Today there were 190 patients (174 a week ago) in NHS Grampian hospitals who have tested positive for covid-19, plus three (no change) in intensive care. In Aberdeenshire four more deaths were recorded in the past week linked to covid-19. The cumulative toll is 293.

• REDUCING – 2989 cases were recorded in the past seven days. Previous weekly figures were: 3469, 4148, 3789, 2797, 2357, 2305, 2555, 2763, and 1203.

• FALLING – The seven day positive rate per 100,000 has dropped to 1146.2, according to Public Health Scotland (seven days to 29 March). Previous weeks were 1330.2, 1590.6, 1452.9, 1072.6, 906.1, 882.7, 978.6, 473.6, and 459.0.

• In the past seven days 56 cases were recorded in the Netherley / Fetteresso / Catterline area, 63 in the Banchory-Devenick / Findon area, 52 in Portlethen, and 50 in Newtonhill.

NHS Grampian says: “The trends here are going in a better direction and are no longer accelerating each day. They remain exceptionally high however and widespread across Grampian. Covid-19 hospital occupancy remains at extraordinary high levels, though the good news is there has been a fall in new admissions with symptomatic disease over the past 10 days or so.

“Looking ahead to what we might expect over the next 6-8 weeks, if the case numbers are a good reflection of actual trends, then we may see hospital occupancy continue to climb until mid-April before falling.”

Eligible residents may receive invitations to go for vaccinations in Portlethen Academy.

Stonehaven Town Hall had been hosting the vaccination clinics but it is now being returned to its normal lets. Invercarron Resource Centre in Low Wood Road, Stonehaven, is to be the new vaccination centre for Kincardine and Mearns, however work to make it suitable is not completed yet.

In the interim period the plan is to use schools.

I have now had it confirmed that the plan is to have vaccinations carried out in Portlethen, Mackie and Mearns academies. The next round of appointments is now being sent out. Whatever is on the letter will be the correct location.

While this interim measure is in place there will be no drop-in sessions in Kincardine and Mearns.

North East transport partnership Nestrans has submitted a case for change report about possible improvements to transport links in the Aberdeen to Laurencekirk corridor.

The report considers that there is a rationale for looking in more detail at a new station at Newtonhill, alongside a broad range of other possible interventions. This view has been endorsed by the board of Nestrans.

Nestrans officers tell me that both the case for change work and consultation work notes that whilst there is support for looking at a new station, there “is also some opposition to it, and we believe that this is a fair summation of the situation”.

“Future work would have to undertake an assessment of the cost, benefits, impacts, deliverability, and effectiveness of the proposals, to provide a factual basis upon which to base any future recommendations, noting that the development of the rail network is ultimately in the control of Transport Scotland and Network Rail.”

In other words, more work to be done to establish whether it is a good idea to re-open Newtonhill station.

Meantime both the consultation report and case for change report have now been finalised and issued to Transport Scotland for review and comment. Both are published on the Nestrans website. https://www.nestrans.org.uk/projects/rail/documents-rail/

I have been in touch with Scottish Water about the new mains being laid at the southbound entrance off the A92 into Newtonhill. I have received a number of complaints about the four weeks this is scheduled to take, and the difficulties it is causing drivers. I have also seen people driving into Newtonhill via the exit!

Here is what Scottish Water has just told me: “Regards the progress of the work, when we are digging the track for the new water main we have to take care to negotiate and avoid any other services located in the area.

“We also have processes and procedures we need to comply with around the swabbing, testing and sampling of the new pipe before we can connect each section to the network which can take anything between 3-5 days to carry out and receive the necessary sample results to allow any connection work to proceed.

“These factors mean that having more operatives on site wouldn’t really change the duration of the works.

“We hope to be in a position to complete the current phase of works involving the slip road closure before the planned 4 weeks however this depends on the current progress of the work so we are not in a position to guarantee that at this stage.

“Please be assured that we will only have the slip road closure in place for the minimum period necessary. “We really appreciate the patience and understanding of the residents during this time and would urge all drivers to please be responsible and comply with all signage and diversions in place.”

I also raised two other issues with Scottish Water, about traffic management and the problems with the traffic lights (which from time to time don’t work).

TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

“Regarding the current traffic management in place at Newtonhill we fully appreciate how inconvenient the closure of the southbound slip road into Newtonhill is to local residents/commuters.

“All traffic management in place is as per the approved traffic management plans for this section of works and done so in conjunction with both Bear Scotland and Aberdeenshire Council.

“We did include additional signage at the Muchalls junction at the request of Bear/Aberdeenshire Council to encourage commuters to follow the official diversion route. Unfortunately we aren’t able to legislate for drivers who choose not to follow the signage in place for the agreed diversion etc.

“This has been highlighted to our traffic management company and they will look to put out some additional signage near the Muchalls junction. However, as previously mentioned this does rely on commuters following these signs.”

TRAFFIC LIGHTS

“We are aware of issues with the traffic lights appearing to not work.

“Contraflow (our traffic management company) attended site twice on 30 March following calls relating to the lights not working. On both occasions the team observed the lights and they were working with no issues at all.

“Contraflow believe that on some occasions drivers may be jumping the lights, which trips the system trips the system resulting in the lights going to red. This is a safety mechanism with the lights and it usually then takes a few cycles for the lights to reset back to the original settings which can take a few minutes.

“However, they were also subsequently contacted when we received reports of the lights not appearing to work at all, and arranged a replacement set of traffic lights, which should have been installed this morning (31 March), all being well.”

Looks like we are all going to be patient while the work is carried out.

I would also add that I have had a number of Muchalls residents contact me to express their concerns about drivers doing u-turns on the dual carriageway at the Muchalls entrance. They have seen some near misses. As the Scottish Water statement says, there is a sign banning u-turns. Tailbacks on the fast lane … that’s a recipe for disaster.

Out-of-date and wrong roads signs irk me. Might not be the most important issue, but it can cause a lot of inconvenience for drivers.

It is two years exactly since the Lairhillock Inn closed. A great place, sadly missed, but the market had changed with the footfall not what it used to be. However until recently the brown road signs pointing to the inn were still there. The screen grab from last November shows one of the signs on the A92 at the Bourtreebush crossroads near Portlethen.

I have been assured by council officers that removal of the signs has now been completed. I and other ward councillors had been pressing for their removal for quite some time.

The candidates who will be standing for the 70 seats over 19 wards that make up Aberdeenshire Council have been confirmed.

The notice of poll, including the full list of candidates and polling places, can be found via https://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/localelection2022

Polling for the local government election in Scotland takes place on Thursday, 5 May, with the count taking place the following day.

As at 23 March, there were 12,381 voters in the ward, the largest electorate in Aberdeenshire. To register to vote, visit https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote It will be a challenge for whoever is elected. Council budgets are not keeping pace with the demands being made on local authorities. Costs are going up and people – rightly – have high expectations. Sometimes difficult decisions have to be made, including ones which are unpopular. Councillors should not shy away from that.

Below is who is standing in this ward, with their agents’ details in the second column: Two Conservatives, two SNP, Liberal Democrat Mel Sullivan, a Green, the Family Party, and two independents. No Labour or Alba candidates. There are four councillors representing this ward.

So, masks stay for a bit longer. Right decision for now, in my view.

Upcoming dates

4 April – face-coverings no longer a requirement in places of worship or ceremonies.

18 April – face coverings become guidance on public transport and in indoor settings such as workplaces or shops.

18 April – the request for everyone to regularly test if they have no symptoms will end. (Council facilitated community testing will end in line with this.)

18 April – the remaining requirement to wear face coverings in schools (where they still exist) are to be moved to guidance.

End April – end of routine testing for people who do have symptoms.

There are conditions on the removal of testing, and the detail about those who may still need to test can be found on the gov.scot website.

Aberdeenshire Council’s Trading Standards service today issued the latest bulletin on local doorstep crimes.

COLD CALLING
One resident in the Garioch area has been getting pestered recently by a high volume of calls, apparently from Amazon. The calls were all pre-recorded but came from a variety of phone numbers, both land lines and mobile numbers, from as early as 6am till as late as 11pm, often there are several such calls in any one day.

The calls advise that £799 has been taken from the resident’s Amazon account and to press ‘1’ for further information.

