Festivals come to town
As well as the opening of the 53rd Rye Arts Festival this weekend sees the first ever Rye Harvest Wine and Food Fair on the Cricket Salts, Fishmarket Road showcasing some of the best local wine and artisanal food producers. There will be music, poetry, comedy and guest speakers. The launch party is on Friday, September 13 with a wild harvest supper on Saturday, September 14 and a jazz breakfast on Sunday morning. Tickets can be purchased here.
Rye Museum at East Street
During the Rye Arts Festival the Rye Castle Museum at its 3 East Street site, which is usually only open at weekends, will be open every day from 10:30am to 4.30pm with last ticket at 4.00pm (subject to the volunteers’ availability) and is free. Run almost entirely by volunteers, it is full of artefacts and information about the history of Rye including displays on the potteries of Rye, the Mary Stanford lifeboat tragedy, Captain Pugwash, and local industries including shipbuilding, hop growing and clay pipe making. It even has a penny farthing bicycle and an 18th century fire engine. The Castle (Ypres Tower) part of the museum is open every day as usual.
Tower Street parking meter removed
One sharp-eyed local resident has noticed that the parking ticket machine that used to be on Tower Street, just outside the Waterworks pub (and was recently covered up), has been removed, to be replaced with a rather flimsy and small sign on a pole near the pub door. The sign gives the RingGo website, phone number and location code on one side and a map showing the location of the nearest ticket machine, along Tower Street and around the bend into Landgate but out of sight of people parking (and the map rather confusingly, is upside down).
Given the size and location of the sign, it is likely to be hard to spot for those parking on Tower Street. This could well add to the confusion that has already arisen over the parking meter outside the police station which is for parking spaces in Cinque Ports Street and not Tower Street.
Have your say about policing in Sussex
Sussex police and crime commissioner (PCC) Katy Bourne has launched a survey asking Sussex residents for their feedback on the policing service they receive.
Now in her fourth term as Sussex PCC, Mrs Bourne is eager to understand residents’ concerns and ideas in order to inform the priorities in her new police and crime plan.
Speaking about the survey, PCC Katy Bourne said: “As your police and crime commissioner since 2012, I’ve been asking you, as local residents, to tell me what makes you feel safe or unsafe.
“I am elected to be your voice within policing so it is my responsibility to ensure that the chief constable is delivering efficient and effective policing across our county.
“As I develop our new police and crime plan, I’d like to know if issues that mattered to you before have changed? Please complete my short survey – I look forward to hearing your thoughts and value your feedback.”
The survey can be accessed online and only takes a few minutes to complete and can be found here.
What’s On diary
Image Credits: Talya Roberson , Rye Wine and Food Festival , Juliet Duff , Tibbs Farm .
Lookout anyone who parks in Cinque Ports street! I have been caught out by the Ringo app, a while ago when I parked just outside the Dance centre ( Cinque Port Street not Tower Street)
I tapped on what I believed to be the Cinque Port street meter, paid for an hour, then returned within time, and found a parking ticket.
It turned out that I had paid the Cinque Port Street Car park meter ( This is actually closer to where I had parked ) .
I appealed to the powers to be and was told that the Street belongs to East Sussex CC and the Car park belongs to Rother CC.
I still use the Ringo app, because it saves me the hassle of having to find the correct change for the machine, also having to walk 200 metres to the machine and back to put a printed ticket in the car windscreen, and if I need to extend the time I need, I can go into the app and pay for it without having to go back to the machine.
Hopefully someone dose something about the ‘not fit for purpose’ situation currently in use along Cinque Port Street.