Goose eggs from todays Burgess Hill town market, Sussex Wild Food Co, now I just need to find a recipe “take one goose egg…”!
Take one goose egg …
Freeks Lane tidy up
Its good to see resident efforts to tidy up Freeks Lane, Liberal Democrat candidate Stuart Condie and myself took some time off from County Council election campaigning to clear up some plastic netting which was apparently left by contractors several years ago and become intertwined with vegetation, so we put some time into removing it this morning. Where possible we would prefer to hold the relevant authority to account but given the time that has passed this is not always possible.
Liberal Democrats campaigning for local people
Local elections for County Councillors and the Police Commissioner are on 6th May, the deadline for postal votes is 5pm – 11 working days before the day of the election – see the MSDC website.
All play areas are back open but did they have to close at all?
It’s excellent news to hear that all our playgrounds are reopening but why did Mid Sussex District Council interpret government guidelines so differently to their colleagues in Horsham? Does cleaning playgrounds once a week really make them Covid secure? Did they need to be kept shut in the first place, and was £44,000 wasted on extra cleaning costs?
Freedom of Information requests submitted to Mid Sussex District Council and Horsham District Council have revealed two starkly different approaches to ensuring children’s playgrounds were ‘covid secure’ when Government advice allowed them to be reopened following the end of the first lockdown in July 2020.
Horsham District Council reopened all fifty-two of its play areas last summer, spent no money on additional cleaning, and just £100 on signage.a Other councils have taken a similar approach.
Mid Sussex District Council decided upon a very different course of action. In the response to the Freedom of Information request they say, “We undertook an initial cleanse prior to opening each facility in July 2020, and since then have carried out a weekly cleanse of all play areas and outdoor gyms that have re-opened. In addition, we have purchased and installed permanent A3-sized signage at each entrance point, providing guidance on social distancing, hand hygiene and the safe use of the facilities.”b The cost of this up to the week commencing 25 January 2021 was £44,152. When asked how those costs were arrived at, Mid Sussex District Council responded, “The costs were obtained from the Council’s existing cleansing contractor, so were based on a commercial assessment of the operational requirements associated with a weekly deep clean.” b
However, Mid Sussex District Council only opened 57 of its 123 play areas last summer despite Liberal Democrats raising concerns about the impact of keeping so many closed, and stated on its website that it would be too expensive to open them all stating that it would cost more than £220,000 a year to clean them regularly to ensure that they are COVID safe. A weekly cleaning regime was not required, as demonstrated by the approach of Horsham District Council and other local authorities. In addition there is no evidence that this is more effective in reducing coronavirus transmission than no cleaning regime given the number of people who would use the playgrounds between cleans.
Play Charity, Play England wrote to all local authorities in England in January 2021 asked that all playgrounds remain open “to reduce the catastrophic impact of COVID and lockdown on children’s physical and mental health and wellbeing”.c Their letter also highlighted the impact of playground closures on the most disadvantaged children – those with limited space at home, no access to a garden or disabled children – to which access to these playgrounds are “often a lifeline”. Mid Sussex District Council failed to carry out an equality impact assessment to understand the impact of their decision to close play areas on the children in our community.
Residents in Burgess Hill have been especially hard hit by Mid Sussex District Council’s decision to keep over half of its playgrounds closed. When the location of the closed playgrounds is plotted on to a mapd, it is clear that the playgrounds in Burgess Hill were much more likely to be kept shut with 79% shut in Burgess Hill, 50% shut Haywards Heath, 36% shut in East Grinstead and 19% shut in the outlying villages.
Could you become a local councillor?
In local government Liberal Democrats are working hard for local people, standing up for our communities and making sure everyone knows the difference the Lib Dems can make. As Lib Dem councillors we are proud to serve our communities and set high standards for ourselves. We are part of shaping the future of our communities, villages, towns and cities. We also are hugely important in supporting and upholding the principles of liberal democracy in action. Local government is undergoing huge changes and challenges. It is more important than ever that Lib Dems are there to remind everyone that local government is there for local people. Representing local people and campaigning with them is what we do best.
