It’s beginning to look a lot like Easter for fair

At the meeting, Cllr Stephen Conway (Lib Dem, Twyford) also revealed that the Twyford Christmas fair has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He added that while there are hopes to run a spring or Easter fair in the new year, he has negotiated, with Wokingham Borough Council’s Joint Recovering Group, access to the virtual Wokingham Virtual Christmas Market.

This will give businesses and charities an opportunity to promote themselves.

The fair will cost each company and organisation £20 to join and they have until December 21 to sign up.

Cllr Conway said: “We're hoping that will help some of the people who are going to lose out in terms of real sales at Christmas, a virtual fair seems quite a good idea and [it could] potentially bring their activities to the notice of a much wider audience than would have been the case with the Twyford Christmas Fair.”

Twyford parish councillor Rohan Abeywardana asked if the virtual market could be free for companies and organisations due to the current climate and Cllr Conway said he would put the question to WBC.

Cllr Conway also provided an update on the potential of WBC providing free school meals to those who would normally be eligible, during the school holidays and particularly the upcoming Christmas holidays.

He stated that the Government ‘seems to have had a change of heart’ and have allocated some money, that could be used to provide the meals, to WBC.

He said: “We really now just want to get a commitment that it will be used in that way. It will cover in the future, not just the main school holidays, but also half terms.

“I feel quite optimistic now that those children who would normally get free school meals in term time will be given some help over the upcoming Christmas holidays.”