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Message just received from Rother District Council:

Unfortunately, our waste contractor is experiencing issues processing the large volumes of recycling collected following the Christmas and New Year period. This is creating a backlog of recycling at the processing stage, therefore meaning the vehicles cannot empty recycling collected.

This means that your recycling bin may not be emptied on the scheduled day as the vehicles have reached capacity.

If your recycling collection is missed, please complete our ‘Report a Missed Bin‘ form on our website – and leave your recycling bins out, these will be collected as soon as possible.

Brown Bin (Garden) collections due to be made this week will be delayed by one day. Therefore collections will commence from Wednesday 9th January, households due a garden waste collection on Friday will be collected on Saturday 12th January.

Black Bin (Refuse) collections are unaffected.

Kind Regards,
Rother District Council

Our next parish council meeting will be on Monday 14^th January, 2019, at 7:30 pm in the Village Hall.

Steve Procter is going to come to this meeting to give a short talk – and answer questions – about the new neighbourhood social networking site NextDoor.  We’ll schedule this near the beginning of the meeting.

It would be lovely to see more members of the public at our meetings: don’t forget: you can drop in for part of the meeting if you think a whole one might be a bit much, and if you want to raise something with the parish council you will get an opportunity to do so (or equally well just come and listen).

To anyone who occasionally pops into Robertsbridge by car to visit the Post Office or pick up a pint of milk: in a few years’ time you could be paying to park your car, even for a short time.

As I have mentioned before, enforcement of on-street parking in this district is currently the responsibility of the police, who have made it quite clear that they don’t have the resources, and won’t be doing it. So it is an open secret that you can pretty much park where you like in Rother. The police will intervene if you park somewhere seriously dangerous, or actually block the flow of traffic, but not otherwise.

This will all change sometime in 2020 with the introduction of “Civil Parking Enforcement”. Rother District Council will take over the responsibility for street parking and will employ traffic wardens to enforce the existing yellow lines and time restrictions. These traffic wardens will have salaries which will need to be paid, and by law all such CPE schemes have to be self-financing. So payment for on-street parking will be introduced in order to raise the extra money needed.

The proposal as it stands at the moment would see on-street parking charges introduced in Robertsbridge and Battle (but not Burwash or Etchingham).

Although in theory there has been no final decision about the introduction of CPE in Rother, my interpretation is that it is going to happen and is probably unstoppable. What one can do, however, is to influence the detail. In particular, I would suggest, we could push for the proposed “pay and display” areas in Robertsbridge to have an initial free 20 or 30 minutes. The current proposal is for every minute to be chargeable.

Full details of the scheme can be seen here, and there is a link where you can complete an opinion survey. Although this is billed as an “informal consultation” and will be followed by formal consultations, I think it is worth getting our opinions in as soon as possible.

When you finally navigate to them, the proposals for Robertsbridge are presented in the form of a map. The first challenge is that the map as displayed is too small to be readable.  Windows computer users will (probably) find that they can enlarge the map by holding down the Ctrl key and pressing “+” a number of times – and Mac users will know the equivalent, I dare say.  Once you have done that, the information is there, but they have not gone out of their way to make it understandable, and it took me some time poring over it before I worked it out. It looks to me as if there are just 3 significant changes (a) “no waiting” areas around bus stops and the school entrance (b) the existing strip of parking around OneStop and the hairdressers will become “pay and display”, as will the existing strip of parking between the Village Hall entrance and the flood gate (c) all existing yellow lines will become liable to enforcement. Anywhere else in Robertsbridge where you can currently legally park will be unaffected.

Having said all that, the proposed pay and display rates are quite low: 10p for 15 minutes with a maximum of 2 hours but of course they could put them up once the scheme has started.

The car park next to the club appears to be unaffected (I have an idea this is owned by the Parish Council).

The survey closes on 14 January 2019. The survey questions are quite poorly worded (in my opinion) and tendentious, and some of them don’t really make sense, but there is a nice big comment box where you can add your own thoughts.

The proposals also cover Battle but I haven’t even looked at those.

This year the date has been set for the 2nd June.  We have yet to work out a venue, but hope as many of you can join in the picnic lunch as possible.  All you need to do is get your friends and family together, put together your own picnic and bring it along.  A venue up-date will appear here as soon as we know.  Summer is just around the corner!

Jane and Geoffrey Beard thewatertowerbrightling@gmail.com  01424 838352

A national scheme, adopted by Sussex Police just 18 months ago, aimed at preventing elderly and other vulnerable people falling victim to fraud across the county, has prevented £528,083 being stolen in just one month

In October 2018, there were 35 calls to Sussex Police from banks and other financial institutions under the Banking Protocol, about potential victims with an average age of 75. In each case police responded and succeeded in ensuring that the person did not hand any money over.

These interventions related to 27 identified reports of fraud which included five reports each of; romance fraud, rogue trading, courier fraud and computer software service fraud. There were four attempts at financial abuse by a person known to the victim, plus two attempts at investment fraud and one at inheritance fraud.

PC Bernadette Lawrie, Surrey and Sussex Police Financial Abuse Safeguarding Officer, said; “This means that more than half of all attempts at this particularly unpleasant type of crime are being intercepted and prevented as a result of our liaison with bank staff.”

The Protocol has been a success since its launch in Sussex in June 2017. The volume of calls from banks has steadily increased, along with the number of arrests and financial loss prevented, together with the confidence of staff in both banks and police to deal positively with these incidents.

