Lobby your local MPs in the UK

[Angela1330]

Please lobby your local MPs and local councillors both where you live and where your holiday properties are located, to get them to ask the Prime Minister to relax the conditions, to allow at least local essential workers to stay for short respite holidays. We have remained open for NHS frontline staff to stay for free, who needed to use some of our accommodation as their main residence and have had two paramedics, two A&E Dr’s and one staff nurse staying with us who needed to do this. After testing four of them have now safely returned home. However, we have had many more local NHS staff approach us with heartfelt requests to stay for a weekend or a few days to relax, one from only three miles away and one after working 54 days without a break, whom we have had to refuse, as this is currently illegal. If you have time, it would be helpful if you could lobby your MPs and local councillors to at least allow essential workers to have a short break with us, even if they put in a requirement that people can only travel a maximum of say 30/60 minutes to do so. There is also an argument that anyone should be allowed to travel for 30/60 minutes, provided that they agree to maintain social distancing both whilst travelling and on arrival. We had guests already booked to stay in April who were only travelling 20 minutes from us by car and who currently live in a studio flat with no garden, not even a balcony to allow them to safely get outside. They cried over the phone when I explained that it was now illegal for me to let them stay. They argued that it would be far safer spending time outside in our garden and walking straight from the garden onto the footpath network that surrounds us, than they were exercising in the city where they live. Why is it OK for the Prime Minister to travel from London to Buckinghamshire for his convalescence and Prince Philip to travel from Norfolk to Windsor, Prince Charles from London to the Highlands of Scotland, Prince William and family from London to Norfolk, when they were all already in properties with wonderful gardens, but everyone else is told that they have to stay put and not travel even 10 minutes to a holiday property? There is lots of evidence to show that people need a break, particularly one that allows them to sit or walk outside, for their mental and physical well being, this is especially true of health care workers who have been working 13 hour shifts for days on end... Therefore, please lobby your MPs, local Councillors and local press to lobby the Prime Minister to allow us to open again in a measured way. Recognising that we will need to check guests in remotely, I usually welcome all my guests face-face, but I did this very successfully over the phone as soon as social distancing was announced. You will also need to re-schedule some bookings to keep a 72 hour gap between guests, to allow any virus in the air and on any surfaces to die. You will also need comprehensive new cleaning regimes to include disinfecting every surface from light switches to remote controls. I am clinically vulnerable myself and consequently at high risk from coronavirus, so I am taking bio security very seriously and do not want to do anything to push the R rate up again. But I do want to do my bit to help all our essential workers and everyone else who needs a short break from this crisis. It would be such a shame if we have to leave desperately needed homes and gardens empty to protect NHS services in holiday hot spots and don’t recognise that there are lots of people who need a break and want to take one close to home, which will not put any extra pressure on the NHS at all, even in holiday hot spots. But will actually help to relieve the stress on the very hero’s who are working tirelessly for the NHS and other essential services. If like me, your properties are on the edge of the Peak District National Park, you can also make the point that this ‘semi-wild landscape is hemmed in by one of the most densely populated industrial regions in Europe. The vast industrial landscape that stretches across the north of England from Liverpool on the west coast to Hull on the east, is home to a higher concentration of people than almost any other region in Europe. At its heart are the industrial cities of Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield, all crowding in on an oasis of undeveloped land - the Peak District National Park.’* Clearly we are not talking about encouraging inexperienced guests to roam the isolated moors and cause incidents for the Mountain Rescue to deal with. They are already getting called out to inexperienced cyclists being too adventurous on vertiginous routes. But there are miles and miles of deserted footpaths in the foothills surrounding the Peak District itself and most of us have gardens to offer to people who don’t currently have access to any safe outdoor space at all. Take care and stay safe - together we are stronger and we can work together to get through this crisis stronger than ever. If you would like a draft email, or letter for your MP, or you want to cut and paste some of my text into one of your own, please just ask - you can reach me at: ** Thank you for doing this. Angela *Harrison, Ian, Britain from Above, Pavilion Books 2008

**[E-mail address & phone number hidden due to safety reasons - Community Center Guidelines]

[Helen427]

@Angela1330 

Your kindness towards others has much to be admired.

You probably also deserve a holiday break.

I understand businessman Simon Dolan is challenging the lawfulness of the UK lockdown in Courts of Laws.

Have you read about that or looked at that?

 Such Judicial Review legal challenges are also happening elsewhere in the world.

I also understand Professor Neil Fergusson who's works have been used to create your lockdown has resigned as he was flouting "rules" seeing his Climate Change activist married girlfriend who is still living with her husband, Antonia Staat..( note surname...).

I think you will find there's a bigger picture lurking in the background & some have pushed Human Rights boundaries to suit their little agendas as well as breached the Spirit & intent of Public Health Acts with heavy handed scaremongering which has not at all been helpful to those like yourself who are vulnerable.  

It's good that the UK have published the names of those with ties to SAGE as now that info it's freely available those peoples Research Papers & connections ,  including who is funding them behind the scenes can be scrutinised by investigative journalists, a little like the Panama Papers, to see if there's kickbacks, conflicts of interest & of course should people wish to hold them to account in Courts of Laws for contravening basic Human Rights - one must weigh up the balance of what's acceptable and what laws are already in place as those laws are indeed valid laws well before the Coronavirus Act & associated Acts.

Good on you for encouraging people to take pro active action.

Ringing up traditional ole Talkback radio and the media is another couple of options you may like to take.

keep well & keep up the excellent work.

All the best  from across the miles in Auckland, New Zealand