Drinking it in
Thank you to everyone who accepted our invitation to get in touch last week and was so positive. Like you, we are ordinary residents, who value our community and we very much welcome contact.
We were interested to read this week that Premier Inn has crunched data from Pinterest and Google, and the top trending beach this year is West Wittering. We were interested to read this week that Premier Inn has crunched data from Pinterest and Google, and the top trending beach this year is West Wittering.
There has recently been some good news for Sussex winegrowers. We can all now have a glass of Sussex as an alternative to a glass of Champagne or Prosecco. You may not realise that the Tinwood Estate’s vineyards are nearby and, since the first planting in 2007, have established a reputation for producing the very finest English sparkling wines.
Unlike vines, a plant you should avoid is Giant Hogweed. It can cause blisters and, more worryingly, blindness if it comes into contact with your eyes. It has been spotted in East and West Sussex so please be careful. Garden building retailer WhatShed have kindly provided this interactive map of where it has been reported.
Worthy petitions seem to regularly come our way at the moment: because COVID is starting to increase again, this week we include one which calls for continued free tests and isolation for the most vulnerable.
There was an update this week on the A27 bypass; in brief, the proposals need more work to be done around value for money so the summer stakeholder meetings won’t take place as previously planned. You may also be interested in the new WSCC transport plan.
Another infrastructure concern is wastewater treatment (sewage.) Southern Water have released their Drainage and Wastewater Management Plans for public consultation. Most of our District’s treatment facilities are in the Arun & Western Streams catchment, whose local information is here.
Sir David Attenborough has written to show his support for a project that has been launched off the Selsey coastline to help protect marine habitat. The project, which is being led by CDC, is investigating why there has been a reduction in the number of crabs and lobsters caught off the Manhood Peninsula coastline. CHASM (Crustaceans, Habitat And Sediment Movement) project, has been developed in direct response to concerns from the local fishing community, and will also investigate the reasons why there has been an increase in sediment.
Other partners involved in the project include the Channel Coastal Observatory, the University of Southampton, and the University of Brighton, in addition to over 20 national, regional, and local environmental organisations with interests in marine conservation. Donna was recently able to join a meeting to find out more about the project and its progress to date. This included the chance to gain first-hand experience of the practical work involved and to see the techniques at work. She said it was most informative and encouraging.
It's been a mad week for meetings, so I will tell you about just some of them; Donna attended a West Sussex briefing regarding the settling of people displaced by the war in Ukraine. Those residents helping refugees via the sponsorship scheme, are being assisted by West Sussex, and things seem to be evolving quite well. There have been some cases, however, where Universal Credit hasn't come through in a timely manner which has caused issues. In this case the Community Hub can help with hardship payments. If anyone needs advice about anything, Donna is more than happy to help navigate the process, and escalate via West Sussex if need be.
Secondly, I had CDC’s Overview & Scrutiny Committee this week, which mainly focused on our new Police Inspector, and a financial update. At the same time, Donna enjoyed a very interesting meeting with the West Sussex Youth Cabinet. They are focusing on 4 separate areas this year: Racial equality, Health and Wellbeing, Environment and Youth Safety. She found them quite inspiring and is hoping to move forward with a Youth Council in Selsey. West Sussex is being very supportive with this and she has already spoken with one of our schools. This could help inform and feed into the Youth Cabinet.
Lastly the Team on Selsey Town Council asked officers to look into the possibility of live streaming their Council meetings, which would, should they be able to do it, enable anyone to view the proceedings. STC were also pleased to give a grant to the RNLI, which they requested, to help with Lifeboat Week in August.
In WSCC news, the largest-ever local authority roll-out of electric vehicle (EV) charging points in the UK has started; a contract was signed last year with Connected Kerb to install and maintain thousands of charging points across the County. This should deliver better access to charging facilities, particularly to those without off-street parking. Work to keep children and young people out of the criminal justice system and reduce reoffending has been praised following an inspection in March 2022. Read more here.
You may have read that a Parish Council recently objected to cancer charity events over noise. There can be confusion about what our different Councils do. WSCC handle the big stuff like Education, Social Services, Fire and Highways; CDC Planning, Licensing and Refuse, but there is a crossover, e.g. WSCC runs the Amenity Tips (and would have withdrawn the Peninsula’s mobile service had STC and other parishes not stepped in financially.) Parishes are statutory consultees and often run halls and parks (on a small budget), e.g. STC’s maintenance team of two, oversees 17 acres of land and open spaces. It maintains all their buildings and play equipment; the latter has a daily inspection as well as an annual ROSPA one.
Hyper-local Groups like us, grow out of a feeling that our Towns/Parishes can be unfairly overshadowed. We should welcome Democracy for Chorley, the UK's newest and 350th local (Independent) registered political party.
The Electoral Commission advised us this week that the Elections Act 2022 will soon be enacted; we hope the tighter spending rules will help self-financing local Independents like ourselves. For transparency, we also welcome the requirement of the promoter’s name & address to be on all digital material - this will apply all year round, should someone wish to post something about a Registered Party.
The Love from Selsey pop-up shop, we helped make happen, is entering its second summer season and doing well. CDC’s Pop-Up Shop initiative is now welcoming applications from budding entrepreneurs and start-up businesses at any time throughout the year. People can apply to rent a council-owned shop in Crane Street, Chichester, for a minimum of four weeks and a maximum of eight weeks, giving them the chance to engage with customers and launch products and services. The retail unit costs £75 per week, plus VAT, which also covers rates and utility bills.
Over thirty East Wittering businesses have signed up for the ShopAppy service. CDC has partnered with ShopAppy to support local businesses and encourage people to shop locally. CDC is paying for local businesses to join the platform until March 2023, using a Government grant. ShopAppy has already launched in the Chichester District. Businesses are being encouraged to join the scheme; it gives them the chance to be part of a local business community, establish an online presence if they don’t already have one, and offer a range of services including ‘click and collect’ and home deliveries. We were pleased to see that Selsey’s own T and T Fruits, also known as The Fruit Basket at East Beach, is in the finals! Very best of luck to them.
The Novium Museum is 10 this July. On the 9th, historical characters will bring the museum to life throughout the day. Meanwhile on the 17th, CDC’s Summer Street Party is back, 10am to 4pm, showcasing city centre businesses as well as food and entertainment from across the District; it is being held in conjunction with the popular Cross Market & More.
The Art of Chichester: 60 Years of Creativity (a new exhibition at The Novium) will highlight the huge range of unrivalled cultural experiences that our District has to offer when it opens on 25 June, from its world class venues, including Chichester Festival Theatre, Pallant House Gallery and Chichester Cathedral, to smaller community groups and local creatives. It tells the story of Chichester’s arts, culture, and heritage from 1962 – when Chichester Festival Theatre opened – to the present day, embracing professional and amateur work across all art forms.
The exhibition, which is free to visit, will also highlight the success of Chichester’s novelists, poets and musicians, including Kate Mosse and Tom Odell. It will cover the award-winning Chichester Cinema at New Park and our District's many festivals, including the Festival of Chichester, and will explore how Goodwood House, West Dean College, the Weald & Downland Living Museum, and The Novium have transformed the notion of heritage in the 21st Century. It will include paintings on loan from Pallant House Gallery and Bishop Otter Collection, costumes from Chichester Festival Theatre, architectural models, maquettes, ceramics, publications, videos, and a Chichester-connected gallery soundtrack.
Finally: -
As always, from the whole Team, stay safe.
Tim
Comments
Post a Comment