Just a brief update this fortnight, but all eyes are on our community leisure centre. A Zoom meeting was held with Freedom Leisure’s chief executive and the CEO of Rother District Council, together with the Rother portfolio holder for leisure Cllr Hazel Timpe, me, our town clerk and Sally-Ann Hart MP’s office. It was held in the spirit of looking for solutions, and we hope that Freedom Leisure will come back to us shortly with the information requested so that the community can play its part in helping the pool re-open.
We were also grateful that Freedom Leisure made a U-turn on their decision to close the dry side of the centre for three days a week and, thankfully, opening times have been restored, to include Sunday mornings. This was due to collective lobbying from all quarters, so well done and thank you to all those who helped to reverse this action. Obviously as soon as there is any update I will let you know.
The other major news this week is that the lord warden of the Cinque Ports, Admiral Lord Boyce, has passed away. We will of course pay the town’s respects to him once details of memorial services and so forth are known. The Cinque Port mayors are meeting weekly all this month via Zoom to consider how the towns can work more collegiately together in promoting themselves, hosting inter-town events such as sports or school trips, and how to share best practice with each other – for example, on environmental issues.
We hope by being one united voice, when we do need to lobby on matters, we will be stronger together. The Cinque Port towns are a string of pearls across Kent and East Sussex and we want to showcase the very best of them, in terms of tourism, business, education, community and green matters.
I attended our Harbour of Rye Advisory Committee (HORAC) meeting on Wednesday and look forward to a busy weekend culminating in our annual Remembrance service on Sunday.
Image Credits: Lydd Town Council .