Author: Andrew Taylor

TOWN Mayor John Saull will be attending the following events in September:

September 4: Cllr Rex Whittaker, the Council’s representative on the East Grinstead Business Association, will stand in for the mayor at a Fashion Show being put on at Sackville College by the shop Wear It Again in aid of College funds.

September 8: The Mayor will open the Forest Garden (Ecotourism) project at Shovelstrode (see below for more details).

September 9: There will be a concert in aid of Help for Heroes by Champagne Supernova at Chequer Mead. Deputy Mayor Liz Bennett will also attend.

September 10: The Mayor will be at Blacklands Farm camp site with the East Grinstead Beaver Scouts celebrating 25 years of Beaver Scouting, when they will plant 25 trees.

September 11: The Mayor and Mayoress will attend the Soroptimists President’s Lunch at Apsley Grange, which this year is promoting Fair Trade.

September 16: The East Grinstead Music & Arts Festival will hold their AGM and Cheese & Wine evening in the Meridian Hall which will be attended by the Mayor in his role as their President for the year.

September 23: He will attend the presentation by the Lord Lieutenant to East Grinstead Museum of the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service

September 24: The Mayor will be the guest of the new Mayor of Burgess Hill at a bonfire procession and celebrations.

September 26: The Access Group will hold their AGM in the Cranston Suite at East Court when the Mayor will present their annual Burrin Awards to local businesses and other establishments which give good service to those with disabilities.

September 27: Concorde Evening with a talk by the Mayor and his colleague Capt Hutchinson with anecdotes on flying Concorde. There will be a raffle, with some Concorde themed prizes, and guests will be asked to contribute to a collection bucket as they leave for the Mayor’s charities, the Guinea Pig Club and St Catherine’s Hospice.

September 29: The Mayor will present prizes for the EG4KIDZ project which ran throughout the summer holidays at the town library.

September 30: He ends the month at the Meridian Hall where the Ashdown Ramblers will celebrate their 50th anniversary.

THE following councillors will be available at the town library in West Street between 10am and noon, to meet local residents and offer advice.

• September 3: Cllrs Bob Mainstone and Jackie Beckford
• September 10: Cllrs Ben Burns and Garry Sillitoe
• September 17: Cllrs Bob Mainstone and Jackie Beckford
• September 24: Cllrs Tony Scott and Danny Favor

THE Forest Garden at Shovelstrode, which Town Mayor John Saull will open officially on 8 September, is the brainchild of Lisa Aitken, a keen horticulturalist, and Charles Hooper, an experienced landscape designer, who share a passion for sustainable living.

Charles Hooper appeared last year in the TV series Mastercrafts where he honed his woodland skills learning to work with greenwood.

The Shovelstrode project is an inspirational place for other people to learn about the principles of forest gardening and to learn ancient woodland crafts.

There are also ‘back to nature’ camping facilities available for hire in yurts set in ancient woodland.

The project involves the creation of a Forest Garden on the 0.7acre site of a vacant paddock which will be used to harvest a range of healthy food.

The team have also restored and managed adjacent existing ancient woodland of 3.7acres where a wildlife pond has been created to further increase the local biodiversity.

Situated in the heart of the Sussex High Weald, the site extends in total to approximately 5 acres of which 3.5 acres is ancient woodland.

Once part of John of Gaunt’s hunting park, the woodland was originally part of Anderida Forest and would have consisted mainly of giant oaks with hazel undergrowth which flourished over the damp clays and loams of the valley regions.

Much of the oak has now been replaced by ash which exists today alongside the few remaining oak trees and a neglected hazel coppice understory.

One of the earliest historians of the Weald, William Lambarde, describes the area in his 1576 Perambulation:

“In times past nothing but a desart and waste wildernesse, not planted with towns or peopled with men, but stored with herdes of deere and droves of hogges only.”

Forest gardening, or agroforestry, takes on the principles of permaculture and is undoubtedly the oldest form of land use known to mankind. Permaculture is an ecologically sound system for sustainability by minimising inputs and recycling all potential wastes back into the system.

The Forest Garden is an oasis of edible plant species which takes its vision from nature, and specifically the natural ecology of a young forest. Wildcrafting is the practice of harvesting plants from their natural or "wild" habitat for food, medicine or other purposes. Only the branches or flowers are taken and the living plant is left.

The design of the planting is crucial in order to achieve a successful balance. The aim is to plant utilising the seven different layers: the root layer, ground cover, herb layer, fruiting shrubs, dwarf trees, tree canopy layer and the high canopy or vertical layer.

A well-considered and diverse planting scheme will help insure against the threat of disease or disasters.

A new exhibition at the town museum will show how East Grinstead has changed since Victorian times, with maps and photographs illustrating its story over more than a century.

Visitors to the exhibition will be able to research their own homes and see how the surrounding areas have changed down the years.

And activities planned for the school holidays will encourage children to imagine how East Grinstead may change over the coming century.

The exhibition will be launched on 28 September and will run until the New Year.

MEMBERS of the emergency services will be taking part in 999 Day this Sunday at East Court between 9am and 3pm.

