In this week's column, councillor Paul Bettison OBE, the leader of Bracknell Forest Council, announces the first major event of the year at The Lexicon. 

Hello to everyone reading this across Bracknell Forest.

First, some good news. The first major event of the year at The Lexicon is almost here. From Saturday, February 11 to Sunday, February 19, The Lexicon will host a fabulous interactive trail based on Eric Carle’s best-selling children’s book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Visitors to the town centre can pick up a trail leaflet and free piece of fruit (while stocks last) at Waitrose to start their adventure. The interactive mini adventure will help to teach children about the close relationship between plants and insects, as they search for items such as apples and pears to complete the trail.

Following the success of the events in 2022, there is a lot of excitement for it. Once again, the team seems to have come up trumps.

You can find more information on The Lexicon's website.

This week is Children’s Mental Health Week. The theme for 2023 is ‘Let’s Connect,’ encouraging us all to make meaningful connections. This is an important topic, because the pandemic has seen a rise in the number of people feeling socially isolated, and children are very much included in that. Connections across social media are often frowned upon and chances for social interaction have, understandably, become limited.

We want to encourage connections within the wider community. Hobbies, sports and volunteering will always be good ways of bringing meaningful interaction. You may have already seen many of these activities promoted by us this week, and we’re keen to encourage this to support children to get connected.

We are also running a photo competition, asking families to show us how they are making healthy and rewarding connections. The winning entry will receive a family pass to Coral Reef Waterworld. That’s surely worth a go.

You can find out more information on this activity across our newsletters and social media channels.

And finally, the council's budget proposals, including the suggested level of council tax for 2023/24, were approved by the decision-making Executive last night. The proposals will now be considered at a formal meeting of full council on Wednesday, 22 February.

We’ll bring you more information on this later in the month, but please know, if you are struggling financially, there is a range of schemes available both locally and nationally, including help with energy and food bills or council tax support, on the council’s dedicated cost-of-living webpage. Please do take a look to see what you may be eligible for.

Whatever you’re doing, I wish you all a great week ahead.