THE response from businesses and and community groups to the Covid-19 crisis in Middleton-in-Teesdale has been hailed by residents.
Almost all of the village’s shops have worked with volunteers to ensure vulnerable and elderly residents have “wanted for nothing” .
Resident and former parish councillor Lorraine Walkden singled out Upper Teesdale Argicultural Support Services (Utass) as being a driving force behind the village’s response.
She said: “Utass has been a good lead on it. We have a team of volunteers who de-liver food, prescriptions and hot food. “The Co-op has been marvellous. They have gone over and beyond – if people are desperate for stuff they drop it off. We have wanted for nothing. Utass has a proper delivery service where they work hand-in-glove with the Co-op.”
Utass’ Emma Spry ex-plained that the delivery scheme had initially been tri-alled with a handful of resi-dents before it was formally launched. She said: “We had quite a lot of interest. It is just trying to First rate response to crisis in upper dalelimit the number of people going into the Co-op to keep those Co-op staff safe.”
Mrs Spry said the scheme worked by people calling Utass and placing an order from a list of goods on sale. The list runs according to items along each aisle in the store so that volunteers can take a simple route through the store to collect the items that have been ordered. The purchase is made using the Utass debit card.
Once delivered the resident can then pay for the groceries by card or by making an elec-tronic transfer to the Utass bank account. Other shops earning praise from residents include G&J Newsagents which is “out every day” trying to source things for people, and the village chippy which is giving “free chips to frontline workers” .
Mrs Walkden said the Tees’Pot cafe, is “doing really nice things for Middleton Care where they take them a batch of scones” . She also highlighted the efforts being done by J Raine & Son hardware store.
She said: “They are doing home delivery, especially for older people who can’t get out, but can work in their gar-dens. Andy Mitchell, from the hardware store, said there was great demand for the free de-livery service. He added: “There are a lot of old and vulnerable people who can’t go out. “We have been down as far as Barnard Castle making deliveries. We will deliver a single bag of sticks or ten bags of com-post. They just ring up and we will deliver. We are just happy to do it.”
Mr Mitchell also marvelled at how the coronavirus crisis had brought the village to-gether. He said: “Everyone is pulling together. It is abso-lutely brilliant. People are re-ally pushing the boat out to help each other.”
He pointed to Teesdale Hotel which had devised a scheme where people follow a one-way system to dish up a Sunday lunch takeaway. The village chemist and McFarlane’s Butchers were also hailed for the way they are helping during the crisis, Mrs Walkden said.
She concluded: “We are dead lucky.”
