Chairman’s April Update
MEETINGS in April
Monday 11th. Planning Committee at Rye Harbour Village Hall at 6.15, followed by Finance Committee.
Monday 25th. Planning Committee in the Court Hall, Winchelsea, at 6.15.
Meeting cancellations. The meetings scheduled for 28th March were cancelled. Covid played its part as the Clerk, as well as some Councillors have caught it recently.
The Annual Parish Meeting which was scheduled for 4th April has been rearranged as the venue was not available. It is now due to take place in May.
Traffic Calming.
Council agreed the purchase of the data recorders, and these have been ordered. A working group has been set up to recommend where in the Parish these should be used after the survey in Winchelsea has been carried out and to manage the operation of the recorders. This does require some training, as well obtaining a licence from the Highway Authorities to install them within the highway boundaries. Every site will have to be agreed.
The Clerk has instructions to call a public meeting at the end of April to be attended by the Consultants and East Sussex Highways.
Winchelsea Beach Sewerage meeting.
The meeting took place as planned. I am not convinced that much was achieved. Southern Water remain convinced that the solution to the problem is to eliminate storm water and ground water from the system. Whilst that will undoubtedly improve things, I am not convinced it will resolve the problems of sewage arising in gardens. They are proposing to look at the impact on the loss of water courses over the past 50 years. This is an issue I raised about 4 years ago. The Internal Drainage Board Engineer investigated this at the time and reported that all the watercourses had disappeared long before any flooding problems manifested themselves in the area. His view was that loss of watercourses was not a factor.