Parish Clerk

We’ll shortly be carrying out work to resurface two sections of the A23 southbound carriageway between the Aldbourne and Patcham. This work will improve journeys for our customers and ensure the network remains in a safe condition.

This work is currently scheduled to take place over five weeks starting on Monday 2 August 2021. Work will take place overnight (8pm to 6am), when there are fewer vehicles on the road, causing less disruption.

For the safety of our workforce and customers, we will be closing the A23 southbound carriageway from the A272 Bolney junction down to the A27 Patcham roundabout.

During the closures the following signed diversions will be in place:

• Traffic heading east of Brighton – follow the A272 east to North Chailey, then south on the A275 towards Lewes and Ashcombe roundabout.

• Traffic heading west of Brighton – follow the A272 west, then south on the A24 Worthing Road. At Washington head east along the A283 to join the A27 at Shoreham.

Access will be maintained for emergency service vehicles on blue light calls only.

Please note that these works are subject to change due to weather conditions or unforeseen circumstances. We’ll advertise the closures on yellow signs placed in advance alongside the A23, and on our South-East Twitter page (@HighwaysSEAST)

We would like to apologise in advance for any inconvenience or disruption you may experience during this work.

Keeping Up-to-date

If you have any questions, or if you would like to know about our work, please contact us on 0300 123 5000 or email info@highwaysengland.co.uk. Alternatively, please visit our webpage https://highwaysengland.co.uk/our-work/south-east/south-east-maintenance-schemes/

You can also visit our website at https://highwaysengland.co.uk/travel-updates/daily-closure-report/ where you can find a weekly report of all full closures across the network.

Yours faithfully

Area 4 Communications Team

The Rampion 2 Public Consultation documents have launched today.  They still have two potential sites for a new substation for consideration. One is Bolney Road/Kent St located at Oakendene in Cowfold. The other is in Wineham Lane which is partly in Bolney and partly in Twineham. The connecting cable route will potentially pass through the Parish as well, depending which substation site is ultimately selected.

There is a huge amount of information on the Rampion website and the Parish Council Planning Committee will be engaging with Rampion during the consultation process and submitting a response before the closing date on 16th September. We would encourage members of the public to respond as well and can issue further guidance on this once we have reviewed the documents.

For further information please view the details on the Rampion 2 website at: https://rampion2.com/consultation/

The team has been working hard to curate more than 30 FREE guided walks across the High Weald Area of Outstanding Beauty, as well as a range of self-guided walks allowing you to explore this precious landscape at your own pace. This year’s event runs from Saturday 11 – Sunday 19 September 2021.

Things are running a bit differently this year, with a simple booking system to help manage numbers. From Monday 9 August, you will be able to view the walking programme on the Festival website. Each walk has its own Eventbrite booking page, and you can join as many as you like. The process is quick, easy and – most importantly – every walk is free!

Here are a few highlights of the Festival programme to whet your appetite:

• High Weald Dark Skies Walk: This will be a leisurely walk to enjoy the stars across the High Weald with a Dark Skies story.
• WealdWay 40th Anniversary Walk: A circular walk using the WealdWay and Tunbridge Wells Circular, visiting the village of Spelhurst for lunch.
• Full Steam Ahead at Horsted Keynes: Recapture the golden age of steam on this walk beside the Bluebell Railway and through fields and woods.

Please share these details with any friends, family or colleagues who might have discovered a love of walking over the last year, and encourage them to join in.

There will be an email reminder when booking goes live, so join the mailing list to make sure you don’t miss out!

Responding to requests made at Village Day, the steps on footpath 19Bo from the top of Magdalene Rise down to the roundabout are now clear. Many thanks to the Bolney Volunteers for sorting this out so quickly!

The Planned works are being carried out next week by Kier Highways on behalf of Highways England. They will be using a blockade system to manage the local area and to ensure our work is completed quicker.

What are Blockades?
Weshall be carrying out multiple jobs under the full closures (blockades) and this will cause greater efficiency by not needing to close the road a number of times at different times for different works to be carried out. We feel that by carrying out such a blockade in this instance, it will mean the local community and the travelling public will not need
multiple closures over a short period of time causing more disruption.
The various kind of work being carried out throughout the blockade include the following;
however, this list is not exhaustive: –
 Pothole repairs
 Vegetation & grass cutting
 Sign & marker post cleaning
 Safety fence inspection and repair works
 Gully and catch-pit clearing to improve drainage
 Sweeping the carriageway
 Litter picking
We are also inviting other parties into the closures to enable a joined-up approach so that they work together to ensure a safe, collaborative and effective working practice. We are confident that customers will see benefit from this joined up way of dealing with essential works in order to minimise disruption to customers.

This part of the network will be closed over 5 nights. Please see below for a comprehensive list of closures and diversion routes.
Monday 28 June – Friday 2 July 5 nights
A23 Black Rabbit roundabout to Bolney
Full closure of the Northbound (London bound) and lane 2 Southbound (Coast bound) closure:
 Time of Closure; 8pm – 5am
During these closures the below diversion route will be in place:

Diversion route is via A27 Shoreham By-pass, A283, A24, A272 and re-join at Bolney. Please note that these works are subject to change due to weather conditions or unforeseen circumstances. We would like to apologise in advance for any inconvenience or disruption you may experience during this work. If you have any questions, or if you would like to know about our work, please contact us on 0300 123 5000 or email info@highwaysengland.co.uk. Or you can visit our
website at https://highwaysengland.co.uk/travel-updates/daily-closure-report/ where you can find a weekly report of all full closures across the network.

