COVID-19 information

These are the main rules that will be in place in Buckinghamshire from Wednesday 2 December:

  • You cannot socialise with anyone you don’t live with indoors.
  • People should work from home where they’re able to, in agreement with their employer.
  • 'Rule of 6' applies outdoors – don’t meet in groups of more than six people and only meet people you don’t live with outside.
  • Businesses and venues including places of worship can open and operate in a COVID-secure manner, other than those still closed by law, e.g. nightclubs.
  • Our Leisure Centres and Libraries that were closed during lockdown will reopen operating with COVID-secure measures (check our website for full details).
  • Pubs and bars will stay closed unless operating as restaurants. Hospitality can only serve alcohol with substantial meals. They must close by 11pm, with last orders at 10pm.
  • Organised sport outdoors can continue and some indoor sports can also take place if it’s possible for people to avoid mixing with others they don’t live with.
  • You can travel and stay overnight somewhere but you should continue to follow the Tier 2 rules wherever you go.  You should avoid travel to an area in Tier 3 unless it’s necessary.
  • Stay 2 metres (6 feet) apart
  • Wash your hands thoroughly and often
  • Wear a face covering where required (unless you’re exempt)
  • Stay at home and book a test if you have symptoms
It’s vital that if you develop symptoms, no matter how mild, that you book a test and isolate immediately. Anyone else you live with must isolate too.

Village
Those on the village email list have been circulated with contact details of villagers offering help to their neighbours.  If you are a resident who has not received this then please email wardenws@gmail.com for guidance.
Sites that may be helpful:

Home deliveries, etc.


St Giles Church
There are such stringent regulations attached church opening that, sadly, St Giles will, for the most part, have to remain locked.  The only services have been funerals on 10th and 13th August, Holy Communion on 12th September, Harvest on 18th October and a largely carol-less Carol Service on 18th December.  The lockdown from 5th November prevented the Remembrance Service on 8th November from taking place, though the central Act of Remembrance was said by a single person within the locked church.  Christmas services were severely curtailed.  On each Sunday in January and February 2021 Revd Paula is holding a single benefice service  via Zoom, starting at 10.30am.  If you would like to join her, please email westbucksrevd@gmail.com and she will send you the link, or you can attend via a telephone link if you prefer, again email Paula and she will provide you with the information.

The following system may allow a tiny amount of individual access for private prayer.  Email wardenws@gmail.com suggesting a day and time that you would like to go in.  If the church has been locked for 72 hours previously and can be locked for 72 hours subsequently, then the church will be unlocked for two hours at the time requested.  Fill in a track and trace form at the back of the church and be ready to put on a face mask if anyone else appears.

Links to online services past and present appear HERE.

The Link, the magazine of the West Buckingham Benefice, was not distributed in paper form during the worst of the pandemic but reappeared in that form with the September 2020 issue.  It returned to online-only form from the February 2021 issue.  A page for The Link has been created on this site where entries most relevant to Water Stratford have been accumulated. 

The Annual Vestry Meeting and the Annual Parochial Church Meeting were scheduled to take place on 27th April 2020 but face-to-face meetings were then banned due to the pandemic.  Ours eventually took place at 2pm on Monday 12th October 2020 in the churchyard.  The annual reports for 2019 were adopted and are shown HERE.  The PCC remains unchanged.

Useful links
Member of Parliament

Local government
Buckinghamshire Council (unitary authority replaced District and County Councils on 1/4/20)
Neighbouring places