Bridgwater to get Town Centre Covid Testing Centre

Bridgwater Town Council has been working with Public Health England and Somerset County Council to ensure that the town urgently gets a centrally based Covid testing centre. Bridgwater Town Hall has been agreed as the location and arrangements are being made to free up on-street car parking so that people with symptoms aren’t forced to walk from the towns car parks to get their tests.  Town Clerk David Mears , who has been leading on the negotiations, explained “There are 3 types of testing centre -‘Regional’ as we see in Taunton and Weston, ‘Mobile’-which just pop up for 6 weeks in various car parks and ‘Local’ which is what we’ll be getting here. These are internal, appointment based and the project should last about 6 months,”

Town Council Leader Brian Smedley praised the work of the Town Clerk and welcomed the town centre location saying “Whilst we’ll get no income from this  it’s very important that we have made the case for inclusion and been chosen. The Government will pay the company and in return expect a peppercorn rent. This may be a bit frustrating at a time when we are struggling to generate income but we see the importance of having a local testing centre and we recognise the value of the project so we will provide rooms for free. Things are at an advanced stage and more details will be made public when finalized. “

Slight Increase across Somerset

The breakdown of cases to date across Somerset shows the following;-The news of the Testing Centre comes as 8  new cases of coronavirus were confirmed across Somerset in the past 24 hours which brings the total to 1,557 people who have now had the virus in the county. Each of the 4 districts have had 2 cases apiece. There have been 429,277 total cases across the UK , and  a further 34 deaths bringing the UK total to 41,971.