News update from our Chairman, Steve Wennington:

Just a quick update on Hailsham Active’s meeting  on the 12th October with MP Tracey Crouch (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Sport, Tourism and Heritage), myself and Scarlett McNally (consultant orthopaedic surgeon).  Also in attendance was our local MP Nus Ghani and her colleague, Josh Still.

Unfortunately, there appears to be a lack of connectivity to enable a co-ordinated approach by taking responsibility for the plan of having new schools as the centre of the community (whilst the principle is sound… it crosses too many departments … sport/health, schools), and it went down the route of ‘you need to contact the relevant department, rather than we can co-ordinate things…’

The bottom line is that the decision for sports facilities, health facilities and education facilities mainly rests with our local District Council, Wealden and East Sussex County Council.

The interesting comment being that the minister is unable to insist on the recommended actions they have. The relevant documents will be forwarded to us, but ultimately it is down to the leaders of these Councils to decide if they want to follow the guidelines. We will do our best to highlight these to the people/departments concerned and add our own local knowledge and views on how these can be implemented cost effectively.  

I would like to add we are grateful to Nus for arranging this meeting and enthusiastically supporting us, now and for future work. 

I will keep you updated on any follow up action we get.