Whoever they may be, it is their role to represent you and to assist as they can. But remember you too can do more than you may think. If you think you are too small to make a difference think of the experience of sleeping with a mosquito!
Charles Hendry MP was our key speaker at an Open Meeting last week – the hottest topic was local health service provision and the threatened downgrading of the Princess Royal. Charles’ points on this issue mirrored the concerns of local residents – operations cancelled ‘on the day’ for cost saving reasons, a lack of willingness to investigate and diagnose, people being encouraged to go home at 4 am when actually they had just had a stroke but it had not been investigated and detected. To support the PRH campaign go here http://www.supportprh.com/news.html Your district councillor can do no more than you can on this topic so I would urge you to write letters to the heads of the Primary Care Trusts. A clear issue is that we are East Sussex residents using a West Sussex PCT hospital so I would suggest you write to both.
Here is my statement to the meeting:
It has been a privilege to represent FR on the District Council for the past 4 years. It is a beautiful, vibrant, and very diverse area that of course is the village and also many outlying very rural areas. It has also been a steep learning curve to find out what the different layers of local government do and also how to lobby effectively within it. It has also been a frustration – at the extent to which locally elected bodies must dance to the
Central Govt tune of performance targets and funding allocations. My personal cause in the Council over the past 4 years has had a distinct environmental theme, reflecting my own interests, the interests of many in the village, and also touching the points that a District Council can actually have some say over – namely housing and waste. For some time I have been convinced that climate change is happening and this past year was delighted to be given the role of Council Sustainability Champion to raise the activity in this area. I am pleased to say that there has been a complete sea change in the council and more generally in public awareness over the past year particularly. Wealden is now starting to move fast in this area having spent some time rather tied up in a messy appeal against our previous local housing plan that was taken right up to the Court of Appeal by a disgruntled developer. The Council has taken some key steps to lay the foundations – though its budget and its officer structure – for some really good work on climate change that is already starting, the social housing team is busy working on renewable power projects for social housing in the district and on a Wealden tenants local food awareness project. The Council has signed up to a car sharing scheme and Climate change is already on the agenda for one of the key Scrutiny committees this June – as fact that will delight which ever FR candidates get in I imagine. For the next four years I would like to continue this agenda and ensure Wealden continues to lead in this area. I see Forest Row as a real seedbed of ideas, action and good practice that can be promoted and shared around the District. As well as building on our successes in environmental issues, I am fully aware of many of our communities concerns over issues ranging from anti-social behaviour to rural speeding and traffic volumes. If re-elected I will be campaigning hard for better provision for our young people, for example now that the rusting climbing frame has been removed from the Forrester’s Green area there is an opportunity to create a space for ball games here and I will working with the Parish Council to encourage this. I shall continue to lobby Sussex Police for a better police presence in the village and outlying areas. The cost and provision of housing in our village is a concern to many and I will continue to press for more affordable housing in general and as part of any developments that go ahead in the village. Overall I hope that people in Forest Row have found me a good representative of their very diverse views and a standard bearer of village causes such a GM and the relief road.I have enjoyed the past 4 years and hope that I will have the opportunity to continue as your representative for the next Council term – I would encourage you all to make sure you vote next Thursday and to encourage those around you to question, debate and vote Conservative.
