It's a watery column this week because I am going to give a shout out for Eastbourne’s Water Festival starting this Saturday.
I have the honour being at the Opening alongside Eastbourne’s Mayor. It runs from the 10th to the 19th May and is organised by Oliver Sterno and his brilliant team at Plastic Free Eastbourne.
There is a packed schedule of events for all ages and interests including a Big Beach Clean, art exhibitions, health and well-being events and an Eco Fair! Please come along and support it.
The sea is undeniably our greatest asset and like many of you, it’s what I love most about living here.
I’ve worked hard to see our water quality rise and confidence return and this last week I had my latest in series meeting with the Environment Agency.
Last year our water quality was rated ‘good’ – an improvement following some sterling investigative work by Southern Water’s misconnections team who identified a seafront council building with sewage pipes illegally connected and discharging out to sea.
The EA has restarted weekly testing which takes place from May to September. Next week I am backing a private members bill to institute testing all year round, a proposal I discussed with the EA last week and something I committed to do when I met with our sea swimmers.
We also discussed the roll out of the citizen science testing kits that have been deployed by Southern Water to local swimming groups. I secured these kits from the company and once up and running, will add good supplementary data.
One piece of homework for me was to follow up water tanks in parks to improve water catchment – a leading cause of overflows and water quality issues. Much good work and progress is happening on water quality in our town, and I thank everyone for working with me.
And there’s more partnership work for me this week at the multi-agency meeting with the Police, Council and County Council. I am still very focussed on the town centre. I’m also looking forward to stepping into my local pharmacy on Friday to see how the new services are working.
Meantime, please do keep in touch and hope to see you at The Spring Water Festival!
