Category: News

THE town’s housekeeping team has been at work keeping the town pristine during the winter months, pressure-cleaning benches, and removing graffiti and fly-posting. They have also inspected the town’s twittens and cut back overgrowth where necessary.

TOWN Mayor John Saull will be rounding off his year in office with a Masked Ball (with dinner) in aid of his chosen charities, to be held in the Meridian Hall on 21 April.

Full details on the website soon.

Work to build a new public toilet building in the heart of East Grinstead town centre will start next week after planning permission was granted by Mid Sussex District Council.

Councillors unanimously approved the planning application at a meeting of the North Area Planning Committee in December 2011. Construction work will take place during the first few months of 2012 and the new toilet facilities will open to the public in the spring.

The new toilets will replace the current portacabin toilet block which is located in the southeast corner of the King Street Car Park in East Grinstead. Although functional and well used, the portacabin was only ever envisaged as a temporary measure.

At the meeting, planning committee members recognised the need for a permanent town centre toilet in East Grinstead. The new facility represents a significant improvement in design, with a pitched roof, exposed brickwork and plain tiling giving the building a traditional style that is in keeping with a historic market town like East Grinstead. It is considered that the new building will enhance the character and appearance of the area and that the provision of a purpose-built toilet facility in the town centre will significantly benefit the local community.

The new toilet facility will have distinct female and male areas, a separate wheelchair accessible toilet and a baby changing facility. Mid Sussex District Council will fund the construction of the new toilet facility with East Grinstead Town Council taking on the management, maintenance and cleaning of the new public convenience. The building will be constructed using traditional local materials and the brickwork will be sourced from a local site in West Hoathly.

“With the Olympic Games taking place just up the road in London this summer and the prospect of the Bluebell Railway arriving in the town, we could soon be welcoming a significant influx of tourists to the area,” said Councillor Pru Moore, Cabinet Member for Leisure and Sustainability. “East Grinstead is a charming market town that’s steeped in history and that’s likely to prove attractive to visitors. If we want people to choose East Grinstead, and come back for further visits, then we must offer first class facilities and new public toilets will provide a welcome boost in this regard.”

“I’m delighted that Mid Sussex District Council and East Grinstead Town Council have been able to work together to deliver this much needed amenity for the people of East Grinstead. With planning permission now in place we can get on with the construction process and, all being well, it will only be a matter of months before the people of East Grinstead have access to the brand new facilities.”

For more information about the East Grinstead town centre community toilet project, please contact David Harper, Mid Sussex District Council’s Business Unit Leader for Waste and Outdoor Services, at david.harper@midsussex.gov.uk or call 01444 477487.

The comments in today’s East Grinstead Courier and Observer article that ‘council decides to sell manor’ and ‘Town Council is selling East Court’ under the photo of the building are not correct.

There is no intention of any sale of East Court.

[content-image title=”East Court” src=”page_eastcourt_small.jpg” link=”page_eastcourt.jpg”]

Here follows the response from East Grinstead Courier and Observer:

Dear Julie and Norman

I’m writing to express my sincere apologies about a mistake in today’s Courier & Observer.

You may have heard we had a big power cut on Tuesday which set us back three hours and left us short of time to fill the paper.

Things were then done in such a rush that I did not notice a serious error when I checked over our pages before sending them to press yesterday – our production team has misread Gemma’s story about the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, and wrongly thought that East Court was being sold off, instead of the Parish Halls, when writing the picture caption and the ‘strap’ under the headline.

Unfortunately, as is the case with almost all local newspapers these days, the design and layout of our paper is all carried out in a centralising ‘subbing hub’ based in Essex. So inevitably a lot of mistakes are made by those people who are operating from the Essex office and do not know East Grinstead or its issues.

But it is my fault for not picking up on it. I should have spotted it – and I am very sorry if it causes you to receive any strange telephone calls as a result. Please feel free to direct any complaints or confusion my way.

I will of course write a correction to be published in next week’s paper.

