A belated Happy Sussex Day to everyone who might have missed our extended County’s special day on Wednesday. As has now become a tradition for an event which has only become a tradition since it was invented in 2007 a group of Sussex MPs met up on the House of Commons Terrace, the Martlets flag was unfurled, the Sussex Charter read out and a feeble attempt at a few tuneless verses of Sussex by the Sea disturbed the innocent bystanders.
Not that the House of Commons Terrace Bar was open, but we could well have also been drowning our sorrows with the disappointing news that the end of lockdown has been delayed until July 19th. I know from the ‘Bouncing Back from COVID’ business event I organised on Friday that the hospitality industry needed this like a hole in the headed, added to which they have been struggling to return to some degree of normality because of recruitment challenges.
Staff from the excellent Worthing DWP office together with Employment Minister Mims Davies were on hand to detail some of the useful support services now available including a concentration of matching up job opportunities for young people, as well as Kick Start and creative flexible working schemes. I am also pleased that they are organising a specific event for local hospitality businesses and I have offered to work with them on local Jobs Fair as well.
One attempt at business as normal came on Friday afternoon when I visited my first care home since the first lockdown, on the inside. New councillor Tania Edwards and I were given a very warm welcome by the staff and residents at Kingsland House Residential Home in Shoreham and it was really encouraging to see other family visitors there at last and the steps they have taken to enable that and to keep the residents linked to the outside world.
It was also good to join a virtual meeting of the newly formed Broadwater Village Traders Association and to discuss some opening up events they want to lay on to get more people back into Worthing’s original village and using local traders and services. Watch this space.
We will also be getting back to normal in Southwick this Saturday with the restart of our street surgeries in Southwick Square. I will be there from 10.30am with our local councillors and one of the things I am sure local people will want to discuss is the unauthorised encampment which appeared on Southwick Green last Thursday. Particular thanks to Adur Council officers and Cabinet Member Councillor Emma Evans who acted so swiftly and were able to get the police to issue a Section 61 Notice meaning they departed the site within 24 hours, and just in time to allow the Cricket Academy for youngsters go ahead in the glorious weather.
