Burgess Hill’s Helppoint is relaunched on its 25th anniversary

Burgess Hill Town Council’s Helppoint has been given a makeover to provide better facilities and an enhanced shop window for local small businesses by offering an affordable platform to sell and promote their products.  The Helppoint continues to provide help and information for residents and and surgeries, including for Council Tax and Housing Benefit, Jobcentre Plus and local councillors – see the website or phone 01444 247726 for more details.

Burgess Hill Town Council’s new look Help Point was officially unveiled on 13 November 2021 celebrating its 25th Anniversary of being open to the public.  Burgess Hill Town Council’s Mayor Anne Eves initiated the proceedings with a speech detailing the history of the Help Point; its working partnerships with Sussex Police and Job Centre Plus, alongside the addition of a public terminal computer and said that “this marks an exciting era for the Help Point.”

Leader of the Council, Robert Eggleston said “The Burgess Hill Help Point has been a great asset for the town for twenty-five years but we recognised that there was a changing pattern of usage and so we decided to broaden its scope by bringing in more technology to support resident’s needs and provide more help remotely. We also wanted to create a shop front for our many excellent local craft and artisan businesses to help them grow and prosper, as well as supporting the wider town centre economy.” 

Mid Sussex MP votes to abolish independent sleaze oversight

Our MP, Mims Davies backed a brazen move to abolish the independent system for combating sleaze in parliament last Wednesday, in order to protect a Conservative MP who was found to have repeatedly breached lobbying rules.  She claims it is because the current system does not work and lacks natural justice.   Yet she voted to let off an MP who had received over £100,000 in fees to lobby for Randox Laboratories and replace independent oversight with a committee of Conservative MP’s.  This was not even a considered policy change but a move to let a fellow Conservative MP off after he had been found guilty of repeatedly, lobbying officials and ministers on behalf of paying clients, something that is expressly forbidden, and is effectively corrupt practice.

The MP in question, Owen Paterson, was paid to lobby for a company that was awarded two Covid testing contracts last year worth nearly £480m without the normal competition and that failed to deliver on a contract that resulted in the recall of 750,000 unsafe testing kits.  The Government has yet to set out how they will claw back taxpayers’ money that was wasted on this.

As Liberal Democrat chief whip, Wendy Chamberlain, said: “This looks like a clear attempt to weaken independent scrutiny ahead of investigations into other damaging Tory sleaze scandals, from dodgy Covid contracts to the refurbishment of Boris Johnson’s flat. The Conservatives are trying to make parliament’s watchdog toothless so it can no longer properly hold them to account.”

After the vote Government ministers lined up to effectively threaten the standards commissioner with the sack for having the temerity to do her job, our local MP should be defending those who uphold the standards of public life not voting to change the rules to favour Conservative colleagues.  It is no coincidence that Boris Johnson has had multiple run-ins with the standards commissioner, with his failure to properly record paid for holidays, “donations” for redecoration, and other potential breaches of parliamentary standards.  This is just as much about protecting Boris Johnson and it seems Mims Davies is quite willing to put protecting her party before protecting democracy.

Council Asset Management Policy causes local community group to close

At yesterday’s District Council meeting I raised the plight of Sheddingdean Community Association which is being wound up due to the understandable reluctance of the charity to take on a full repairing lease from the Council to extend its lease of Sheddingdean Community Centre.  I hope a lesson has been learnt in its premature action which has meant the loss of a valuable local community group and left the Council managing the hall itself.  Hall users will need to contact the Council directly from 18th November to hire the hall, its current services, most notably the Windmills Opportunity Playgroup, are unaffected. I highlighted this last night when the Council agreed a Community Management and Asset Transfer Policy urging that full discretion be given to provide fairer leases to community groups.

I urged the Council to take a more proactive role in dealing with the extended gap between the Martlets Hall demolition site, and any development taking place, and Liberal Democrats highlighted the concern of Burgess Hill residents in the lack of action when it is the Council as freeholder ultimately responsible for New River Retail developing the site.

