As mentioned both the County Council and South Downs National Park are looking to recruit new Chief Executives and at County we also have to recruit a new Finance Director as the brilliant one we had has obtained a brilliant position with a London Borough and we are very sorry to see her depart.
She left no stone unturned to see that we produced a balanced budget and with her working with the Cabinet Member and indeed all the West Sussex Staff a balanced budget has been produced with no cuts to our services and because of a late extra grant from Central Government we do not have to touch reserves either which we are always very loathe to do unless we can see that they will be replenished. However this new influx of finance from Government has meant that we do not have to touch reserves and our budget will balance without.
It gets more and more difficult with as you know many demands on our finances the biggest of which are Adult Services and Young Persons Services including children in care and SEND education and many other factors. Still we’ve made it again for the 2024/25 Council Plan and Budget plus of course our Capital Strategy.
As ever I have been busy at the National Park and mainly with planning issues. You will know the Park stretches from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east and I seem to have spent a lot of time on site visits which take a whole day in places like Beachy Head and Lewes and although undeniably interesting it does involve a lot of time and travel but my goodness I’ve found out a lot about the County I was born and bred in over the last few years and I have to say visited some parishes that I didn’t know existed before.
It may take a lot of my time but it’s very interesting and leaves you in no doubt that we live in a wonderful part of the country and yes there are lots of other wonderful places to visit but they are all different and exciting. I just love it.
Sadly the weather has not let us complete all the projects on highways etc that we would like. No sooner do you get a road or right of way cleared than another rainfall comes along and more trees come down and roads flood making it sometimes difficult for people to move around as they would like.
I can assure all residents that as soon as I am aware of any problems I report them to the appropriate departments and as you can imagine with 70 of us councillors trying to get help in our divisions when problems arise they don’t all get attended to immediately but we are trying.
Some of our village schools need help and their finance is tight. Loxwood at the moment is particularly in need of assistance which we are all working hard to help with and I am hoping to get some good news by the time you get this magazine but I can’t give any details as yet but my goodness they do need some help.
It has been said why can’t CIL (community infrastructure levy) or S106 money be used to help. This money comes with development but unfortunately some of the items that are required do not meet the requirements for either of these pots of money. However I am not unhopeful that we can find a solution because we have got some great schools in the rural villages I represent.
It was said at a meeting recently that a local town looking at a possible influx of 1000 houses would enable them to get a secondary school. This is absolutely not the case and even if there was a chosen site it would need many more than 1000 houses to even touch what the cost of building a new secondary school would be. A close eye is kept by departments on the amount of development around the County so they know when and if they need to look at developing a new school which of course would most likely have to be an Academy as County is not allowed to build a new school only carry out developments on the sites they already maintain. Governments expect Academies to build new and Counties have a say but don’t do the build or ownership.
March and Spring are with you by this time and I really do hope we can look forward to better weather when we can all really enjoy this beautiful part of the world. I for one am fed up with being constantly rained on.
Take care especially if driving in bad weather conditions and flood.
As ever if you need to contact me it’s janet.duncton@westsussex.gov.uk or my mobile 07979 152898.
Janet Duncton, County Councillor Petworth division
Janet Duncton
County Councillor Petworth division