By the time you read this I hope you will have enjoyed Christmas and looking forward to a good 2025. I wish you all what you wish for yourselves.
Weather & Highways Preparation: Winter is such a busy time for County. You need to be prepared for every eventuality and especially the changes in our unpredictable weather patterns. Most of you will have witnessed the very high winds and the rain falling on our very soaked land. It’s sort of a nightmare scenario isn’t it. We have the rain and of course we need water but then it arrives and never knows when to stop so the already sodden land then causes somewhere to flood and so it goes on. I can only hope that everyone comes through it all safely. I know that County Highways is prepared should we get very cold or even snowy weather. The Gritters have already been used and are ready as soon as the frost or indeed the snow should arrive plus of course all the Parish and Town Councils have their winter Plans in place. We all need to be aware though.
Village Lunches: One of my pleasures being the County Councillor is attending village Lunches. Always good and by no means expensive it give me the opportunity to meet others in the villages and something that I really enjoy. Usually my husband comes with me and he as a local man also meets a lot of friends from times when he played Football etc and indeed when we all went to School together.
County Fire and Rescue Service: had an excellent report from His Majesty’s Inspectorate which is so gratifying as we had some improvements to make when they first came about 5 years ago and gave us a list of improvements all of which have been achieved. One area we find difficult to achieve is retained Firefighters. Please if you know any in your area that would be keen to look into the possibility of being a retained Firefighter encourage them to check this out on the County web site. One of the things that we caught up with and have now added to is home visits for safety issues. These have been very successful and they have visited several thousand homes to check them out and advise. This is even more important now as many of the older generation want to stay in their own homes which is one of our Adult Service objectives to try and help them do just that. This of course means more in depth visits to the house or accommodation of residents to try and make their homes as safe as possible. I think this is invaluable and speaking personally I would like nothing better than to spend my life in the house I now occupy and many others do as well.
Children’s Services: What a difference some 5 years have also made. Our children’s homes have all reached a very high standard after being inspected which is excellent. We try and look after our children in Care until they are 25 although by this age they are out into the World and will hopefully have employment and a roof over their head but it has to be faced that some do need more help and we are there to give it.
Report Concerns: A busy time with the winter weather but we do try and get on top of things as mentioned but please if you have a County problem with roads or indeed anything contact me. I will put my details at the bottom of this note.
South Downs National Park: has a new Chief Executive who has hit the ground running so to speak and I am sure you realise that it’s a big area to get to know from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east. Sitting on the Planning committee I have the privilege of getting to know parts of Sussex and Hampshire that I didn’t know at all well and have really been to some lovely areas.
Accessibility: What a wonderful part of the World we have here and I am always asking that we work to make it accessible to all which includes those who are not able to walk far and use either Scooters or Wheelchairs. This is not as easy as it sounds because to, for instance, remove a Stile and replace with an accessible gate you have to have the co-operation of landowners to agree to changes on their land. Most are amenable and others just take a bit more persuasion but I am sure we will make it better in the future. We will be trying that’s for sure.
South Downs National Park Trust: While talking National Park, I sit on an arms length organisation called the South Downs National Park Trust and we raise funds to be used to make improvements in the Park that meet the National Park Purposes, for instance we have refurbished Dew Ponds and have others in the pipe line to do. The reason I mention this here is that there is a fund for litter picking. You do not have to be a Parish or Town Council, an individual who is organising litter picking can apply for this grant for equipment but the advantage of a Town or Parish Council applying is that the Grant is slightly bigger for them than for an individual. We have some excellent litter picking especially in the Petworth and Tillington areas and I know other Parishes have litter picking on a fairly regular basis but there are others who are happy to litter pick in their Parish so good to go for a Grant for some helpful equipment.
As ever, please contact me if you think I can help with a County issue it’s 07979 152898 or janet.duncton@westsussex.gov.uk
Janet Duncton,
County Councillor Petworth division, WSCC representative on South Downs National Park