Merry Christmas

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. This is our last planned post until 2022 unless anything important comes up. 

Many thanks for taking the time to follow us this year, and to all the Facebook Admins who have allowed us to post, particularly Luke and Meryn in Selsey and Emma in Bracklesham: please accept our gratitude and our festive thoughts and best wishes. 

One of Donna's festive treats is The Snowman. She grew up in Hove, which is (Actually) next to Brighton, some of whose landmarks, I found out this week, provided the backdrop for the film. 

Christmas is about giving. We were therefore pleased when Thrive Selsey got in touch to ask us to let you know that they are opening their cafe on Christmas day for a few hours, Inviting anyone who may be alone to come and join them for a free drink, snacks and a few games.

The festive season is also a time for good news. We were all really pleased to read that someone we know has become a real inspiration to runners young and old, by setting new standards of excellence as our District's top female veteran athlete - well done Helen Dean of Selsey. 

More good news is that the Primary School virtual field trips, developed by the Novium Museum last year, have been shortlisted from more than 140 entries in the Arts Council's Digital Culture Awards’ ‘Content Creation and Distribution’ category . They have been shortlisted alongside The Old Vic, Alexander Whitely Dance Company, and Open Clasp Theatre Company. The winners will be announced at a virtual awards ceremony on 20 January 2022. 

Did you know that more than half a dozen treasure troves were discovered in West Sussex in the past year? In a similar vein, your surname could land you more than a pretty penny as there are several unclaimed estates in Sussex. 

In other news, West Wittering has been named the best spot in the UK for walking a dog, which is not surprising because the whole Peninsula has a lot of human and canine appeal. 

More than 11,000 trees will be planted across the South Downs National Park this winter to help nature recovery and tackle climate change. Thirty sites across Hampshire, West Sussex and East Sussex will be receiving them as part of the Trees for the Downs campaign, which is now entering its third year - read more here.

Last week we updated you on the Southern Gateway project and our success in changing a commitment to greater density of housing on CDC’s Brownfield land to "significantly greater." If you missed it, further news about the project's progress appeared in the Chichester Observer this week.

Another high profile local topic is sewage discharges. To try to illustrate things more clearly, an appeal for pictures and videos by the Save Our South Coast Alliance has also been in the news this week. 

West Sussex is in urgent need of more people to foster teenagers, with two-thirds of the county’s children in care aged between 11 to 17. If you have a spare room, contact their fostering service (033 022 27775.) Children are carefully matched with carers and full training and support is provided. Foster carers receive up to £510 per week in allowances.

With Covid looming larger, this is probably an appropriate time to remind you of the excellent work of CDC’s Economic Development Team - which we know about first hand from working with them for the last two years. Once again, we are including links to: -  

• Latest guidance.

• Booking a booster.

• Order free lateral flow tests.

• West Sussex data dashboard. 

• The BBC NHS postcode tracker.

• The latest snapshot of the impact on our area's economy. 

And finally: -. 

• Over 1500 domestic abuse victims have been supported by West Sussex's Worth abuse service this year. 

• This is CDC’s waste collections over the festive period. 

• These are the festive opening times for the Community Hub. 

• And this is CDC’s Calendar of Meetings, and this is West Sussex.

As always, from the whole Team, stay safe.

Tim