The Duke and Duchess of Sussex made their first official visit to West Sussex this week. The Royal Couple were given the warmest of welcomes in Chichester and Bognor Regis.                                                     

Crowds of enthusiastic well-wishers turned out in Chichester to see Prince Harry and Meghan. Everyone was delighted as the couple spent time chatting with members of the public including groups of local school children.                                                                 

The Duke and Duchess visited Edes House to see the rare copy of the American Declaration of Independence. The Royal Party then travelled to Bognor Regis where they officially opened the University of Chichester’s Engineering and Digital Technology Park.

See the full story and photos here

Come and have your say on revised proposals for Horsham Enterprise Park (the former Novartis site) later this month.

A second drop-in event takes place on Tuesday 30 October, from 12 noon to 8pm, at The Holbrook Club, North Heath Lane, Horsham, RH12 5PJ.

You can view the revised masterplan for the site, speak to members of the project team and give your comments. You’ll also be able to feedback online from Wednesday 31 October.

WSCC is committed to ensuring this landmark site makes a significant contribution to creating and supporting new employment, providing high quality business space, and some new homes.

West Sussex families can now apply for school places for children due to start primary school in September 2019. Children born between 1 September 2014 and 31 August 2015 will be eligible to start primary or infant school next September.

Parents of children currently in Year 2 at infant school should also apply for a place at junior school next year. Applications opened on 1 October 2018 and close on 15 January 2019.

The quickest and easiest way to apply is online

Parents will receive an automatic e-mail acknowledgement that the application has been received. Free use of computers with internet access is available in all West Sussex libraries.

West Sussex County Council staff are available to help parents through the admissions process. Parents can telephone 033 301 42903 or e-mail the admissions team north or the admissions team south.

We continue to have children waiting to be fostered in West Sussex. We’re actively looking for more people to be approved to care for these children, who are aged newborn to 18. 

We’re hosting two information evenings at:

Burgess Hill Town Centre, RH15 9BN, between 6.30pm - 8.30pm on Wednesday 17 October 2018.

Broadfield Children and Family Centre, RH11 9HJ, between 6.30pm-8.30pm on Tuesday 20 November 2018.

Pop along for chat, see a presentation about fostering and hear from a local foster carer. Find out more here

If you drive a commercial-type vehicle you will now need to have a permit to dispose of your household waste at County Council recycling sites. 

The free permit applies to anyone who uses a van, pickup or single axle trailer and is available to West Sussex residents only. 

The scheme has been introduced at all 11 West Sussex Household Waste Recycling Sites (HWRSs) and the two mobile sites. 

We’ve also introduced some new vehicle restrictions. 

Find out more and apply for your permit now.  

On-call – formerly known as retained – firefighters are a vital part of the emergency service.

On-call firefighters carry out the same role as a wholetime firefighter including fires, road traffic collisions, flooding incidents or raising fire safety awareness in the community.

The nine West Sussex fire stations in most urgent need of new recruits are:

Storrington, Partridge Green, Turners Hill, Petworth, Hurstpierpoint, Steyning, East Grinstead, East Preston, Lancing

On-call firefighters may have another job but can be called out via an alerter which gets activated when they are paged to respond to an emergency.

To find out more about becoming an on-call firefighter visit the fire service webpage and select ‘Fire & Rescue recruitment’ or follow West Sussex Fire & Rescue on Facebook & Twitter for updates on events.