This resident was not unduly concerned by the calls as they didn’t have an Amazon account and they knew full well that the calls had nothing to do with Amazon. It was a scam, probably from abroad and from a single source, which spoofed the numbers shown in Caller ID, to trick the recipient into answering.

The calls were intended to frighten the recipient into pressing ‘1’ on their keypad, so that the call was diverted to a high tariff service where the recipient would be charged as much as £3.60 per minute, then kept on hold for as long as 30 minutes before being cut off without ever speaking to anyone but having inadvertently racked up a whopping phone bill.

Call blocker devices or similar services from telephony providers can filter out as much as 95% of these calls so that the recipient never gets bothered by them. If you are being bothered by scam calls, high pressure sales calls or similar it might be worth speaking to your service provider to see if they can help.

Call blocker devices can also be helpful and can be obtained from such websites as trueCall at https://www.truecall.co.uk/ or CPR Call Blocker at https://www.cprcallblocker.com/ though it should be noted that other devices are available and you should do some research to see which one suits your needs and budget best.

Also, a new service which has recently gone live is the Stop Scams UK 159 service. This is a pilot service being provided by some of the major banks such as Barclays, Lloyds, Natwest and Santander and is supported by BT, Virgin, O2, Vodafone and others.

The principle is fairly simple: if you get a call from someone purporting to be from your bank (such as in a ‘safe account’ scam), simply hang up and then call 159.

This will put you though quickly to your own bank where you can report the matter to someone and discuss what to do next. Calls are charged at the national rate. Please note that this service is for suspicious calls only and shouldn’t be used to contact your bank for other reasons.

Further information on how to tackle these problems can be found on the Ofcom website at Ofcom; Unwanted Calls or at the Stop Scams UK website at https://stopscamsuk.org.uk/159

SOCIAL MEDIA SCAM
One resident in Formartine was recently contacted by a friend on a well-known social medium stating ‘I won money on this Covid lottery and saw your name on the list too! Have you got your winnings yet?”

The resident was then contacted by an ‘agent’ of the lottery to arrange payment of her winnings of more than £100,000. Firstly, the resident was instructed to buy several gift vouchers, photograph the vouchers and then send the photos to the agent, which she did, so that her winnings could be released in cash.

Next day, the resident was asked to buy more vouchers, in fact twice as much as the first batch, for ‘customs’ costs, then the money would be delivered the following morning, in cash. This she did.

The resident later spoke in person to her friend. The friend advised the resident that she had not won any money. It also appeared that her social media account had been hacked. The lottery win was a scam and the hacker was the scammer.

The social medium and the voucher company had taken no active part but had simply been used by the agent, or as we call them, “criminals”, to perpetrate the scam on the resident. In all likelihood the scammer had hacked the friend’s account and used it to message people about the scam, including the original message asking about the resident’s ‘win’.

The classic signs of a scam are there: winning a competition you didn’t enter (you can’t win it if you’re not in it), a message from a trusted ‘friend’ (establishes credibility), a large sum of cash winnings (bait), delivered in cash within days (near instant riches; who wouldn’t want that?). Also, why would there be customs costs for cash, which is legal tender and already present in vast amounts in the UK, so why the need to import cash?

The payoff for the scammer is the photos of the gift vouchers. First a little bit to see if the scam might work, then more when the first attempt is successful and the scammer gets bolder. Also, so long as the scammer can read the serial numbers on the photos of the vouchers, they can use them up to their full value.

They don’t physically need to possess the vouchers.

The scam has been reported to the social medium concerned who have taken down their profile, but she has already created another. This has also been reported to the medium.

Some points to consider:
• Always use a separate, strong password for each of your online accounts. This could be the traditional 9-12 characters (including a capital letter, a number and a special character such as a question mark), three random words or a password generated by your browser. Further information can be found here https://www.scotland.police.uk/advice-andinformation/internet-safety/cybercrime/
• If you believe any of your social media accounts has been compromised, report it immediately to that medium.• Post a message to your online friends on that medium warning them that you believe that your account has been compromised (hacked).
• Watch out for the warning signs of a scam or unexpected online contact from strangers (beware of geeks bearing gifts).
• If you think a scam is being perpetrated on you, report the matter to Police Scotland or Trading Standards immediately.
• If possible, search social media for the lottery, agent etc. and look for any posts advising that it is a scam. If you see such posts, heed them.
• If you have parted with any money, report the scam to your bank or credit card company to see if they can get a refund or compensate you.

