Wivelsfield and Water
Wivelsfield Station
Throughout 2025, I repeatedly raised my concerns in Parliament that the promise made by the last Conservative government to deliver step free access to the London bound platform at Wivelsfield Station did not appear to be forthcoming.
I have just checked Hansard and I can see that I raised it in March 2025, July 2025, and November 2025.
In January this year, the Labour government announced that due to the scheme not being funded, Wivelsfield was not being progressed.
This led to a meeting in February with Lord Hendy the Minister for Rail, and then a visit with Burgess Hill Town Councillors Peter Williams and Diane Black to look at an alternative idea that local residents have been developing.
Then, after months of back and forth with Network Rail trying to agree a time to meet, on Friday I finally got everyone together despite Storm Austen, to walk the site. We made good progress. I will share a longer update on social media this week, but when you consider the time scales, it shows how slow it is trying to get anything to happen. Even a meeting to look at a footpath.
Water Resilience Summit
The security of our water supply continued to be a major focus last week.
On Tuesday members of my staff along with three brilliant work experience students from Haywards Heath College spent the day at an emergency planning workshop reviewing where South East Water ought to locate bottled water stations in the event of a supply interruption. One thing that came out of the session was that Mid Sussex has a lower number of residents on the Priority Services Register compared to other districts that South East Water supplies water to. I am having a think about what my office can do to promote sign up to the register, but, in the meantime, if you or someone you know has a permanent or temporary disability or illness, or is frail or might have difficulty collecting and carrying bottled water, going on the register is something that I would encourage people to look into.
On Wednesday I was briefed by the Water Minister, South East Water, the Environment Agency, the Met Office on the current water levels, the drought and the weather forecast going into the late Autumn and Winter.
On Thursday I convened a Mid Sussex Water Resilience Summit. National and local government representatives and agencies who are responsible for us here in Mid Sussex came together to review the current situation, share knowledge about each organisation’s responsibilities during the severe drought, and raise issues that need further attention. We talked about vulnerable customers, making more effective use of our town and parish council network to help share information, and, beyond the immediate low water levels, how our water supplies can be made more secure into the spring and beyond.
At the end of the week, as well as Cuckfield having a water outage, The Environment Agency and South East Water announced that they have agreed that more water can be retained in Ardingly Reservoir, reducing the flow into the River Ouse in order to protect the public water supply. This, along with the wetter weather will make the pressures on our water supply less acute.
I start a new week with more confidence than I started the last one. Despite the low water levels in Ardingly, steps are being taken to make sure that the taps keep flowing. However, there is a long way to go. We still need to take steps to save water where we can. Some helpful tips are here.
Getting in touch
My parliamentary email address is: alison.bennett.mp@parliament.uk. If you need my help, please get in touch.
Best wishes,
Alison
PS: If you’ve enjoyed this week’s Monday Mail, please spread the word and tell your friends by forwarding it to them. Anyone can sign up here.