Trafford Council has shown its support for our brave servicemen and women by re-signing the Armed Forces Covenant this year.
Trafford Council Chief Executive Sara Todd and armed services champion Cllr Judith Lloyd re-signed the covenant earlier this week at the 207 Field Hospital medical reservist unit in Trafford. The Council Leader, Cllr Andrew Western, had signed it earlier in the week.
The covenant sets out the commitments made to support those people who commit their lives to protecting us and our families. They include giving ten additional paid days leave to reservists, a guaranteed interview scheme for veterans, and support for Armed Forces Day and the various commemorations throughout the year.
Sara Todd, Cllr Lloyd, the Mayor Cllr Robert Chilton, the council’s community cohesion officer Josh Fulcher and Armed Forces lead Sue Wright were given a tour of the unit and met up with the new Commanding Officer Ian Lane and the many reservists who are based there. As part of the tour, the Mayor presented several awards and the group, like all reservists, were also shown some basic weapons handling skills.
Todd said:
While there, I was delighted to express our commitment to our troops and their families and our veterans by signing again our Armed Forces Covenant which sets out the things we’ll do to support those people who commit their lives (and in the case of the reservists much of their spare time) to protecting us.
It is so important, particularly in the year that sees us commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day, that we recognise and remember the sacrifices made by members of our Armed Forces Community, and that we support them as a borough and as a Council. We signed the Covenant with members of the 207 Field Hospital and several of us undertook weapons handling training with disarmed weapons.”
Last year, the Council was presented with the Armed Forces Covenant Gold Award for its Defence Employer Recognition Scheme. The Covenant Gold Award is the highest badge of honour for organisations which have signed the Covenant and given outstanding support to the brave servicemen and women who have served their country.
Posted on Tuesday 10th March 2020