Environment Committee meetings are usually held every 1st Tuesday of each month (except August) commencing at 7pm. However, please confirm date and time on the agenda of the next meeting. For more information visit http://www.sandgatepc.kentparishes.gov.uk/

After a hugely busy political year, we'd like to wish all our members, supporters, their friends and families a very Happy Christmas and the best possible New Year.

We saw our share of the vote rise at the General Election, came second in Folkestone and Hythe in the European Elections in May, and got Liberal Democrat Councillors elected to Folkestone and Hythe District Council, Folkestone Town Council and Hythe Town Council for the first time in years. We've got further to go, but what a long way we've come...

It was a pleasure to see former Councillor Terry Preston at the Folkestone and Hythe District Council Christmas meeting on 18th December.

At that meeting, after months of calls by the Liberal Democrats and others for the District Council to move beyond the previously announced Council house building progamme or 300 houses over 5 years, David Monk announced he was now going to push for 1,000 new Council homes to be built over the next 10 years.

Britain's network of buses is faltering, leaving many people isolated and unable to get to work. A radical government would consider making bus travel free

The great story of the British bus, which arrived in 1824 and by 1950 accounted for 42 per cent of all journeys, is running into difficulties. Use in this country is at its lowest level since records began 50 years ago. Only 4 per cent of all journeys made last year were by bus. Outside London there were nine million fewer journeys in Britain in 2018-19 compared with the previous year, a result of higher fares and cancelled routes. The inconvenience caused has not been evenly spread. Most cuts have fallen on less populated and rural regions. Some busy places have only two bus rides a day. Smaller villages might see a bus perhaps twice a week, while others are cut off entirely.

It's Christmas next week and there will be no waste collections on Wednesday 25th or Thursday 26th December.

Revised collection dates for Christmas week are:

• Monday 23rd - no change
• Tuesday 24th - no change
• Wednesday 25th was collected 4 DAYS EARLIER on Saturday 21st
• Thursday 26th will be collected 2 DAYS LATER on Saturday 28th
• Friday 27th - no change