You may already be a campaigner, community activist, involved in your local church or mosque, or a local school governor. You might help to deliver leaflets or organising events. If so, you already have a great basis for taking up public office and becoming a Lib Dem councillor. But ultimately, if you really care about your area, and want work to make it the best place it can be, becoming a Lib Dem councillor could be for you.
In our area there are three tiers of local authority – county, district and town or parish. Each has different responsibilities, West Sussex County Council is social care, highways (so pot holes), education, children and families, libraries, etc. Download the free West Sussex app from your app store to report potholes and other problems. If you browse the relevant council websites, review committee papers and minutes all available on line, scrutiny and planning meetings, details of planning applications are online at Mid Sussex Council – for major planning applications the design and access statement and submissions from interested parties. Mid Sussex District Council is responsible for planning, refuse collection, housing, leisure; and Burgess Hill Town Council supports our local community, the town centre, allotments and the burial ground.
The current 2021 elections are for the County Council so prospective candidates have already been selected. An allowance is paid to councillors so this should be treated as a part time job, much of the work is flexible other than attendance at council meetings (although you have a statutory right for your employer to give you time off) but the responsibility is as much putting forward the views of your area, dealing with casework and representing the council. Before you become a councillor you need to become a campaigner, there is much you can do as a concerned member of the public, sign up for the appropriate council newsletter, respond to consultation exercises, planning applications and report issues with specific potholes and other issues directly to the council as well as raising these with elected member.
To become a councillor, you need to be elected, usually as a member of a political party, although possibly as an independent but as a councillor you should be part of a network so acting alone makes it significantly harder. There will also be opportunities over the next two years to become a town councillor or district councillor. Joining a political party will give you the opportunity to become involved in campaigning and to speak in more detail to local councillors. Each party will have a support network for campaigners and councillors, for example https://www.aldc.org/ .
Becoming a local councillor:
Central and South Mid Sussex County Local Committee – a local committee of West Sussex County Council:
Mid Sussex District Council – details of meetings
Burgess Hill Town Council
Sussex Police Commissioner – time for change
Elections for the Sussex police and crime commissioner take place in May and Liberal Democrats candidate Jamie Bennett, a councillor on Arun District Council, is the Lib Dems’ candidate for the election. Mr Bennett said, “I want to bring back community policing, get drugs off our streets by cutting County Lines and deliver a fairer deal for Sussex.
Cllr Jamie Bennett (centre left)
“Theresa May’s failed police and crime commissioner experiment has been a disaster for Sussex policing. We have seen the police force’s share of our council tax bills rocket, yet we have nothing to show for our money but rising crime, more drugs and fewer police on our streets.
“As a Lib Dem councillor in Arun, I have seen at first hand the impact of withdrawing community policing and increasing lawlessness on our streets. These have been exacerbated by Conservative cuts to youth services, mental health and road safety at West Sussex County Council.”
It is particularly important we have a change of commissioner when we have seen ongoing above inflation council tax increases to pay for the service culminating in this year’s 7.5% increase – local residents are being left to pick up the bill of the current commissioner’s excesses.
A sustainable economic growth strategy?
Tonight ’s scrutiny meeting focused on Mid Sussex District Council’s sustainability strategy or rather the sustainable economic strategy, as it wishes to merge economic strategy with its sustainability strategy. It will be challenging to ensure that economic issues do not dominate – I still have my doubts about combining these targets given the different and sometimes conflicting aims – the details now need to be gone through by a working party.
I was pleased to see the Council take on my suggestion of getting environmental issues explicitly considered when the council makes a formal decision, in terms of a section on any relevant report to outline environmental considerations. However, the existing Council policy of carbon neutral by 2050 is somewhat unambitious, particularly as West Sussex County Council has committed to being carbon neutral by 2030, and my original attempt to get a similar commitment from the District Council in 2019 was not supported by the Conservative administration.
