Week Ahead: Great Winter Get Together, Beningbrough Hall TV feature and Sheffield planning decision

A campaign to stop loneliness, a Yorkshire stately home on television and plans for an OAP living complex at an old school. John Blow looks at the week ahead.

Get Together

An annual campaign to help people speak about feelings of loneliness, inspired by the memory of late Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox, will begin today.

Running until January 30, the Great Winter Get Together aims to bring people together and reduce the stigma associated with loneliness - including the discomfort people feel talking about it.

Late MP Jo Cox at Batley station. Picture: Jake Oakley.Late MP Jo Cox at Batley station. Picture: Jake Oakley.
Late MP Jo Cox at Batley station. Picture: Jake Oakley.
Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Around, organisers the Jo Cox Foundation will be encouraging people to take action ranging from starting the conversation with those closest to them, up to organising community events.

Su Moore, CEO of the foundation, says that “sometimes the ‘smallest’ actions actually make the biggest difference”.

Some 91 per cent of people between 16 and 24 in the UK still think there is a stigma around talking about loneliness, suggests the foundation’s interviews with a sample of the population.

Winter is said to be the loneliest season of the year – today is known as ‘Blue Monday’ –and this new research also suggests that only a quarter of (26 per cent) of people feel comfortable telling a friend or relative about feeling lonely.

Beningbrough Hall in North Yorkshire. Picture: Gary Longbottom.Beningbrough Hall in North Yorkshire. Picture: Gary Longbottom.
Beningbrough Hall in North Yorkshire. Picture: Gary Longbottom.
Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Yet half (48 per cent) would feel positive if a friend or relative approached them for support with loneliness – suggesting people are much more comfortable being there for a loved one than they are about asking for support themselves.

Soon after becoming an MP, Mrs Cox, who was murdered in 2016, set up a cross-party Loneliness Commission with Seema Kennedy MP.

Her vision was that the commission would run for one year and work with charities, businesses and the Government to increase the public understanding to what has been described as a “loneliness crisis”.

However related work has continued with the input of Leeds West MP Rachel Reeves, who was a friend of Mrs Cox, and annual events.

Digging deep

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Beningbrough Hall in North Yorkshire will feature on a television programme on Wednesday.

The National Trust-run baroque house will be on The Great British Dig on the More 4 channel at 9pm after archaeologists, its TV crew and presenter Hugh Dennis visited the attraction last summer.

One of Beningbrough’s mysteries has been a 1751 painting by John Joseph Bouttats and John Chapman showing extra wings of the hall, leading to questions over whether they existed.

Lidar imagery has shown an area in the estate’s parkland to the north of the hall that may be hiding something and the team planned to dig large trenches in order to get answers.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

In addition to other works, trenches were also dug to try and find out how the Mediterranean Garden might have once looked.

Planning proposal

Councillors are set to decide whether to approve plans for a new OAP living complex on the site of a former Sheffield school tomorrow.

Almost 100 objects had been made over Sheffield Council’s plans to build the independent living accommodation on the site of the old Hemsworth junior and infant school at the junction of

Blackstock Road and Constable Road. It would include a block of up to four storeys providing 81 residential units together with communal facilities including a cafe and parking. The site has been vacant since the school was demolished in 2003. A 99 name petition is objecting, saying an influx of 100 residents with additional staff on the small plot is unsuitable.

The council says due to the increasing population of people over 65 living in the city, it needs to provide more amenities and accommodation for the age group.