Home - East Dean and Friston Parish Council

Next Parish Council Meetings

Full Council Tuesday 7th January
Planning 17th December

Recreation Ground

We are no longer taking bookings for hire of the Pavilion until spring 2020. This is to allow refurbishment work to take place over the winter months.

Community Services within the Village

Charity of the year 2019/20

Churches
Cuckmere Community Bus route 41
Community Watch / Neighbourhood Watch
East Dean Responders
Emergency Plan
Residents' Association
Royal British Legion

Tree Warden

Village Diary (Dec 2019-Feb 2020)
Village Directory (at Nov 2019)
Village Hall

Village website

Who Looks after What?

Quick Links

Your Councillors

Finance Meetings

Full Council
Planning
Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group

Welcome

Welcome to the East Dean and Friston Parish Council website. We hope that you enjoy browsing it and finding out more about our village and its council. We always welcome feedback from our site visitors, so if you have any comments or suggestions for improvements then please let us know via the "Contact Us" link.

What's new?

The minutes for the Parish Council meeting, held on 5th December have been published and can be viewed here. If you're in a hurry then you can read a summary of the last three months' minutes here.

The Parish Council currently has a vacancy for a councillor. The official notice of vacancy has been posted on the council notice boards and can be seen here. Anyone who is a resident of the Parish can put themself forward for this position. To find out more information, please contact the Parish Clerk (contact details here).

The festive tree illumination ceremony took place on 1st December outside the Village Hall to mark the countdown to Christmas. Mulled wine, soft drinks and mince pies were served before Rector David Baker pressed the "Big Red Button" to switch on the lights. Carol singing then took place, accompanied by John Dann and his "Squeeze Box" and this continued as people made their way to The Grange to serenade the residents. Many thanks to those who gave generously to our bucket collection, which raised £112 for the Parish Council's charity of the year, the JPK Project.

The bus shelter on the north side of the A259 at Friston, near Windmill Lane, is being rebuilt and the council's contractor has nearly completed the work. The Brighton and Hove bus company has been informed and has indicated that it should be possible to keep the stop operational, slightly further down the hill, though the shelter itself will of course be cordoned off.

Wealden District Council have published the revised bin collection dates for the Christmas and New Year period. For further details see here.

The minutes for the Planning Committee meeting held on Tuesday 19th November have now been published and can be viewed here.

An Extraordinary Council Meeting took place on 19th November following on from the Planning Committee meeting on the same date. To view the minutes of this meeting click here.

The Parish Council has appointed Debbie Picknell to the post of Admin. Assistant. Debbie started on the 11th November and she will be working with our Parish Clerk, Katrina Larkin, mostly dealing with the work of the Planning Committee and the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group. You can find aout more about Debbie here.

Good News! - Following representations by the Parish Council and the South Downs National Park, BT have confirmed that the phone box at the junction of Gilberts Drive and the A259, that was under threat of decommisioning, has been removed from their "rationalisation programme" and will remain in place. For more on this story see here.

The schedule of meetings for the Parish Council and Planning Committee for next year has now been published and can be viewed here.

The Parish Council have received information from the Forestry Commission regarding this season's tree felling in Friston Forest. To find out what's happening, click here.

The Parish and its Council

The Parish of East Dean and Friston is located between the south coast towns of Seaford and Eastbourne, situated on the southern edge of Wealden District in the County of East Sussex and within the South Downs National Park. It is a relatively large rural area, comprising the village of East Dean and Friston, together with the smaller hamlets of Birling Gap and Crowlink. The A259 main coast road passes through the Parish with the old village to the south and the newer parts of the village (known as the "Downlands Estate") to the north. The Parish is primarily residential, covers an area of 3.3sq miles and consists of some 760 households with a population of around 2,200.

East Dean Village is centred around the Village Green with its war memorial, medieval church and long-established inn, “The Tiger”. To the North-West of the village, as the A259 ascends Friston Hill, is the area known as Friston, which was originally a separate village with its own church at the top of the hill.

Birling Gap is a coastal hamlet with a long shingle beach, backed by the famous Seven Sisters cliffs and not far from Beachy Head. The Birling Gap visitor centre and cafe, and some of the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.

Crowlink is a small hamlet grouped around a manor house; in the 18th century it was a haven for smugglers of Gin that became known as "Genuine Crowlink". It was also once the home of the Edwardian author, Edith Nesbit, whose best-known work is “The Railway Children”.

Parish Councils were formed in England under the Local Government Act 1894 to take over local oversight of civic duties in rural towns and villages. Before this date a variety of groups based around ecclesiastical (church) parishes had responsibility for these matters, in a system of local government that originated in the feudal system of the 8th century. The establishment of Parish Councils effectively separated church from state and today's councils are totally secular in nature and independent from the Parochial Church Councils that deal with the administration of the local Church of England places of worship.

Following the 1894 Act, both East Dean and Friston began Parish Meetings (not council meetings) and East Dean then formed a Parish Council in 1924. The Friston Parish Meeting merged with East Dean to form the East Dean and Friston Parish Council in 1948.

Parish Councils are the first tier of local government and have limited variable tax raising powers. The component part of the Council Tax, which comes to the Parish Council, is known as the Precept.
Parish Councils are responsible for areas known as civil parishes, and there are approximately 9,000 Parish Councils in England. East Dean and Friston is one of those civil Parishes. Although there is nothing to prevent Parish Councils being political in nature, the current East Dean and Friston PC members are all independent of any party political sponsorship. The current Parish Council was elected in 2019 and is due for re-election in May 2023.