By HILARY GAVIN
I’M UPDATING my WordPress blog after attending last night’s Hunston Parish Council meeting when councillors were updated on the proposals to either revamp or rebuild our village hall.
As you can see from my Facebook and LinkedIn social media messsages below, I didn’t film yesterday’s meeting:
HI FB friends. Lovely evening. I popped by my local pub, the Spotted Cow, before strolling over to the Hunston Parish Council’s full September meeting. Of course, councillors were scheduled to meet up last Monday, Sept 15th, 2025 – but too few of them could make it so the meeting was postponed. Unfortunately, WSCC Cllr Sarah Sharp and CDC David Betts weren’t at the meeting this evening – presumably because they were busy elsewhere with the Local Reorganisation and Devolution meetings taking place today.
I should say that I joined tonight’s meeting after the councillors had heard Apologies for Absence, but I can tell you Chair Wendy Gray, Cllr Becky Davis, Cllr Sue Lucas, Cllr Martin Simms and Cllr Benedict Targett were at the meeting which was scheduled to start at 6.30pm. Unfortunately, the parish clerk, Carol Smith, had given away her last copy of the meeting’s agenda to the Chair Wendy Gray so I had to resort to following the proceedings from the one posted on the Hunston Parish Council website on my phone.
Of course, one of the main items on this evening’s agenda was an update on the feasibility survey to either revamp or rebuild our village hall.The parish council is due to meet with the consultants (or the contractor as they were termed tonight).The firm carrying out the study wasn’t mentioned by name at tonight’s proceedings – but councillors agreed to go with Whaleback in a previous filmed meeting (see update below). The Chair Wendy Gray told tonight’s meeting that there will be a future public consultation before any ultimate decision is made in this respect.
Anyhow, I’m going to love you and leave you at this point in time because I need my beauty sleep – but I thought I’d accompany this post with my photo of yesterday’s village sunset. Beautiful. Hils
UPDATE: https://www.whaleback.co.uk/about
(Wednesday, September 24th, 2025: I’ve woken up early today and have added a link to Whaleback’s website above. As you can see from my YouTube footage of HPC’s July meeting, our parish councillors chose to commission the Hove, and Midhurst-based, planning consultants Whaleback to carry out a feasibility survey for either a revamped or new village hall. If you missed the council’s July meeting, you can see the councillors discussing this matter from relevant footage I took of the meeting on July 21st, 2025 (from around 38,27mins to around 46mins). See my YouTube link: https://youtu.be/jRcMQZAKeTc?si=Yd78O31hk4JRKd6b
Unfortunately, Whaleback’s website doesn’t publish their registered company number, but you can view the architects’ firm at Companies House on Gov.UK https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11328132
As you can see from my YouTube footage above, our parish council clerk mentioned Hunston had used Whaleback before when they had compiled “the excellent objection report for the housing down the road”. According to the HPC website, Mr Luke Austin, from Whaleback, attended a meeting in January 2024. https://www.hunstonparishcouncil.gov.uk/agendas-and-minutes
Hilary Gavin
Freelance Journalist & Writer
6 Southover Way
Hunston
CHICHESTER
West Sussex
PO20 1NY
Tel 07940 444664
Email grumpywoman@hilarygavin.blog
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