MISCELLANEOUS
In previous bulletins we have covered articles on how some unscrupulous home appliance insurance companies have targeted elderly and vulnerable victims, calling them at home and persuading them to take out often costly and unnecessary insurance for appliances like fridges, washing machines and televisions.

It has recently come to our attention that the Information commissioner’s Office (ICO, https://ico.org.uk/ ) has taken a dim view of this and has taken action against five such companies.

These companies have been fined a total of £405,000 by the ICO and ordered to stop these practices immediately. Further details can be found at ICO takes action over predatory companies.

DISPOSABLE VAPES
Trading Standards work continues into the sales of disposable e-cigarettes (vapes). Worryingly, what it tends to show is that there is a widespread misunderstanding about the health risks these vapes pose to young people. There also appears to be a lack of knowledge about it being:
• a criminal offence for people under 18 years of age to buy a vape
• a criminal offence for people under 18 years of age to sell a vape to another person (even another youngster)
• a criminal offence for an adult to buy a vape on behalf of someone aged under 18 (a proxy purchase, usually outside a shop)
• a criminal offence for anyone to give a vape to someone aged under 18 anywhere (even their own child) and even if the vape wasn’t bought with the intention of doing so.

CONTACTS
For urgent Trading Standards matters, contact Aberdeenshire Council’s Trading Standards at 01467 537222. For non-urgent enquiries, please contact Consumer Advice Scotland at https://www.consumeradvice.scot/ or on 0808 164 6000.

Contact Police Scotland on 999 if you need urgent police assistance or 101 for non-urgent matters.

For more information about scams please visit Friends Against Scams at https://www.friendsagainstscams.org.uk/ or Take Five at https://takefivestopfraud.org.uk/

Aberdeenshire Council will cease its covid mobile testing and community collect programme at close of play on Thursday, 14 April.

The decision follows the recent Scottish Government announcement confirming that people without covid symptoms will no longer be asked to take regular lateral flow tests from Monday 18 April.

The council’s programme will end on the previous Thursday (as Friday 15 April is a public holiday).

The operation throughout Aberdeenshire has resulted in:
• 200,000 kits being issued,
• 40,000 kits being given out by communities, and
• 5,500 observed tests being undertaken.

In addition to operating pop-up centres, the council converted three mobile library vehicles to enable residents to undertake lateral flow tests safely in their own communities without the need for lengthy travel.

More here: https://online.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/apps/news/release.aspx?newsID=8509

Aberdeenshire Council’s seasonal garden waste points will operate from 2 April to 29 October this year – including a return to the Coastal Park car park in Newtonhill.

There is no need to book. Council officers say these sites are only to be used for grass clippings and small trimmings – not for larger trees and bushes which take up too much space and which should be taken to a household recycling centres.

They ask that residents don’t arrive before the opening times to enable council operatives to have traffic management measures in place.

The seasonal garden waste recycling points operate on Saturdays at:
• Aboyne: Station Square car park – noon to 3pm.
• Ballater: Roads Depot, South Deeside Road – 8am to 11am.
• Balmedie: Leisure Centre car park, Eigie Road – 1pm to 4pm.
• Blackburn: School car park, Fintray Road – 8am to 11am.
• Inverbervie: Beach Front car park, off Kirkburn – noon to 3pm.
• Kemnay: Birley Bush council depot – 8am to 11am.
• Kintore: Midmill School car park, Carnie Road – 1pm to 4pm.
• Mintlaw: Waste Depot, South Street – 8am to noon, and 12.30pm to 3pm.
• Newmachar: Summerhill Park car park, Pinkie Road – 8am to 11am.
• Newtonhill: Bettridge Centre car park – 8am to 11.40am.
• Oldmeldrum: Academy bus car park, Colpy Road – 1pm to 4pm.
• St Cyrus: Ecclesgreig Road car park – 8am to 11am.

To book a slot at an HRC visit: https://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/waste/recycling/book-recycling-centre-visit/