Merry Christmas to residents from Wealden District Council

Leader of the council and Alliance for Wealden (Green Party) councillor Rachel Millward and chief executive Trevor Scott have also highlighted the work and achievements of the authority over the last 12 months.

Councillor Millward says: “We could almost tell the Christmas story through council departments: the homelessness prevention team, the refugee support, even our tax collection teams all have a part to play in our nativity.  So as this council’s 50^th birthday year draws to a close, I’d like to thank all the brilliant and dedicated staff who work tirelessly for our communities, and all our councillors too. Together we have made this an extra special year.

“We are committed to our mission to make Wealden greener, fairer and kinder for all. The wellbeing of our communities is a central priority: work has begun on the state of the art £16million Community Sports Hub, money from the government’s UK Shared Prosperity Funding has been invested on the Cuckoo Trail and hundreds of thousands of pounds in council cash has helped deliver improved sporting and play pitch facilities from Crowborough in the north to Hailsham in the south.”

This year has also seen D-Day veterans honoured at an 80^th anniversary event, and Wealden council has been at the forefront of holding Southern Water to account for the poor quality of our waterways and coastline.

Councillor Rachel Millward said, “I am so very proud of the achievements the Alliance for Wealden has made in our objective to make Wealden the place where people and nature thrive together.

“In terms of protecting our environment and leading the district towards carbon neutrality, we have made great progress with 52.3% of household waste collected being reused, recycled or composted; 21 community groups have been awarded grant funding for more improvements to green spaces and active travel to reduce carbon footprint and improve accessibility.

“Retrofit work to our council homes has saved 131.5 tonnes of carbon and the council has saved a total of 56.9 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent from generating renewable energy from its assets. We have also installed a further 177 solar PV systems.

“We have delivered more than 300 new affordable homes across Wealden, seen a substantial increase in EV charging points and our waste fleet of vehicles now runs on HVO which has reduced our carbon footprint by 90 per cent.”

Trevor Scott said, “This has been an incredible year in which the council has continued to deliver top quality services to our residents and businesses across the district.

“We held nine public exhibitions as part of our Local Plan Regulation 18 Consultation across the district including in our five major towns – Uckfield, Hailsham, Crowborough, Polegate and Heathfield and more than 1,200 people attended.  We had 4,437 views of the Virtual exhibition and received 12,295 comments from 1,500 organisations and members of the public.

“We have also built strong, mutually supporting communities which are actively engaged in their own future. More than 630,000 people use our leisure centres, 557 households have been rehoused into council or housing association homes, and more than 1,000 people have been helped through the outreach work sessions by the Eastbourne DWP office in our Reception in six months.

“We continue to support a growing economy which enables people to live well – £567,000 in rural business grants has been allocated; 31 businesses received rural business grants, and we also saw the launch of a new wine trail featuring 12 vineyards in the district featuring eight award winning wines produced in Wealden.

“In addition, more than £10 million of council spend has been with local businesses and we have collected £14million in Community Infrastructure Levy money – to support infrastructure across the district.”

“It really has been a remarkable year for us here at the council and it just remains for me to wish all of our residents a very happy Christmas and a healthy and prosperous new year.”