Hailsham Town Council's Annual Report available to view

The report, which is produced every year and presented at the Annual Town (Electors') Meeting, contains information on how the Town Council is performing and what it has achieved in the past year. The document provides a summary of the Council’s end-of-year finances, activities and projects, and includes reports from the various committees and contact details for town councillors.

The Mayor of Hailsham, Cllr Paul Holbrook, has written an introduction to the report, which is set out below:

"Thank you for taking the time to read this important document, which I hope goes a considerable way in terms of outlining the Town Council's many achievements - and challenges faced - over the past year.

The Town Council has consistently worked towards making its front-line operations as efficient as possible. Like many town and parish councils across the country, we are committed to providing value for money. We all know times are tough, especially now we are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, and in recent months we have faced some difficult decisions on how to balance providing essential quality services with ever-decreasing budgets. The way the Town Council operates has transformed and continue to transform well into the future.

The Town Council's long-term vision is for a town that is community-driven - with a positive and co-operative mindset - and your Town Council has certainly been busy working towards that.

As Town Mayor and Chair for nearly five years now, I have thoroughly enjoyed contributing to the fruition of our many achievements over the past year, including continuing to work hard for our residents to make further significant improvements to our services, finding more efficient ways to carry out our activities and make our operations as efficient as possible.

Several changes have affected the Town Council, and we have all had to work hard - and under greater constraint than usual. These changes include a significant increase in the cost of utilities across most of our sites which we maintain for residents, in addition to an increase in other running costs across the board.

My fellow town councillors and I - and perhaps to a greater degree, our staff, have worked meticulously to ensure that we provide value for money for residents and make these additional improvements to our services.

We have worked on a variety of new projects recently (as well as continuing with existing ones), such as the exciting upgrades to the town's children's play areas, the replacement of the footpath at the Common Pond as part of our obligation to ensure that our open spaces are well maintained and accessible to the public, the expansion of Hailsham Youth Service, the running of the town centre post office (a vital community resource!), and the effective operation of our facilities for hire, including the James West Community Centre.

We will continue to work in partnership with residents, stakeholders and the community at large to meet the infrastructure needs of the town's increasing population and set a positive course for the coming year.

In terms of my role as Town Mayor, I feel honoured once again to have represented the people of Hailsham and meeting so many members of the local community at civic engagements, whilst helping to raise the profile of local charities, community groups and voluntary organisations - all of which work selflessly to help others and make individuals' lives just that much better and brighter.

A lot can be achieved in our town and I have strived to work with different groups of people to overcome the challenges we face now and in the future, especially moving forward and seeing us through the cost-of-living crisis. Hailsham is a special place, and I hope that it remains so.

In closing, I would like residents to know that the Town Council is here for you. If you have any issues about the town, you should contact us. While we can’t promise to be able to have a solution to every problem, we will always do our best to attempt to get some sort of positive outcome."