Friends,

Yesterday (Monday 9th December) was a fruitful day of action in the campaign to keep Sidley car park free. 

Leafleting 
After dealing with some casework in the morning, Cllr Fazlul Chowdhury and I headed to the car park to hand out petition leaflets to the local businesses, residents and car park users. These were well received and the businesses we spoke to were supportive of the campaign. We were grateful to be joined by our Labour Councillor colleagues Christine, Gareth, Mark and Ruairi (pictured with Fazlul and I). Especially given the weather!

Meeting senior officers 
Following some successful leafleting, I next headed to the Town Hall for some scheduled meetings with senior officers and spoke to this issue. The response was encouraging.

Speaking at Cabinet
In the evening, we had our scheduled Cabinet meeting where the draft budget was presented for noting prior to the final decision making in February 2025 after the consultation closes. Here, I updated cabinet members on the enormous response to this petition and to my conversations with businesses and residents. Cllr Chowdhury and I will be continuing to lobby other councillors on Cabinet on this issue, alongside our fellow Labour councillors who have supported the campaign since the beginning. 

What next?
Really, the next big thing to happen in relation to this campaign will be in the new year when the responses to Rother's budget consultation are collated and reviewed. It is here that we hope to use the responses relating to the car park + the response to this petition to persuade councillors and officers to remove the proposals from the budget altogether. 

In the meantime, we have been working closely with our Labour colleagues to find alternative savings proposals within the budget that could make up the potential lost revenue from not charging in Sidley car park. This will help us make a financially sound case for not charging. A lot will depend on the national settlements for local government which are due soon - this is where Rother will find out how much funding (if any) the council will get from Government and what it can be spent on. If there is a better-than-expected settlement, this will make our case easier to argue as the council will have more income than expected. If, however, Rother does not receive any funding this round, or less than expected, then we may have a harder time of it. Either way, we will be working over the holidays to prepare for whatever comes.

What can you do?

Continue to share the petition
https://www.change.org/p/keep-sidley-car-park-free

Fill in Rother's budget consultation
https://www.rother.gov.uk/consultations/council-budget-2025/

Email Cabinet members (politely) letting them know that you care about this issue. 
https://rother.moderngov.co.uk/mgCommitteeDetails.aspx?ID=153

Thank you all for your support on this key local issue. In case I don't have an update before Christmas, I hope you all find some peace, joy and love during the festive period.

Season's Greetings,

Sam.