Mayor’s update

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It’s been another good couple of weeks.

I was very pleased to welcome Vagn Hansen as a new councillor to Rye Town Council on Monday, January 9. I know that his previous experience in business will be very useful to us all and that he will make a good town representative for the people of Rye.

Many of you may laugh that I spent Thursday, January 12 on a brewery tour! It was in aid of the mayor of Faversham’s charities – each Cinque Port town attends events across the 14 ports each year in order to support their charitable fundraising. We had a very interesting evening and it was a chance to catch up with other mayors and to network. Talking of charities, I was pleased to present various local groups with cheques at the town hall on Wednesday, January 25 on behalf of the Rye Fund.

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend Margate’s Blessing of the Sea, nor the Confederation of Cinque Ports meeting in Hythe, because I have to give priority to Rye and was working as port controller with the harbour master. We only have a few hours’ notice sometimes that ships are coming in. Fortunately, Rebekah attended the Hythe meeting – which was an important one about the future direction of the Confederation.

Rye argued strongly a year or so ago that the Confederation had to have meaning and purpose – especially because it is largely funded with taxpayers’ money, so they needed to see the benefit of the group. A working group with the current speaker, Cllr Jim Martin of Hythe Town Council, was set up to look at ways that the Confederation could be more proactive, and this was something Rebekah played a big role in.

I am pleased to report that all recommendations by the working group were agreed and, as from May’s election, each town will be asked to identify a Cinque Ports champion who will sit on the group for four years. They will work with the 14 towns, promoting them – plus special interest groups such as education, business, the environment and tourism – so that we can use this vehicle of the Confederation in the best interests of its member towns. At the end of the meeting, Rebekah was presented with a past speaker’s badge, as she was speaker of the Confederation during the worst of the Covid pandemic.

A few days ago, most importantly, we had a meeting with the chief executive of Rother District Council (RDC) about the swimming pool. We now have credible figures to work from on how much this – as well as the sports centre – costs each year, thanks to the voluntary endeavours of William Coatesworth, who has done the town proud in his hard work, not just using his professional expertise in compiling the figures, but talking with various industry experts and Freedom Leisure to ascertain what is and isn’t possible. We should know in a couple of weeks or so where RDC want to go with this, and of course I will report back straight away. We also touched on the future of the Landgate. Meetings have been ongoing in the past year to explore options and we are now considering what might be possible.

Image Credits: Rebekah Gilbert , Cinque Ports Confederation , Isabel Ryan .

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