From tackling the cost of living crisis to reforming the planning system these are some of the issues we believe the incoming PM should be tackling for our county when she assumes office, succeeding Boris Johnson.
5. Housebuilding
With average house prices so high across the South East, our county has been a prime target for developers seemingly wanting to concrete over every greenfield they can get their hands on. Despite promises from the Conservatives to review ridiculously high house targets, the government-appointed inspectors keep overruling our councils. Developers are banking permissions and underdelivering meaning councils get behind on their targets, meaning yet more sites have to be approved. And when brownfield sites do come forward, high build costs are cited as the reason for delivering either very few or sometimes no affordable housing. Photo: NW
6. Better roads
Most of our main roads, especially the A27 along most of its length, are plagued by congestion, with motorists finding it impossible to travel during peak times without sitting in a never ending traffic jam. Such roadbuilding projects are contentious and where they do go ahead they should have the largest package of mitigation measures possible, but our major routes need extra capacity to stop them constantly clogging up. Photo: Louise Adams
7. More reliable rail links
While the performance of Southern and Thameslink services, run by Govia Thameslink Railway, has significantly improved since the severe disruption in 2016/2017 and the timetable chaos in 2018, Sussex needs a rail service passengers can rely upon day in and day out. Cheaper fares would go a long way to encouraging more people back on the trains. Photo: jl
8. Small business help
The Covid-19 pandemic has been especially hard on our small and independent businesses. If we don’t want many of these to fold, more help from the government is needed. This could take a number of forms, from scrapping business rates to capping rents. Photo: o3p