Welcome to the Local Alliance Blog

We start thanking you once more for your interest in our blog, because of the comments, shares and likes after last week’s post. We are sure, like us, you wish the England team all the best, and the Welsh one too. We should also mention the USA team, as we have some readers across the pond. Coincidentally, England's Luke Shaw is a former student of my school so on Monday we had a rescheduled day, and over 2000 people watched their first match wherever they could settle in classrooms or corridors. In our recent posts we have been trailing local Festive events - by the time most of you read this, the lights will be on in our District's shopping centres (I see Petworth’s as I drive home.) With Christmas fast approaching, please let others know that WSCC’s Holiday Activity & Food Programme is back. Thousands of renting or homeowner households can get grants for boiler replacements under a little-known scheme - and you could save £840. If you are unsure about what an unheated r...

  Last week we also let you know that, from the beginning of December, the centre of Chichester will be ‘abuzz’ with festive cheer as CDC welcomes the return of the Christmas Market, and the week before there will be light-turning on events elsewhere too. Selsey’s Christmas Event is being organised by Selsey Community Events on November 26th funded largely by a grant from Selsey Town Council. The theme will be the Grinch - who will be visiting Selsey to cause mayhem! Hopefully Selsey’s children will find Christmas in time and the Grinch will ‘come round’ in the end!! Staying with children, last Saturday, Donna and I met our first grandchild, who I am humbled to report includes Timothy amongst his names.  On the business front, I had CDC’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday and a private briefing from CDC’s Senior Leadership while Donna and some of the Team met, once again, to work on Selsey Town Council's budget; it is the next Full CDC on Tuesday. And the Development ...

Whenever we can, we like to start by thanking you for taking an interest in our blog. This week we particularly wish to thank another Timothy who shared a memory of his father, in response to my sharing one of my memories of my paternal grandmother's family, heating bricks to keep themselves warm, over 100 years ago, which is what some people are doing  again to save on heating. We are noticing an increase in the number of housing and financially related residents’ issues being raised with us. Sadly we also hear concern locally that the hospitality industry (which is one of our District’s biggest ‘earners’) may suffer greatly from the effects of the current economic crisis, with venues potentially closing, or planned venues not being able to open. Clearly there is not very much consumer confidence at the moment. The news items we have to share, relating the cost of living crisis, are slightly more positive this week:  The UK has passed a milestone with over half of our electri...

We want to start this week by thanking the resident who got in touch via our Twitter account to discuss one of the petitions we shared last week. We also wish to apologise to any of you who feel, like another resident, that sharing support links is political: we are independent and not registered for Parliamentary elections, but we feel there is an onus on us to keep you informed of what is available, and you can decide what you read.  As I grew up my paternal grandmother told me her family heated bricks to keep themselves warm when she was a child. That would have been over 100 years ago. I learnt this week, that a lady in Nottinghamshire is doing the same by heating them (dry) in the oven as she cooks to save on heating: -  These are the ‘heat thieves’ the Express feels can significantly impact your energy bills. This is the Mirror's take on this.   This week's petition calls for people in financial hardship to not be prosecuted for not paying their TV licence during th...