Bolney Parish Council is a non-political body.  The Council meets at 8pm on the third Tuesday of each month in the Rawson Hall.  We currently have 2 vacancies on the council and as there has not been a call for an election these will be filled by co-option.

Councillors must act within the law and abide by an agreed code of conduct. Although the rules and regulations are important, the role of the councillor is much wider than that. They should;

• Represent the interests of parishioners
• Respond to the needs and views of the community
• Suggest ideas for better services or improvements
• Look for ways to find out what is important to the community
• Engage in constructive debate about proposals and help make decisions with the council as a single corporate body
• Work in partnership with MSDC and WSCC, other parishes and service providers to help develop and improve the quality of life and environment in the parish

If you would like to discuss what being a Councillor entails then I can put you in touch with one of the Councillors will be happy to have an informal chat with you, or why not come along to a Parish Council meeting to see for yourself, every third Tuesday of the month at 8.00pm in the Rawson Hall.

If you care about Bolney and want to help and make a contribution please call or email me for further information and an application form.

We look forward to hearing from you. The closing date is Friday 23rd July.

Debbie Thomas, Clerk – Bolney Parish Council

Tel: 01444 230711
Email:  clerk@bolney.com

There will be some upcoming works carried out by Kier Highways, on behalf of Highways England using a blockade system to manage the local area and to ensure our work is completed quicker.

What are Blockades?
We shall be carrying out multiple jobs under the full closures (blockades) and this will cause greater efficiency by not needing to close the road a number of times at different times for different works to be carried out. We feel that by carrying out such a blockade in this instance, it will mean the local community and the travelling public will not need multiple closures over a short period of time causing more disruption.

The various kind of work being carried out throughout the blockade include the following; however, this list is not exhaustive: –
 Pothole repairs
 Vegetation & grass cutting
 Sign & marker post cleaning
 Safety fence inspection and repair works
 Gully and catch-pit clearing to improve drainage
 Sweeping the carriageway
 Litter picking

We are also inviting other parties into the closures to enable a joined-up approach so that we work together to ensure a safe, collaborative and effective working practice. We are confident that our customers will see benefit from this joined up way of dealing with essential works in order to minimise disruption to our customers.

We will be closing this part of the network in 2 different locations over 5 nights. Please see below for a comprehensive list of closures and diversion routes.

Monday 21 June – Friday 25 June 5 nights
A23 Pease Pottage to Bolney
Full closure of the Northbound (London bound) and lane 2 Southbound (Coast bound) closure:
 Time of Closure; 8pm – 5am
During these closures the below diversion route will be in place:

Diversion route is via A272, A24, A264 and re-join at Pease Pottage junction 11.

Please note that these works are subject to change due to weather conditions or unforeseen circumstances.

We would like to apologise in advance for any inconvenience or disruption you may experience during this work.
If you have any questions, or if you would like to know about our work, please contact us on 0300 123 5000 or email info@highwaysengland.co.uk. Or you can visit our website at https://highwaysengland.co.uk/travel-updates/daily-closure-report/ where you can find a weekly report of all full closures across the network.

“Our community outreach bus with Turning Tides is almost up and running but we have hit a small blockage as we don’t have a driver. The company who donated the bus said they would be able to help with this but unfortunately have been unable to do so. I wondered if you might be able to reach out to your community network of volunteer agencies and see if anyone might be interested? The bus is a vintage bus so might also appeal to someone who is interested in this (turning tides are reaching out to places like Amberley museum to see if any of their volunteers might be interested).

The bus will provide community outreach support in Mid Sussex and Horsham to rough sleepers or those insecurely housed. It will be Wednesdays in Mid Sussex going through the district, parking in our MSDC car parks and providing support including hot drinks and small meals, washing facilities, internet access as well as support with housing, benefit, health issues from Turning Tides staff.

The bus will not carry passengers (whilst moving) as support will be whilst its parked up and then clients would leave before it goes to the next location. The driver does not require any special licence due to the type of bus that it is and that it is not travelling with passengers. It will however be driving down Mid Sussex and Horsham’s country lanes and parking in our car parks in agreed spots so it will likely suit someone who is comfortable driving a large vehicle.

They are looking for a volunteer for only around 2 days a month (more could be done if they were interested). They do not need to interact with the clients but if they are interested to and helping that would be great as it builds the sense of community around the bus. There would however be no lone working with clients”.

If you do have any contacts who have volunteers who might be interested if you could forward them the bits above and Bex – Mid Sussex Outreach Manager’s email address: Rebecca.sowerby@turning-tides.org.uk that would be amazing. Bex will then speak to them directly. If they want more info about Turning Tides that is available here: Home Page – Turning Tides (turning-tides.org.uk)

There was a good turnout for the litter pick on Saturday morning with 14 volunteers in total and 16 full bags of rubbish collected.  They found a lot of hidden litter which was satisfying! Many cars stopped to thank the participants for their work and to say it was appreciated which made it even more worthwhile.