Staff in financial institutions have been trained to identify customers seeking to make unusual withdrawals or money transfers. They will ask questions to establish if the customer is potentially the victim of fraud and will make a 999 call to police quoting “Banking Protocol”. 

In most circumstances, the withdrawal will have been attempted under emotional duress after personal contact with an offender.

Since June 2017 433 such calls have been received by Sussex Police from banks and £2,478,761 has been saved from being defrauded.

A recent case shows how the Protocol can work.

In June this year, a 89-year-old man went to a Lloyds Bank in Brighton, with a younger woman. The bank staff contacted the police as they were concerned about the recent changes in his habits, cash withdrawals on his account and the apparent pressure he was being put under by the woman.

It transpired she had already received over £10,000 of his money and on 10 October the woman, Lisa Hollings, 36, of Fitzherbert Drive, Brighton, appeared at Lewes Crown Court where she pleaded guilty to theft, and was sentenced to two years imprisonment plus an additional two years for breaching a previous unrelated Community Order.

She had known the victim for three years and claimed that she helped him out day to day and that he was helping her out with money and that she was going to pay back the money.

But officers discovered that in fact she had befriended the victim after his wife died and had gradually taken money from him under the guise of helping her out with every day expenses. She then secured use of this cheque book.

In Sussex this process dovetails with the force’s Operation Signature, because following a call from the bank, police attend and always take positive action in crime recording and taking further action to safeguard the victim.

Further valuable support comes from two case workers, funded by Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner (SPCC) Katy Bourne, and working through Victim Support, who support vulnerable victims who have been systematically targeted by criminals in this way, following up on referrals from Operation Signature,

Police advise:

• Be wary of any calls, texts or emails purporting to be from the police asking for your personal or financial details, or for you to transfer money.
• If you are approached, or feel something is suspicious, hang up the phone and don’t reply. Then report it to Action Fraud and your bank on their advertised number.
• Never send or give money to anyone you don’t know or trust; check people are who they say they are; don’t share your personal information; make decisions in your own time; and if in doubt phone a relative or a friend.

Operation Signature is the Sussex Police campaign to identify and support vulnerable victims of fraud across the county. Fraud is becoming more complex and deceptive, and much of it is targeted at vulnerable and elderly people.

The force has a process for recognising victims of all fraud as victims of crime and providing preventative measures to support and protect them from further targeting. This can include helping them to change their phone number to an ex-directory number, contacting family to suggest Power of Attorney, mail re-direction, offering them advice on call blocking devices and referring them to other support services.

Help us keep Sussex safe

Seen something suspicious or have information about a crime or incident? Please contact us online, email us at 101@sussex.pnn.police.uk or call 101.

Alternatively you can contact the independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111, or online at www.crimestoppers-uk.org

Have Your Say On Sussex Police Funding 2018-2022

Message (in full) from our Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator:

This week 70 new police officers completed their training, and a further 38 have started theirs as part of the biggest recruitment drive in Sussex for over ten years, made possible by this year’s increase in the police element of council tax – the precept.

Last week the Government announced the provisional funding settlement for policing in a £970 million package that gives Police & Crime Commissioners the ability, should they wish, to raise the precept above the current £12 limit.

This unprecedented funding opportunity could help Sussex to recruit substantial numbers of PCSOs and even more police officers, as well as improving the public contact service, especially the 101 non-emergency number. Although no final decisions will be made until early February next year, the Chief Constable and the PCC, Katy Bourne, have indicated their commitment to ensure that residents will see and feel the benefit of any extra funding raised locally.

If you have not already done so, you can give the PCC your views on police funding by completing a very short survey available on her website at www.sussex-pcc.gov.uk/.

I have been asked by the PCC to pass on her thanks to all Neighbourhood Watch volunteers for your support of Sussex Police throughout the year, which I am doing with great pleasure.

Season’s greetings to all!

The East Sussex “Your county” magazine went on-line only some time ago but is still worth a read occasionally for a flavour of what is going on in the county.  This month they have an interesting article “Giving Back this Christmas“, focusing on local charities with a particular seasonal relevance, and other eleemosynary opportunities.

You can subscribe to the magazine to get regular updates.

Gatwick Airport has just released a its “Draft Master Plan 2018”, which is out for consultation until 10^th January 2019.

The airport is consulting on three scenarios:

1. increasing capacity on its current runway
2. using the standby/emergency runway in combination with the current runway
3. safeguarding land to meet its long term ambition of an additional runway, in combination with the above.

This means that Gatwick could become a three runway airport.

Acording to CPRE (Council for the Protection of Rural England) “The impact of this on the Sussex countryside would be enormous,”

If you want to take part in the consultation, you can respond on-line, or by email to gatwickdraftmasterplan@ipsos-mori.com
By post: Freepost GAL DRAFT MASTERPLAN CONSULTATION

More information about the possible impact on the countryside.

Can you believe it: another consultation?! (I am beginning to suffer consultation fatigue; in fact I’m worried that it could even develop into a full-blown case of “consultee’s ennui”. Anyway, here goes).

This time it is East Sussex County Council. Basically what they are saying is that in a very few years’ time, they will have no money to do anything other than the bare minimum that they are legally obliged to do; indeed not even that. They have therefore set out what they call their “core offer” in order that members of the public can see what this bare minimum would look like.

Our own elected county council representative, John Barnes MBE, described this at the recent Parish Council meeting as not so much a consultation, more a propaganda exercise designed to put pressure on central government to do something about local government finance.

If you want to take part in this exercise, the full details are here.