Author: Jim Hollands

BRITAIN IN BLOOM AWARDS

Rye in Bloom were delighted to be presented with a Bronze award at the star studded Britain in Bloom Awards ceremony held at the Royal Armouries, Leeds last week. The awards were announced and presented by RHS Director General Andrew Colquhoun and Bob Flowerdew, garden writer and organic gardener. Of the 11 overall winning entries 9 were from the North of England and Scotland and 2 from the South West of the country. Nevertheless, Rye (Small Town) as the only representative from Rother and East Sussex won a very creditable Bronze. The two other entries from categories in the South East of England were Stanwell Village (Urban Community)who also won a Bronze and Crawley (Large Town/Small City) who won a Silver Gilt.

TEN RIDERS FOR SEASONS LAST RACE

Rye Wheelers have ten riders entered for the last race of the 2004 season. Rye riders, with ages ranging from 15 to 70 comprising nine men and one woman rider, will be competing in a 15 mile open time trial on a Kent course on Sunday 10 October. Not since 1958 have so many Rye cyclists raced in an open event. It is almost certain the club will have the largest entry. It is possible the club senior, junior and ladies records will be broken.

JIMPER’S BUSY MONTH

Jimper Sutton, long time “Rye’s Own” countryside columnist, will be busy during October. He has two books coming up for publication, “Moon Girl” a love story and “Bonfire” a collection of his own experiences as a member of Rye Bonfire Society. This is not all, during October he is being interviewed by BBC Television’s Country File for an eighteen minute segment for a programme to be screened in the forthcoming series. “Country File” is presented by John Craven and is screened on Sunday mornings at 11.15am. Jimper will be talking about fishing and will, no doubt, get in a plug or two for his new books.

WAS THE WRONG MAN ELECTED?

At a recent meeting of the Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee of Rother District Council, Cllr Roger Bird (Tory, Marsham Ward) beat Cllr. Granville Bantick in the ballot for the position vacated by Cllr Sam Souster’s resignation as Rother’s representative on the Rye Partnership. Local people are angry that Cllr. Bantick was not elected being their local representative, and that Cllr Bird, who lives in Fairlight, should be representing Rother in Rye. District Councillor Bantick told a “Rye’s Own” reporter “I consider this to be another case of disgraceful politicking amongst the Tory administration at Rother made the worse for being so obviously blatant.”

“ADMINISTRATIVE ERRORS”

During a question and answer session at this same meeting following a presentation by Rick Stern, Chief Executive of the Bexhill and Rother Primary Care Trust, Cllr Bantick asked “Why it was that residents of Rye had not received a notice through their letter boxes notifying them of the new arrangements following the cessation of doctors’ home visits after hours?” The reply received was in the form of an apology the oversight being due to “administrative errors”. This is a serious matter for if anyone was needing to have a home visit due to any number of reasons outside surgery hours they should know the telephone number to ring to obtain a doctor. Cllr. Bantick is writing to the PCT to press for some action.

MARINA PLANS

Developers Milwood Homes put their controversial plans for a Marina at Rock Channel on display at the Riverhaven Hotel on Thursday 30 September, Friday 1 and Saturday 2 October. “Rye’s Own” will cover this event in the November magazine and invite comments from readers.

FESTIVAL OF FOOD

“A Taste of Rye”, the week long food festival at the end of September, was another successful event encouraged by Town Manager Yolanda Laybourne. A dozen restaurants took part, putting on local dishes matched with local wines. It is hoped the event will become a regular annual attraction and can be linked with the Rye Scollop Festival which takes place each February.

“Rye New” October 2004

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