Welcome to our special edition Residents’ eNewsletter. However you are planning to spend the period over Christmas and the New Year, we wish you a safe, peaceful and enjoyable time.

Merry Christmas from West Sussex County Council 

A message from the county council's Chairman and Leader.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

During this busy season, county council staff will be working to provide services as usual, ranging from libraries and highways to social care and the Fire and Rescue Service.

2024 has been a very successful year for the county council, with more investment in social care and extra investment in highways across the county, including our gritters which stand ready to tackle challenging winter weather.

The county council will continue to work for you in 2025.

Cllr Pieter Montyn                                 Cllr Paul Marshall

Chairman   (pictured right)                    Leader.

We're here for you 

If you need us over the Christmas and New Year holidays, we are here for you.

The link below has details of opening hours over the festive period, including our community hub, family hubs, and customer service centre.

You can also find all the out of hours contact numbers you many need, and what problems you can report online.

Christmas at our children's homes

Children and young people cared for by the county council have been getting into the Christmas spirit, with special festive events throughout December.

Parties have been taking place across the council’s children’s homes to bring the magic of the season to the young people, who have often faced significant trauma and challenges in their lives.

One child described an event at High Trees home in Crawley as the ‘best party ever’, while a parent said: “I cannot thank the team at the home enough for all they do for my child and our family.”

A wartime Christmas in West Sussex

Take a step back into festive times past and read about two wartime evacuees who produced a magazine called The Petworth Stars.

Amy and Nellie Scaddan were living with the Parvin family in Petworth and their hand-written and illustrated magazine highlighted the happy times they had in the West Sussex village, despite the hardships of wartime Britain.

The magazine’s 1943 Christmas issue is featured in one of our Record Office blogswhere you’ll discover what the family ate for Christmas dinner and their full list of gifts – which included slippers, a pink scarf, a doll’s bed, and a toothbrush.

Visit our Record Office on the link below to discover a wealth of local history dating from 780AD to the present day.

You can trace your family history, view historic photos, research a military ancestor, use maps to explore your local area and house history, find out more about times gone by – and much more!

Help us help you

The NHS is asking everyone living in Sussex to Help Us Help You as demand on health services increases through the winter months.

If you have loved ones in hospital, help them to leave hospital when they are clinically safe to do so. Every day spent in hospital when they don’t need to be there makes their recovery longer - it’s ok for them to ask ‘when am I going home?'

If you’re eligible, today (19 December) is the last day you can book your flu and Covid-19 vaccination online using the NHS National Booking System. From tomorrow (20 December) you can arrange an appointment directly with a local service or attend a walk-in session.

Find out how you can make the right choices on which health services to contact over the Christmas break on the NHS Sussex website.

You can also visit our Keeping Safe this Winter webpage for tips on staying safe, well and warm this winter.

Get ready to reduce waste this Christmas

We’re encouraging residents to reduce waste wherever possible during the festive season.

Wrapping gifts in reusable materials like ribbon and scarves, using crockery when hosting parties rather than paper plates and plastic cutlery, and making your own crackers are just some of the ideas that can reduce Christmas waste.

We understand that some waste is unavoidable, but there are lots of Christmas items that can be recycled, including:

• Christmas cards
• Wrapping paper (if it scrunches up in your hand and stays scrunched)
• Paper bags
• Glass bottles and jars
• Plastic bottles (with lids on)
• Plastic pots, tubs and trays (including sweet and chocolate tubs)
• Flexible toothpaste tubes
• Tins and cans
• Foil
• Pringles tubes

Finally, it’s easy for food waste to build up over the festive period. Instead of letting leftovers go to waste, why not turn them into something delicious or make a conscious effort to only buy what you need.

Stay safe from fire 

The festive season should be filled with joy, not disaster. Stay safe by following our West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service’s essential dos and don’ts for fire hazards in your home:

• Never place candles near your Christmas tree or materials that can catch light easily.
  
  
• Keep candles, lighters and matches out of children’s reach. Never leave burning candles unattended.
  
  
• Never overload electrical sockets. Always switch Christmas lights off and unplug them before you go to bed.
  
  
• Decorations can burn easily – don’t attach them to lights or heaters.

Check out our Newsroom to read more West Sussex stories.

• Do you or someone you care for receive respite care? We're looking at how respite care services can better support adults with lifelong disabilities and mental health conditions, as well as their unpaid carers. Respite might mean support at home, day activities or residential stays, and we want to make sure these services meet everyone’s needs. Please complete our survey and give your views on how respite services could work better. This will help us shape future plans and improvements. 
  
  
• Our West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service has welcomed two new on-call firefighters.
  
  
• We have announced a major expansion to stop smoking services in the county to help people quit.
  
  
• We're asking for your feedback to help shape the West Sussex Road Safety Strategy, which outlines how we intend to improve road safety across the county and reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured in traffic collisions. 

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