Yearly Archives: 2022

According to the Environment Agency, over five million people in England live and work in properties at risk of flooding from rivers or the sea, whilst more face flood threats from groundwater, surface water, sewers, and reservoirs.

At Gocompare, we have put together a guide to preparing for a flood and protecting your property – https://www.gocompare.com/home-insurance/limiting-flood-risk-and-damage/

In extreme conditions you won’t be able to stop flood water, and you should always put personal safety above attempts to protect property and possessions. Despite this, there are steps that you can take to keep water out, to buy yourself time to preserve property and possessions, and to limit the damage that flood water does.

Wealden residents have again risen to the challenge during the Great British Spring Clean and were out in force helping to rid Wealden of unwanted litter and we would like to thank everyone who took part.

Over 60 individuals and community groups took part in this year’s event which ran from 25^th March to 10^th April making it one of the most successful in Wealden to date with  over 400 bags of litter removed from the District’s streets and open green spaces. A third more than the 300  plus bags collected in 2021. With many groups now taking to the streets throughout the year, it’s estimated that over 2000 bags of litter have been collected since last year (the equivalent to 10 tonnes of rubbish!)

So that we can get an idea of the extent of the litter picking undertaken by groups and individuals we would be really grateful if you could kindly spend a few minute completing a short on line survey.

The link for the survey is https://wealdendc.researchfeedback.net/s.asp?k=165089401227

We thought it would be a good idea to share with everyone how the Ukrainian Support Group is developing and to put out a call for anyone who is interested in getting involved in whatever way they can.

At the moment, we have six families who have let us know that they are willing and able to host Ukrainians, which is fantastic.  We would love to have a few more volunteers for this. This link may be helpful if you are thinking about hosting: East Sussex and Ukraine

Understandably hosting is not for everyone but there are plenty of other ways that we are hoping that we can get involved as a village. If and when we have any refugees in the village, we really want to make sure that they (and their hosts) feel supported. Our thoughts are that additional help could include things like:

• “TLC” days which could include coach outings, sports activities, bbqs, Ukrainian cooking lessons – all ideas gratefully received!
• Financial contributions – obviously all this will come with a cost.
• Driving – while the hosts will largely be responsible for sorting out travel there will always be times when this might not be possible so a pool of drivers would be extremely helpful.
• Help needed for the possible use of the village hall as a “drop in” centre.

We are in touch with other villages who are going to be receiving refugees and we are hoping to be able to link up with them, so we are not all inventing our own wheel.

We have already linked up with Toby Illingworth who is a local councillor in Buxted. He has set up the Buxted Refugee Programme and, to make organization around hosting easier, like some other villages, we have decided to join with this bigger organization. Toby has spent the last week in Poland setting up contacts locally to assist any Ukrainians who want to come to the UK.  He has so far managed to pair up several Ukrainians with people in the program and is hoping that he will be able to find many more.

The Parish Council is fully supportive of all efforts to support refugees and will help in any way possible.

All offers however large or small will be extremely welcome!  If you have any questions, please get in touch with either David or Kate.   Further updates will be coming!

David Knight on fletching.vicar@gmail.com

Kate Minch on kateminch1@gmail.com