Dear Resident,
We wanted to write to assure you that, as Leaders of your local Councils, we will be doing all in our power to ensure vital services continue to operate during the new period of lockdown beginning tomorrow (Nov 5).
Like everyone we hope that we can emerge from these terrible times soon. The pandemic has touched the lives of all of us and for now all we can do as communities is follow the guidance to protect ourselves and others. We sympathise with everyone who finds lockdown a painful experience, often cut off from loved ones and experiencing feelings of isolation.
Similarly we also feel for the businesses now facing fresh doubt because of this new lockdown just as they were struggling to their feet. Adur and Worthing have some fantastic enterprises, large and small, and we hope that they can survive this latest setback.
What we as Councils can do is to strive to do our utmost to keep the services we provide running as normally as possible. Last lockdown our waste crews did not miss a bin round through those long months and we hope we can do the same now. Our economy teams processed £30m of support grants to local businesses in a matter of weeks. It was an incredible feat and we will be ready to do so again once more details of the business grant scheme announced at the weekend are released.
Similarly our Communities Teams will be ready once again to identify the more vulnerable residents and link them up to help, whether that be through neighbourhood volunteers or through our close working partnerships, in particular the social services teams at West Sussex County Council. And our Parks Teams will be ensuring that our open spaces are kept spic and span so you can continue to enjoy them, socially distanced of course.
We also want you to know that the work on recovery continues come what may. It is vital that we continue to build for the future, working on schemes like the development of Teville Gate in Worthing or building new affordable homes in Adur. Our officers are looking to the horizon as well as focussing on building resilience during this pandemic because we remain completely confident that our communities of Adur and Worthing can emerge from these times with a fresh resolve to build a brighter future. We’ve done it before and we can do it again.
So our fantastic teams at the Councils will continue to do what they are good at. Providing excellent services, doing all we can to protect the vulnerable, while creating the foundations for economic recovery.
In the meantime we will do our very best to keep you informed about what is happening during lockdown and what advice and services we can offer. Our Communications Team will be sending our regular bulletins across social media and you can find all the latest information here:
Please take care and look after those close to you.
Best wishes, Neil and Daniel.
