Alliance for Wealden District Council Update

At a recent meeting, Council approved:  

• the Alliance for Wealden’s proposed plan for the last years of Wealden District Council;
• a new community led infrastructure fund; and
• a motion declaring a biodiversity crisis. 

The Council’s plan is reviewed every two years and this year’s review took place against the background of government plans to abolish district councils in 2028.

The Community Led Infrastructure Fund (CLIF) will make £2million available for grants to community organisations who want to turn into reality their ideas for culture, wellbeing and green spaces.

Declaring a biodiversity crisis serves to emphasize something which has been at the heart of Alliance action and thinking since 2023 – the realisation that people are dependent on nature and simply cannot live without it. The destruction of the recent decades must urgently be reversed.  Hence the Alliance’s vision for Wealden: “a place where people and nature thrive together”.

In handing over leadership of the Council to James Partridge, Rachel Millward (Green Party), noted that, in 2023, people had voted for change and, above all, for a council which would get things done. Confirming the Alliance’s vision for Wealden as a place where people and nature thrive together, she said the Alliance had set out to get things done and noted particular successes in reducing the Council’s carbon emissions, major investment in sports and leisure facilities and other community assets across the district and increasing the amount the Council spends with local businesses.

The Alliance remains committed to focussing on what matters most to Wealden people and to creating a greener, fairer, kinder Wealden so that the essence of what makes Wealden special is preserved for generations to come and long after the Council has ceased to exist.  The reviewed plan puts an emphasis on nature restoration, more action on climate change, stepping up to help provide needed new medical centres and investing in sports and culture and new buildings needed by growing Wealden businesses.