News in brief from Courier Country

• One of Fife’s best-known family businesses is to temporarily close 10 of its 16 shops for the first time in its 163year history. Stuart’s of Buckhaven is shutting smaller bakeries where social distancing could not be maintained. All the company’s butchery outlets will remain open, with areas two metres apart marked out on the floors and hand sanitisers provided for customers.

• Two well-used Perth soup kitchens have moved to delivering groceries only. The food distribution service, run by volunteers from Perth Gospel Hall, usually hands out provisions at Thimblerow car park in the city centre and Dalreoch Place in the Letham area. Organisers have asked anyone who is struggling, whether they use the soup kitchen or not, to get in touch and they will arrange for a bag of groceries to be left on their doorstep.

• All parking at Ninewells Hospital will be free from today. The barriers will be lifted on car parks 1, 2, 9 and the multistorey facility. The barriers on car parks 3 and 4 will remain for staff with fobs to access in the usual way. Car park 5 has no barrier and is usually for visitors. However, it is now available for staff. Employees’ direct debit and salary deductions will be cancelled during the suspension.

• Fife Council is suspending the collection of its grey paper/cardboard bins to help cope with staff shortages. Brown bins will only be emptied fourweekly, rather than every fortnight, as the authority reverts to its winter garden and food waste calendar. Excess food waste will be permitted in the blue landfill bin.

• Arbroath Rotary Club has suspended its weekly meetings at the Meadowbank Inn. The club has decided the £10 members would normally pay for a meal should go to treasurer Bruce Currie to be donated to the two foodbanks in the town. Montrose Rotary Club has given £200 to its local foodbank.

• Play parks, skate parks and multiuse games areas should be off limits to allow social distancing, Fife Council has advised.

• Forestry and Land Scotland regional offices are closed, as are all of the organisation’s visitor facilities – including toilets, car parks and mountain biking trails.

• Fife Coast and Countryside Trust bins are not being emptied, meaning dog walkers should take their waste home.

• Angus Creative Minds is leading a Creating Time to Create: A Sketch Book & Journaling Project. The team has been providing a new sketch pad or journal, along with pencils for people to use wherever they are and is asking them to connect through Facebook.