Armed Forces Day

How have you managed in the recent heat? The last few days have been particularly hot, so much so that at least one road in West Sussex has apparently started to 'melt.' We would suggest going for a walk on the beach in the hope of a bit of a breeze, but as you will have noticed in the news, the beaches on the South Coast have been 'rammed.' 

Do you ever hear a Spitfire flying overhead? I notice because their engine makes a distinctive noise and, although not too uncommon, it does not happen all the time. In the 1940s plenty of Spitfires flew over each day because five of the fourteen RAF airfields in Sussex were located here. This article will tell you more about them including the Advanced Landing Grounds built at Appledram and Selsey. 

I mention this because Saturday is Armed Forces Day 2020, so this is a good time for us to remember the contribution our area made all those years ago. As the war progressed, Sussex increasingly became sealed off from the rest of the country as a large military zone, mainly defended by Canadian soldiers.  Our area was pivotal in preparing for D-Day - one of my 87-year old father's strongest war memories is of the transport planes towing gliders all filled with Canadian infantry flying overhead as they headed to Normandy. Before that day, Bracklesham Beach was used by them to rehearse their landing on Juno beach. In fact, a couple of the eighty Centaur tanks especially produced for D-Day were found buried there in 2008.

I have had extra school meetings this week because more live lessons and in-school provision mean my teaching team can't all get together at the same time. Donna and I were part of a meeting update for Selsey Town Council on CDC's progress with the Emerging Local Plan. Selsey Town Council held a full council meeting on Wednesday that unfortunately did not finish until nearly midnight and yesterday Donna was discussing various things, including some relating to the Local Plan, at a meeting of CDC's Development Planning and Infrastructure Panel. We've also had a couple of informal meetings with other District Councillors to forge consensus on the recovery challenge we all face.

A lot of you are concerned about flood risk and the amount of traffic on our local roads. If you share these concerns you may be encouraged by some of the recommendations made by the Committee on Climate Change in their progress report published yesterday: encourage more working from home, bring forward plans to spend £5bn on flood defences and plant more trees. As "Manhood" is thought to be derived from the Saxon for "Common Wood," if you live somewhere that may now, or in the future, be at risk, I suspect you might welcome some very thirsty ones being planted nearby.

Not so long ago, I mentioned that we filmed a clip of Donna for an upcoming video to encourage us all to support our local businesses, something close to our hearts. It reached us yesterday and we think she is the only resident from our part of the District in it - see what you think. 

Finally, something for those local businesses we all value so much, courtesy of the charity 4Sight: in the last RNIB study, over two thirds of people living with sight loss reported to feeling less independent since lockdown with many experiencing a loss of confidence and are now unwilling to leave the home. This advice from the RNIB may prove useful.

Please remember, we hope to update you on Tuesday and Friday next week.

As always, stay safe

Tim