Latest News of Local Interest

Mobile promises

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Mobile phone antennae locations on Truleigh Hill
The Argus reports:

EE, O2, Three and Vodafone, which make up the Mobile Operators Association, have teamed up with National Parks England to sign [a] government-backed accord. .. The deal is intended to tackle so-called ‘notspots’ – areas where there is little to no mobile coverage. .. Although there are no specific measures in place for the South Downs as yet, it is understood new masts could be built. The accord states new masts would be shared between networks and designed to blend in with the surrounding environment.

Cream tea & plant sale

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Cream tea at Farthings
‘Beeding in Bloom’ is hosting a cream tea and plant sale on Sunday 20th July between 2.30pm and 5:00pm at Farthings in Henfield Road, Upper Beeding. Eat a cream tea with homemade scones and cakes, buy some plants and a raffle ticket, and admire the Farthings garden. The winners of the ‘Beeding in Bloom’ garden competition will be announced at 4:00pm.

Update: the Shoreham Herald reports on the event here.

SDNPA issues first article 4 direction [update]

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Soberton view
The Hampshire Chronicle reports:

Winchester city councillors agreed the retrospective application by Danny Bower, for a field at West Street in Soberton, for 130m of wooden posts and wire fencing. The application had been handed over by South Downs National Park after 21 letters of objections arguing the fencing was detrimental to the landscape and in direct violation of trust’s preservation policies. .. However councillors were told that if they refused permission the applicant would be entitled to claim compensation for an unknown amount in costs.

Our earlier post is here.

Lampposts safe (for now)

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Villagers may well not have noticed a slim green-bordered booklet from SSE Contracting as they engaged in the ritual fortnightly transfer of the contents of their letterbox to the blue bin. Those who did and who delayed its journey to recycling for long enough to glance at it will have read that “within the next four weeks we will start replacing the lighting in YOUR street” [emphasis theirs]. White circles containing the letters ‘SL’ would soon appear on the highway surface to assist villagers who wanted to chain themselves to the relevant street lights. But, as those who attended the recent PC meeting now know, this was just a dry run, designed to test the strength of village resistance to modernity. No replacements are actually scheduled for Fulking. You can put the booklet in the blue bin after all.

Three of the historic lampposts to be found in the downtown Fulking area.

Resurfacing the coastal car park

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Coastal car park resurfacing
The Shoreham Herald reports:

From 8:00pm tonight until 6:00am tomorrow, road users travelling eastbound on the A27 wishing to join the A23 northbound and southbound will be directed to remain on the A27 to Hollingbury Interchange (Carden Avenue) and return westbound.

From tomorrow for four nights, between 8:00pm and 6:00am, road users travelling westbound on the A27 will be diverted on to the A283 southbound at Adur Interchange, then, via Old Shoreham Road, on to the A259 Brighton Road, Shoreham, and Grinstead Lane, Lancing, before rejoining the A27 at Manor Road Roundabout.

Full story here.

Steyning Festival feedback

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The Sixteen at Steyning Festival 2014
If you attended any of the events earlier this summer, then the organizers are keen to hear from you. Email your comments or suggestions to admin@steyningfestival.co.uk. They want to know what events you attended, which you enjoyed, which you didn’t enjoy and why, your thoughts on the ticket pricing, your thoughts on the printed programme and the website, and what you thought about the communications and marketing in general. Finally, they are interested to know what direction you think the Festival should take in the future.

If you prefer to just tell people your age, sex and ethnic group and strongly dis/agree about things, then they have a questionnaire [DOC] that should meet your needs.

Fewer complaints

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Shortlisted for planning excellence in 2014
The Midhurst and Petworth Observer notes a report to the SDNPA from its director of planning, Tim Slaney:

[The] report showed that a total of 19 complaints were received in the year to March 31, 2014 compared with 32 the previous year when the new planning administration system was introduced and “numbers are considered to be relatively low”. .. A total of 2,366 planning applications were decided 
across the park last year by the authority’s own planning committee and all the planning authorities inside its boundaries. .. Almost 80 per cent of the total were decided in the allotted timescale of eight, 13 or 16 weeks and, said Mr Slaney: “This is considered to be a generally good overall level of performance.”

New bus service

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A section of the Southern Transit bus route
Southern Transit, a company based at the Upper Beeding butterfly sanctuary, is introducing a new bus service between Shoreham and Horsham that will run every weekend over the period 26th July to 7th September this year. There’s a stop in Small Dole, buses run every couple of hours, and the usual fare concessions apply. Click the map above to download a timetable [PDF].

Update: The Argus reports here.

WSCC dating website

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WSCC dating website

West Sussex County Council runs a dating website, love.westsussex.gov.uk which enables members of the public to meet, and perhaps even marry, council employees. Council employees have secure employment, reasonable salaries, comfortable pensions and better than average looks which makes them a sensible choice in the mating market.

Er, no, not exactly. At least one of those claims is as misleading as the name of the website. The purpose of the latter is altogether more prosaic. But useful, nonetheless. Check our new reference page, ‘Potholes, etc.‘, under the ‘The Environment’ menu near the bottom of the left sidebar.