The programme for the day includes:

• 10am – Opening by the Town Mayor
• 10.30am – Chip Pan Fire demo
• 11am – Police dog demo
• 1pm – Road traffic accident re-enactment
• 2pm – Police dog demo
• 2.30pm – Chip pan fire demo

Meridian FM will be broadcasting and helping with the public announcements throughout the day.

Search and rescue land rovers will be on display with ambulances and fire engines, and emergency service staff will talk about what they do.

The police sniffer dog unit will also be back.

* Please note that car parking will be greatly reduced as some of the displays will be in the East Court car parks. Anyone attending is advised to park elsewhere and walk to East Court.
The grounds will be open to the public as usual but some areas will be cordoned off for safety reasons around the demonstrations and displays. Everyone’s co-operation in respecting the barriers will be appreciated.

The old Caffyns site in King Street was an eyesore until a week ago when the Town Council staff stepped in to clear it up.

The site, which is empty pending development, was overgrown with weeds and fencing had been moved. It was advised at a recent Planning Committee that the owners had been contacted about clearing it themselves – or paying for the Council to get the work done.

The owners decided to pay the Council to do the job and within a few days this major town centre eyesore was looking spick and span.

Council Leader, Norman Webster, thanked the staff for their great effort and said “The Council is hopeful that a Planning application will be lodged shortly and this long running problem will be sorted to the benefit of the town.”

* Pictured below: the overgrown forecourt of the former Caffyns garage, before and after the outside staff cleared it up.

 

MAYOR John Saull cut the ribbon to mark the opening of East Grinstead’s newest business, Wok’n Rolls in the London Road.

The new restaurant and takeaway specialises in sushi, noodles and filled rolls.

Mayor John, who is pictured with owners Chris and Christine Pollard, was one of several councillors who went along to the launch to express their support for the new venture.

“The Council is always pleased to see new businesses starting in the town and we all wish Wok’n Rolls every success for the future,” said Cllr John O’Brien.

THE Town Council is looking at ways in which the whole of East Grinstead can celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in June next year.

There are already plenty of ideas up for discussion including flower shows, gala dinners, concerts and fun fairs, with the broad intention of holding several days’ worth of activities around East Court over the proposed long Bank Holiday weekend, with a real “something for everyone” community celebration.

A small working party of Councillors, supported by Council officers, has been set up and members are hoping to identify others within the community who would be willing to join this steering group through a public meeting.

Invitations have been sent to organisations within the town, but the Council is also extending a general public invitation to gauge interest, explore ideas, and co-opt people to the working party: and if raising funds is a goal to cover costs and support a charity, how these funds would be directed.
The public meeting will be held in the Main Hall at East Court Mansion at 7pm on Thursday 4 August.

Chairman of the Amenities and Tourism Committee Frank Osborne said: “This is intended to be ambitious – a real community event with all areas of the town contributing. Our first step is to hold the meeting to see who is prepared to step forward and help make the Jubilee celebrations something the town can really be proud of, as the whole nation celebrates.”

DEPUTY Mayor Liz Bennett lent her support to a car-washing fundraiser in aid of Meridian FM, the town radio station, by giving their outside broadcast van, nicknamed Twiggy, a wash.

The station, which costs around £1,000 a week to run, has appealed for £50,000 to keep it going over the coming year.

“Meridian FM does a really important job within the community so I was very pleased to take part in the Car Wash which raised £180,” said Liz.

Later in the day she helped raise a further £900 in the Meridian FM Mighty Quiz.

“This was a brilliant effort by all the presenters and members at Meridian FM,” said Liz, “and its success shows the support the station has from the town community it serves.

“Everyone has rallied together at a crucial time in the future of the station, and the efforts being put into saving it show people appreciate the Meridian FM team who work as volunteers for the good of our community.”

Liz added that she was “very proud” of the station and the work it does, and appealed to everyone within its audience area to be generous in helping to secure Meridian FM’s future.

THE newly-elected East Grinstead Town Council has agreed to the setting up of a neighbourhood plan working group to start putting together a formal Town Plan.

This is in response to changes outlined in the coalition Government’s Localism Bill, first published in December 2010, which sets out the framework and key principles for a system of neighbourhood planning in England. It seeks to create new planning tools to help empower communities to shape and manage development in their local areas.

Chairman of the working group Cllr Heidi Brunsdon said: "This fundamental change to the planning system has a significant local impact. With neighbourhood plans, communities such as East Grinstead will have real choice about the issue of growth. We will have the opportunity to develop our own planning policies and ensure that those neighbourhoods which choose to grow feel the benefits of that decision. Our aim is to give people real choice, and real influence. Localism and neighbourhood plans firmly put decisions for such change back in the hands of those who know what’s best for this town – our residents."

The working party’s next steps are to revisit earlier plans and research, and to consider ideas drawn from a recent strategy-day to develop some formal proposals: these will then be subject to public consultation before being fed into the planning authority, Mid Sussex District Council, to include in the overall District Plan.

Throughout the project local residents, organisations and businesses will be invited to contribute their views and thoughts. These consultations are intended to be a mix of informal and formal including a public meeting to present emerging ideas towards the end of the year.