I also highlighted the complacency of the Conservative Council in trumpeting the “low” level of fly-tipping in Mid Sussex, despite the reported figures going up by 50% in the first six months of this year and the failure to investigate evidence provided to it, with officers finally being trained this month to issue fixed penalty notices seven years after the policy was agreed by the Council!

Homes England lacking ambition on meeting net zero

With international climate talks on the horizon and gas prices skyrocketing, it is important that new homes are built to proper standards of energy conservation that anticipate the move to net zero carbon over the next few decades.   This also means building in domestic energy generation such as solar panels and heat pumps.  It is therefore concerning, that whilst the involvement of Homes England has generally been positive in ensuring new infrastructure to support the new houses in the Northern Arc, there is a big negative in not requiring developers to build houses that incorporate proper levels of energy conservation and microgeneration.

Why is a government agency still building houses schemes without any onsite renewable energy generation or insisting on low carbon homes, for example by using heat pumps?   These could be built into new homes at a fraction of the cost of reengineering existing housing, yet Homes England is ignoring calls from councillors of all parties to step up its game.  Government announcements today of the phasing out of gas boilers by 2035 means new homes are being built with heating systems which will be redundant in a few years, and developers should be forced to ensure proper standards for energy conservation.

Mid Sussex District Council could also support this process, council’s do have some ability for force developers to take action, for example some local authorities require all new housing developments and new developments for other uses of 100sqm floorspace or more to generate 30 per cent of their operational energy requirements through decentralised, district heating and, renewable and low-carbon energy sources.

New park marks first stage in housing development

The new housing at the Freeks Lane site off Maple Drive continues to advance, and It’s great to see the Hawthorns Park has now reopened with a much wider range of play equipment plus the multipurpose play area behind it is also open.  The first of 460 housing units should be completed by next spring and work has nearly completed on the first bridge on the link road that will eventually lead to Isaacs Lane, across the brook at Lowlands Farm.

The new Hawthorns Park in full swing on Sunday after its official opening on Friday 15th October
New housing pictured looking north from Faulkners Way

Hawthorns Play Area finally to open

A reopening date for the Hawthorns Play Area has now been set for Friday 15th October, with the playground open to the public in the late afternoon. It is disappointing this is 12 weeks after the Council cancelled the previous opening date on 22nd July due to the developer Countryside Properties not having completed the work to the required standard. Residents have had to endure being able to view the play equipment all through the summer whilst waiting for issues with the ground condition and grass cover to be addressed. This has taken far too long, and I have received a commitment the Council will apply the learning from this debacle to aim to ensure it does not reoccur on future schemes.

Burgess Hill Pantry Official Opening

Great to be at the official opening of The Burgess Hill Pantry this morning, an initiative of Liberal Democrat controlled Burgess Hill Town Council to provide low-cost food for struggling families.  This is needed even more with rising prices and the threatened reduction of £20 in Universal Credit for six million families on benefit or in low paid work, this initiative provides healthy food and a breathing space for anyone in need.  Good to see the many volunteers and the ubiquitous support of Burgess Hill Lions in supporting the new charity.

For a weekly membership of £4, residents can choose a selection of food to the value of around £20, helping budgets stretch further. There’s a variety of food available including fresh fruit and veg, store cupboard favourites, bread and dairy products.  The Pantry is now open Tuesday & Thursday 10.00 am – 12.30 pm and 1.30 pm – 4.00 pm in the same shop unit at Scrapless.

Our planet is precious, we all need to help save it

Soaring temperatures worldwide, flash flooding and increasing numbers of wildfires. These are just a few ecological disasters we are seeing as a result of climate change. It is painfully obvious we must act. Locally we have seen extreme weather events such as with recent flooding.

We need to be ambitious. It is only by working with every single nation across the globe that we can hope to take on this challenge. Climate inaction is simply unacceptable. As president of COP 26, we should lead by example. The UK can lead the world in climate policy. We are hosting the UN Climate Conference (COP 26) in November 2021. We must lead the world to do what is required: limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. However, the Conservatives are delaying action on climate change.