The Coronavirus has had an impact across all council services including recycling and I highlighted the Council’s current performance on the percentage of domestic waste going to recycling, this has fallen back slightly to 42% when comparing with the target in its strategy of 50% by 2020 and a national average of 45%. More time spent at home and charity shop closures have perhaps meant more rubbish being generated. However, the Council has languished at near this rate for several years so further work needs to be done to promote reuse and recycling.
That is not to deny that positives such as the small electrical waste collection on the same day as the refuse collection, and the possibility of an expansion to include textile recycling would be a good addition, as well as a separate food waste collection, which was timetabled for a pilot to begin last year, but delayed due to the pandemic. However, there may also be painful decisions to reduce the frequency of refuse collections if the council is to find savings to finance the current gap in its income, although these have not been muted yet.
Unfair Council Tax needs reform
Mid Sussex District Council tonight agreed a budget which means total council tax for the average band D tax payer is increasing by 4.9% or £92, and is now over £2,000 for some parishes in Mid Sussex! However most of this is levied by the County Council and Police Authority and the element for Liberal Democrat controlled Burgess Hill Town Council did not increase at all.
Whilst I support the District Council precept this year as Covid has put big holes in the budget, particularly relating to the cost of our leisure centres, where it agreed to use £500,000 from reserves to pay towards a shortfall in running costs, the Council’s share comprises just 9% of the total precept, but the total cost levied by all authorities is equivalent to a third of what the average employed person living in Mid Sussex pays in income tax.
I put forward an amendment to highlight the gross unfairness of Council Tax and the need for reform, and to urge the leader of the Council to write to the government making the case for reform.
Unfortunately the Conservatives voted against it despite their national so called levelling up agenda and it was defeated.
Low earners pay a much greater proportion of their income as council tax which can often be more than they pay in income tax yet not necessarily qualify for any discount – although you should always check your entitlement for council tax benefit if you are on low income or for the various discounts that exist. It is also possible to request payment over 12 months rather than the standard 10
Council tax bands in England are still based on property values in 1991 –30 years ago. Since then the average house price in the South East has risen by over five times. The most valuable property (band H) attracts just three times as much tax as the least valuable, despite being worth at least eight times as much. Because there is no further increment after H, a person in a £600,000 house pays the same as a person in a £5 million house.
There are growing disparities between those who have maintained their incomes during lockdown, and those less fortunate who have suffered financially or are in the squeezed middle or “not quite poor” who don’t qualify for any benefit. It is younger people, those who are just starting out that it hits the hardest, paying a much greater proportion of their income.
The unfairness will only continue to get worse as time elapses, solutions such as revaluation, adding more tiers at the higher end or replacing with a more progressive tax system are all viable options. Yet for Mid Sussex Conservatives their main objection to the proposal was encapsulated by Cllr Webster – “on the clear basis of fairness I can’t support this at all”!
All Mid Sussex play areas to reopen
Following Liberal Democrat pressure to ensure all play areas were reopened, I am pleased the Council has now announced it will be reopening all playgrounds from 29 March. In the light of the government announcing its roadmap out of lockdown the Council has now committed to reopening all play areas, outdoor gyms, skate parks and ball courts from this date. Further they plan to reopen the Council’s three leisure centres- initially for individual exercise (including gym and swimming) from 12 April, before phasing in group exercise in line with the government’s roadmap. The Council had previously claimed it would cost £212,000 to provide additional cleaning resources to enable them to open all play areas in order to justify their previous decision to only keep half open during the lockdown.
New pathway means no more wet feet!
The paved pathways at West Park Nature Reserve are now open for use, albeit without markings to separate pedestrians from cyclists which have still to be added, but it represents a welcome all weather route between Malthouse Lane and the Rugby Club (particularly remembering the last time I walked the route and came away with soaked ankles!) . Walking locally has taken on a new context in the last year, and whilst covering any of our woodlands with tarmac should never be taken lightly, the level of use of these routes demands it, particularly as it confines users to the path as opposed to any ever widening muddy trail that it replaces. The improvements are part of the Place and Connectivity Programme putting in a number of new pathways or enhancements around the town, not least the new pathway from St Wilfrids Road to Wivelsfield Station where work started this week.