Dear all,

I wanted to write as we move forward through the most challenging time our council has ever faced. We are still reeling from the terrible flooding following the local disaster of a couple of months ago caused by Storms Ciara and Dennis and again it’s all hands back on the deck, 2020 will be year we will never forget.

My message today is in the main directed to you the officers of our authority. I write not just as the Leader but on behalf of all our elected members, who I know share my sentiments and my total admiration for all you are doing through this crisis and I know would share in wanting to articulate our sincere thanks to you all.

We will never actually know how many lives our collective efforts will have saved, but the work that is being put in by all of you will most definitely have contributed to saving many. Keeping the county running as normally as possible during such unchartered and uncertain times is fundamental. It’s fundamental to society as it provides the reassurance to citizens that we are there, reliable and dependable as ever. This is so important to people lives at a time when they are uncertain and fearful.

I want to offer our extreme gratitude to all key workers including our heroic social care and NHS staff who just keep going day after day. Many of us will not know what it’s like going to work every morning, leaving our families and putting our lives at risk. But this is the norm for many of our key workers and we can’t thank them enough. 

I want to thank our Chief Executive and all of our senior leadership team who continue to provide outstanding leadership, direction, coordination and moral support to the organisation. Without this strength we would not have been able to meet the challenge in the way we have.
We have seen these attributes mirrored throughout the Authority where you all have really stepped up to the plate in uncertain times, often against a backdrop lacking clarity, or with uncertainty around things like essential equipment.

There are so many areas where you have pulled out the stops from keeping our fantastic waste collections going; to keeping community meals going to the most vulnerable; providing social care with partners in the community; providing child care for the children of key workers; supporting the hundreds of worried businesses; to keeping things running via the call centres; to those of you being redeployed to wherever is needed; to Partnership teams coordinating the hundreds of fantastic volunteers looking after those shielded, or isolating. The list could go on and on and includes all parts of the organisation. I am truly humbled by what you are all doing and I offer my sincere thanks.

Monmouthshire is a wonderful place and is blessed with fantastic people. I am so proud to lead our county council and look forward to better times again, and I know they will come. After this things will be different for sure and hopefully society will be stronger, more caring, and focused on the things in life that really matter.

For now though our battle goes on and we are making a difference, so in the same way that every Thursday night we clap for our key workers and NHS staff today I and my colleagues applaud you and say thanks.

Have a wonderful Easter 
Stay safe,
Peter

Cllr Peter Fox OBE

Leader Monmouthshire County Council