15th September - New Restrictions in Birmingham . Published Tuesday 15th September 2020 . Dear Resident(s), . What are the new restrictions on households in Birmingham? From Tuesday 15th September, Birmingham residents will not be able to mix with people they do not live with, in their homes or gardens. Your households is defined as the people you live with and any support bubble. Households that have formed a support bubble with another single adult household behave as if everyone live in the same house. These new restrictions are coming into effect for Birmingham, Sandwell, and Solihull to reduce the coronavirus rate of infection which is rising fast. What is a support bubble? A support bubble is a close support network between a household with only one adult in the home (known as single-adult households) and one other household of any size. Once you are in a support bubble, you can think of yourself as being in a single household with people from the other household. It means you can have close contact with that household as if they were members of your own household. Once you make a support bubble, you should not change who is in your bubble. How does this apply to Lench's Trust? Visitors will still be allowed with in the schemes to deliver shopping or other essentials to the residents; however they should refrain from entering the apartments or gathering in the communal areas' A family member may ask to be considered as a key worker to allow them to come and visit their relative and authorisation will be issues by the Scheme Manager. It is important that key workers limit their visits to one household only and follow all the safety measures in place - "hands, face, space"; Residents who are single may form a support bubble with another single household within the scheme they live in; For the time being we have decided to leave access to the schemes to the hairdressers and personal cleaners (both defined as key workers for the time being), and the gym instructor at William Lench Court; The maintenance staff will revert back to undertaking only emergency or urgent work only to avoid them entering the apartments unnecessarily. Please ensure that you maintain physical distancing and wear a mask if you approach them at your scheme; The staff will be reminded to enforce the "rule of 6" as this is a national directive. As you will be have seen from the news the coronavirus rate of infection is rising fast in Birmingham and, more worrying, admissions to hospital are rising too. We will be monitoring the situation very closely over the next few weeks as it is likely we are moving incrementally towards a second lockdown - and we all know how devastating that can be for all. We are aware of a few families having volunteered to take their parents back to live with them on a temporary basis; by all means do liaise with us to check if and when this would be an option. However I can reassure you that the Trust is putting in place additional support in case of a second lockdown, having learned some useful lessons from the first - for example we will be recruiting soon a Coronavirus Support Worker to look after the wellbeing of the residents. As always we count on your continued support to see us through this next phase of the pandemic. . Kind Regards Jean-Luc Download a copy of the letter - HERE