They have failed to provide us with a plan to reach net zero emissions. We have watched as they have slashed incentives to switch to electric cars or upgrade homes for greater energy efficiency. Climate inaction is simply unacceptable. As president of COP 26, we should lead by example. Coming out of COP26, we want to see a major shift in energy consumption from fossil fuels to green alternatives.

Locally Mid Sussex District Council needs to lead the way and set its own targets for zero-carbon and to encourage and promote the adoption by businesses and residents of their own targets. We have a District Plan that allows developers to get away with minimal sustainable design requirements and build new houses and offices without targets to reduce carbon emissions or provide onsite renewable energy generation. We need more detailed planning guidance to require developers to estimate baseline energy demand and carbon dioxide emissions, and to commit to emission savings from energy efficiency measures and renewable energy micro-generation incorporated into the development.

At Liberal Democrat conference today, our members voted overwhelmingly in favour of protecting our planet. Here is what we want to do:
Lead with ambition and help all countries aspire to the 1.5 degrees limit for global warming
Keeping our 100bn a year pledge to low and middle-income countries to help with decarbonisation
Increase taxes and VAT on carbon-based activities such as first and business class flights. This will act as an incentive to switch to cleaner alternatives.
Introduce a protection and compensation package for those countries most likely to be worst affected by climate change.
Call for international agreements to phase out coal and protect our forests and work with the EU Carbon Trading System
Read our new policy on COP26
Read our new policy on Carbon Pricing
Using carbon has a price. We want to ensure that the price is fair to individuals and businesses and targets the biggest polluters.
We cannot continue as we are. The damage to our planet has already been done. We must all change our behaviour, change our economy and save our environment.

Burgess Hill electrical waste dumped on Wolstonbury Hill

The example pictured of fly tipping this week on a footpath leading to Wolstonbury Hill highlights the criminal activity of a small minority of contractors, in this case leaving delivery notes to two addresses in Burgess Hill.  However this also extends to those whose waste it is, everyone has a legal ‘duty of care’ to ensure their household or business waste is disposed of correctly. You could be prosecuted even if your waste is fly tipped by someone else on your behalf.  Most people act responsibly but remember fly tipping can be classed as any instance of leaving unwanted items e.g.: beside street bins and recycling banks, in communal bin areas, outside closed recycling centres and charity shops, as well as on roads, paths and in the countryside.

If it is on public land the Council will take action to remove but often it can be the landowners themselves who are left to pick up the bill of removing, and local wildlife and farm animals put in danger from dumped rubbish.

Everyone has a legal ‘duty of care’ to ensure household or business waste is disposed of correctly. You can be prosecuted even if your waste is fly tipped by someone else on your behalf.  Most people act responsibly but remember fly tipping can be classed as leaving items: beside street bins and recycling banks on the floor of communal bin areas, outside closed recycling centres and charity shops, on roads, paths and in the countryside.

What can we do

Suspect all waste carriers – don’t let them take your rubbish until they provide proof of registration and note their vehicle’s registration plate. This also applies to building and electrical contractors who take away their own waste.

Check that a waste carrier is registered on the Environment Agency’s website.

Refuse any unexpected offers to have your rubbish taken away.

Ask how your rubbish will be disposed of – seek evidence of this.

Paperwork must be obtained – a proper invoice, waste transfer note or receipt, including a description of the waste being removed and the waste carrier’s contact details.

Further delay opening Hawthorns Play Area

Frustratingly slow progress on opening the Hawthorns play area, an inspection took place yesterday but there were still additional items that needed addressing including ensuring the ground is level across all the site, remedying dips and holes and “undulations” which are potential trip hazards, particularly between the play area and the sports pitch, and reseeding specific areas where the grass has failed or where there are weed infestations, I have been promised that a further inspection will take place early next week to check these have been resolved. Unfortunately, local residents are stuck between a housing developer who is not expert at grounds maintenance and the Council which wants to ensure the play area is transferred to its ownership fully operational without any health and safety issues.