This week has got off to a great start with Crawley Town’s historic and well-deserved 3-0 victory in the third round of the FA Cup on Sunday afternoon.  I congratulate the team and thank them for this very welcome boost for our town.  It was exactly ten years ago when Crawley Town were enjoying a fantastic FA Cup run and this feels like a welcome repeating of history.

Good news is harder to come by at the moment but the progress being made on Covid-19 vaccinations is ever more encouraging.  Last week saw the beginning of the rollout of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine across the country including here in Crawley.  On Sunday Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced that 200,000 were currently being done, taking us to nearly two million nationally.  This is more than the rest of Europe put together and the highest per head of any large country in the world.  We also saw the approval of the Moderna vaccine, taking us to three approved vaccines to use.

While the 17 million doses secured of the Moderna vaccine won’t be available until the spring, it will be coming onstream and increasing vaccine supply at the time when we will be vaccinating the younger and larger sections of the population.

I am optimistic that this week will see us passing half of all over-80s being vaccinated.  We currently have nine GP practices in Crawley giving the vaccines on behalf of all our GP practices, and this week sees the opening of the large regional vaccination centres to compliment this and increase capacity still further.  From Monday this week the government will be publishing the daily figures of vaccinations as they we work towards the target of vaccinating 15 million people over the next six weeks.

Every person vaccinated is a good news story and it helps everybody else, especially the NHS, whom we want to be available to treat us for any ailment or illness we may have as well as for Covid-19.  Vaccinations are the way forward but in the meantime we must stop social contact and stay home.    

Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group

13th January 2021