Life begins at 90

I heard a new word this week - do you know what a nonagenarian is? Are you one yourself? Would you start a new career if you were in your nineties?  Earlier this week, I came across this article about six senior high fliers including one who became a comedian at 89 and another who became an author at 93. There’s even someone who became a Councillor at the same time as I did nearly two years ago, but at the age of 100 had 44 years on me. 

Donna and I have Full CDC on Tuesday, so you can watch it live from 2pm. It’s main focus is the budget; these are difficult times because statutory services have to be maintained but the pandemic has significantly impacted on local government revenue streams, e.g. parish councils (maybe 5% of your bill) have lost letting income while CDC (about 9%) has lost car park revenue.

In the 2021 budget we unsuccessfully tried to include provision for extra support for businesses should the, then just emerging, pandemic negatively affect the economy. This time we began arguing for extra hardship provision when things worsened before Christmas until we recently earnt that Councils will be receiving additional funding for this. 

In my last post I mentioned climate change. In case you missed it, this week there has been a warning this week from the Head of the Environment Agency, Sir James Bevan and the worrying news that the Atlantic Ocean circulation is at its weakest in a millennium. Broadly connected to this, Donna has just enrolled for a distance learning University course in Sustainable Development and Communities , this covers lots of issues including community resilience due to climate change.

And finally: -

• It has been twenty years since Foot and Mouth. This BBC News look back might prove of interest, as might this article in Farmers Weekly.

• The latest County vaccination briefings are available here;

• West Sussex are consulting about redesigning their Early Help service which supports vulnerable children and families

• Register to vote (by April 10) for May’s elections and find out more about the local picture here.

As always from the whole Team, stay safe

Tim