrupts transmission, and helps to drive down our case rates, saves lives and protect our communities”. Responding to the video on social media, Darlington s PCN, which is running the vaccination programme, thanked all those involved, including GP practices and staff, volunteering group Darlington Cares, Darlington Borough Council, NHS Tees Valley CCG and County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust.
by Charlie Spargo
Charlotte Nichols founded Harvey & Hugo in 2009 - a PR, content, design and social media marketing agency based in Darlington.
Nichols manages the day-to-day operations at Harvey & Hugo, as well as being the Head Girl at Hugoversity, the PR and social media training school run by Harvey & Hugo. She s also a Board Member of Darlington Partnership, a member of Darlington Cares, and a mentor at Transmit Start-Ups.
We found out what lessons Charlotte has learnt in her career.
Which single daily habit or practice could you not do without?
My 5am wake-up time! I love the quiet and lack of distraction I find between the hours of 5am and 9am - it’s my most productive time.
By Rachel Conner-Hill echorachelc Chief Reporter (Tees Valley & North Yorkshire)
From left, practice nurse Deirdre Best, administrator Andy McLeish, practice nurse Kay Power and MP Peter Gibson Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT AN MP has been helping out at a Covid-19 vaccination hub – and even brought a donation of cake to help feed staff and volunteers. Darlington MP Peter Gibson was volunteering at Feethams House on Sunday as part of the effort to vaccinate the town. The programme is being run by Darlington s Primary Care Network, while a team of volunteers is being organised by Darlington Cares to make sure there are help on hand to escort people, guiding them through the building if they need assistance and making sure they leave safely.
07825 083796
In the face of reduced funding, Darlington BC faced a problem shared with many local authorities - how to support communities to be more resilient and fill the gaps in services we simply couldn’t afford to provide at previous levels.
With our environmental budgets being squeezed we needed an innovative idea to help residents make a real difference to their local environment and to foster ongoing pride in the town.
Whenever we spoke to residents, the perennial problem of litter kept rearing its head. We knew there was a particular problem in our historic market town centre which was falling short of looking its best for visitors and shoppers as we had cut back on pavement sweeping and litter picking. We needed a quirky idea to highlight the problem and provide a practical, cost-free solution.