November 17, 2023

This week King Charles turned 75. I have quite a unique memory of him from nearly 40 years ago, when he nearly unintentionally ended my days. At the time I was keeping the public address systems working on the polo fields of the Cowdray Estate in Midhurst. On one occasion I was walking round the grounds when he was playing in a match. Without thinking, I walked across the entrance to the area where his team changed their ponies just as he came riding out at extremely high speed. Luckily for me, not only are polo ponies very quick to accelerate, it turned out they can stop very quickly too. 

We are pleased to report that our Green colleague Sarah's husband has been moved back from Southampton to St Richard's. As she recently shared, he is still very unwell but talking a lot more. 

WSCC is reminding men, as it’s #Movember, about abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) which is a swelling in the aorta, the artery that carries blood from the heart to the tummy (abdomen). Most aneurysms do not cause any problems, but they can be serious because there's a risk they could burst (rupture) and have shared this film. 

Next weekend sees several Christmas events across our District as civic lights are turned on: for instance, in Selsey it is the Friends of East Beach event, from 3pm to 6pm with Santa, at least one elf 'helper' and a pair of well known Disney princesses taking part. 

As part of the countdown to Christmas, WSCC has shared tips to reduce festive waste: -

• Start with a list to prevent panic buying more than you intended: before you start Christmas shopping ask your loved ones what they would like or need.

• Shop second-hand: it’s cheaper, better for the planet and saves you money.

• Make your own presents: perhaps you could bake sweet treats or make stockings from leftover materials.

• Wrap low waste: use scarves or cloth (these can then be reused!), make gift boxes out of old cards and give gifts in reusable bags.

• If you have old Christmas cards from last year, use them as gift tags: cut out the picture, write on the back and stick it down.

• When planning a party, ditch the disposables: avoid disposal cups, plates, and cutlery in favour of reusable alternatives when you can.

• Reduce your food waste: get creative with leftovers and think before you buy particular foods for the festive season.

• Recycle all you can! – make sure you are recycling all the items that can br, either at home or via other means such as participating supermarkets.

• Plan your Christmas clear out: use Recycling Centres and other collections available to you at the kerbside to dispose  of everything safely and correctly.

Meanwhile CDC will be offering a free third hour if you buy two in all their car parks (except Avenue De Chartres and Westgate) during weekends in December when using the MiPermit app: Avenue de Chartres is free on Sundays during December. There is also the Chichester Christmas Cheer market on 9, 10, 16 and 17 December, bringing an array of festive stands to North and East Street in the city. 

The regular Chichester Farmers’ Markets in East Street, the city centre Wednesday markets, and the Saturday traders markets held in the Cattle Market car park, will continue to take place in the run up to Christmas. The Farmers’ Markets will be taking place on 1 and 15 December.

There will also be the chance to turn the Priory Park Guildhall in Chichester into a winter wonderland, with two Get Creative! days in the Guildhall in December organised by Culture Spark. Running on 9 and 16 December from 10am until 4pm, the two days consist of art and craft workshops where people can make origami butterflies, icicles out of recycled milk bottles, and design their own picture frames cards or baubles. 

Once again, to help encourage people to support local businesses in our District, CDC has created personalised gift tags and wrapping paper designs for the city and our towns..

CDC is also consulting on a series of amendments to parking charges which, if approved, will come into force from 1 April 2024. The proposals include increasing existing pay and display tariffs by the current rate of inflation – 6.7% with some local variation. Season tickets will also be increased by the same amount. In the city centre’s long stay car parks, the current Sunday flat rate would be changed to reflect the Monday to Saturday tariff. The charging period for the city’s short stay car parks would also be extended from 6pm to 8pm while Sunday charging will be introduced to CDC’s rural car parks. 

Last week, Mike, Ali, Ian, Andrew, Donna and I had a further STC Finance and Administration meeting after an Extraordinary Planning Committee. This week is the next CDC Budget Review Group for me, a further STC Finance and Administration meeting and Donna and Steve will be at the CDC Planning Committee which includes one application from Bracklesham (that has been in the news) and two from Selsey so please watch it live 

CDC and WSCC are asking you to ‘Think Before You Throw’. Very little material that’s collected as general waste in our District is sent to landfill — in fact, the landfill rate for the whole of West Sussex is just 7%. If you’re ever unsure about what you can and cannot recycle, there’s a searchable A-Z checklist online. You can also learn more using the CDC app. The free trial service CDC launched in 2021 to collect and recycle residents’ unwanted textiles, small electrical items and used coffee pods covers around 75% of households and so far their teams have carried out 30,000 collections and collected 39 tonnes of material — including 2.2 million coffee pods! Waste and recycling collections will change slightly over the festive period. Through the app, you can also sign up for weekly reminders on when to put your bins out; get notified if waste and recycling crews are delayed or if there are any planned changes to collections; and find out what waste should go in which bin. CDC has teamed up with St Wilfrid’s Hospice again to offer a Christmas Tree Recycling scheme: https://stwh.co.uk/events/treecycle-2024. If you sign up, volunteers will collect your real Christmas tree and recycle it for you in January 2024, in return for a donation to the hospice.

If you are interested in matters of an environmental nature, you may like to read this article about a new material that may make more efficient solar panels. It may help lower our bills in future, but if you are in receipt of particular benefits you might be able to get help with your broadband bill now. It can be hard to imagine life without the internet. It has proven to be a great and a not so great thing; to help, the Digital Stories series is now live on YouTube. We have mentioned Deepfakes before, which are becoming more topical: they are a form of AI which helps create images or videos of fake events, and are increasingly common. A recent example was an advert on TikTok which appeared to show popular content-creator “MrBeast” giving away the latest iPhone for only $2 to the first 10,000 people. This video was a fake, and shortly after it went live the real MrBeast posted a video warning people about the ad. To hear more about this, and find out how to avoid being scammed by AI, you can listen to this podcast.

We have previously mentioned the return of a Victorian illness, now one prevalent in the 1950s is also making a comeback, Measles. Helpfully, the same regional newspaper that shared an interactive map of Tuberculosis, has shared an interactive one of Measles too.

Sadly, the state of our housing could be resulting in thousands of babies and toddlers falling sick (due to damp) an NHS doctor has warned. 

Finally: - 

• Free digital business tools training

• Report potholes to WSCC

• Housing Health & Safety

• Warmer Homes UK

• Suicide in Sussex

• Domestic Abuse

• Supporting You

• WSCC Meetings

• CDC Meetings

As always, from the whole Team, stay safe.

Tim