Early Engagement

We have made it a priority to ensure that we engage with all of the key stakeholders in Rye and we began by reaching out to local politicians and contributors to the Neighbourhood Plan. Our engagement started in July when we met with the Rother District Ward Councillor, Simon McGurk, to provide him with details of the plans that we had started work on. This wasn’t to seek support or approval at this stage but simply to ensure that Cllr McGurk was aware of the proposals that were being worked on.

We also spent some time with Col Anthony Kimber, who has worked on the Neighbourhood Plan with Rye Town Council, for exactly the same reason. Not to gain support but to make him aware of the proposals and to gain his feedback and input so that we could feed that into the project team.

Our next port of call was Rye Town Council and we held two separate meetings with them. The first with the Mayor and Deputy Mayor, along with Col Kimber, so that we could get their thoughts and input. It was at this meeting that they suggested we present the plans to members of the Town Council, which we were delighted to do, and members of the project team duly did that in October, their input was very valuable indeed.

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In early October we also met with the Cabinet Member for Housing on Rother District Council and we were keen to make him aware that the proposals included the provision of affordable housing. We received good feedback from him which was also passed on to the project team.

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