Water is one of the few absolute essentials of life. Many constituents were sharply reminded of this when we awoke on Sunday morning to find no running water from taps across large parts of West Sussex served by reservoirs that in turn depend upon water pumped from Hardham. Good communication is almost everything in these situations and with temperatures rising, together with my colleague, Jeremy Quin MP, I hosted meetings with local stakeholders and elected representatives to ensure as clear a view as possible was shared of the impacted areas, updates on restarting supply and mitigations including the availability of water stations and deliveries to the vulnerable. Supply fortunately was mostly restored by midnight on Sunday but I will be taking forward with Southern Water about how such a complete failure of supply might happen again, and the lessons to be learned from this unfortunate incident. My thanks go to all of those volunteers who helped on a practical level delivering water to neighbours or to vulnerable residents and to our Parish Councils who activated quickly to get support to those who needed it the most.
Following the recent local elections, I would like to thank the many hard working councillors who through retirement or defeat will no longer be serving on our local District Councils. Some had given quiet and diligent service to their local communities for decades and in a low turnout election the results were not a personal reflection on them and their service. I also look forward to working constructively with our new Councillors and District Council leadership in order to protect our precious countryside from unsustainable rural development and ensure residents continue to get the quality services and low council tax that they need.