Perhaps you may like to forward this email to all the councillors to help them fend off any complaints they receive from residents.

Again, sincere apologies. I am so angry at myself for missing this – I will be much more meticulous in future.

Claire.
Claire Cromie | News Editor | 01293 597614

RUNNERS have been invited to take part in a unique three-part Marathon which will take place in Mid Sussex over the May Bank holiday weekend.

The Sussex Living Marathon Weekend, which has the backing of East Grinstead, Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath Town Councils, and the Mid Sussex District Council, will see the traditional Marathon distance divided amongst the three towns, over three days.

Hundreds of runners are expected to tackle the courses along routes which will be as far as possible traffic-free, using footpaths and trails around the towns.

Continue reading “Ready, steady – run!”

TOWN tourist officer Simon Kerr made a seasonal appearance on the BBC last month to recall that Good King Wenceslas, one of the world’s most famous Christmas carols, was written in East Grinstead.

There can be few people whose Boxing Day activities are better known or more spiritually uplifting than those of the “good” King, because while most of us settle for a day of cold turkey, lukewarm levity and a rerun of Only Fools and Horses on 26 December, the eponymous monarch was made of altogether sterner – and saintlier – stuff.

Continue reading “Good King puts East Grinstead on the global Christmas map”

Brambletye School Annual Art Exhibition
20 January to 1 February
Admission: Free

THE Parish Halls Trustees, who met on Monday 19 December at a Special Meeting to hear the considerations of the Parish Halls Working Group, voted unanimously to sell the Halls and invest the money into Chequer Mead Community and Arts Centre to provide additional modern facilities to benefit the residents of East Grinstead.

The report put before the Committee from the Chairman and the Officers of the Trust outlined the declining use of the halls and the increased costs in maintaining what is already an out-of-date building.

The Parish Halls produce revenue from regular hirers of approximately £25,000 per year. This barely covers the day-to-day running costs leaving little for maintenance.

A scheme was attempted four years ago to make a grant available to the halls and a refurbishment project was considered.

In 2010 a hirer came forward to take the small halls on a long lease. This would have allowed them to be refurbished with assistance from District Council-held grant money for community buildings and the hirer was to have taken on some of the works.

However when the deal fell through in April this year, the Trust was required to reconsider the whole position. Although other approaches to hire have been made, the revenue generated would have been insufficient to modernise the building to a state suitable for on-going community use.

When considering the current pattern of hall hire, the committee found they are used almost daily, requiring staff to open, lock up and clean the premises, plus the expense of heating and lighting the building, sometimes for only one group. With several rooms available for hire this meant routine running costs were often higher than revenue.

The Trustees have now been approached by a developer with a plan for housing development on the site. However under charity law the disposal of the assets has to be advertised for 30 days which will be commissioned through a local estate agent and all bids considered before any sale is agreed.

The trustees decided that the money from the sale of the Halls will be invested in the Chequer Mead Community and Arts Centre and the intention would be to provide additional community use rooms for long term and casual hire.

The Town Council officers, who support the trust, are making contact with the current hirers of the Parish Halls to talk about relocating them to alternative accommodation once the Halls are sold.

THE museum’s current exhibition, The Changing Face of East Grinstead, runs until 29 January.

Discover the town’s growth through a selection of images and maps: see how the estates developed and what was in their place before the Second World War with the help of our 1931 town map.  Entry is free

THE first 12-coach trains out of East Grinstead are now in action after the completion of work to extend the platforms and upgrade the tracks.

The new trains provide around 5,000 extra seats a day for commuters who use the busy route between East Grinstead and Victoria.

The next stage in the development project will be the construction of the new station building which is due to start this month.

The project includes:

• a new building with an improved layout which will make it easier for passengers to move through the station, particularly at rush hours
• the creation of a spacious booking hall with improved retail space and new passenger toilets
• improved passenger drop-off and taxi points
• better CCTV coverage
• enhanced cycle parking facilities
• improved car parks.

The new building will be built adjacent to the existing station which will remain in use until the completion of the project this autumn.