New Burgess Hill mayor aspires to help the most vulnerable in town

Speaking exclusively to the Middy, the 71-year-old councillor said he aspires to help the most vulnerable in our town – children and the elderly.

His first chosen charity came as an easy decision – St Peter and St James Hospice in North Chailey.

“My wife died in the hospice three years ago,” he explained.

“The hospice is great and I want to give something back, and I have the chance now.

“It is a beautiful environment and people are well looked after. They do 90 per cent of their work outside of the hospice.”

Mr Cartwright wears another hat – governor of London Meed Primary School in Chanctonbury Road – and wants to help pupils there, and other primary schools in the town.

“One thing that shocked me was that some of the pupils at London Meed haven’t been out on a school trip for a couple of years due to funding,” he said.

The retired consultant, who has a son and daughter and two grandchildren, is also chairman of the Mid Sussex Liberal Democrats.

He said his aim, as well as the new town councillors’ aim, was to involve the public more in things going on in the town.

“We want to make things more open,” he said.

“We want to know what people are thinking, and they can then pass this on to the powers that be. People then feel that they have some say in the matter.”

He said it was ‘mind-blowing’ what was going on in Burgess Hill at the moment, such as the £1billion town regeneration programme, that includes the town centre redevelopment, the Northern Arc, and the improvement to the A2300 corridor.

“More than 1,000 people came to have a look at the NewRiver’s town centre plans at the last open day,” he said.

“But there needs to be more communication. We need to get Burgess Hill more involved with it. The town council can then do quite a useful job telling people what is planned.”

He said he was amazed by the number of voluntary groups and organisations in the town – all working for good causes. But many are in desperate need of more funding, he said.

Mr Cartwright retired in 2010 and wanted to get into local politics.

He commented on the big changes across the district’s political landscape – such as the Liberal Democrats taking 13 seats in the local elections.

“We did work very hard,” he said, adding: “And we did even better than we thought we would do.”