Oct 26 Combined JW - Flipbook - Page 10
SALTMARSH HOUSE
RESIDENTIAL CARE HOME
Hayling Herald Community update
Storm ready: Building our
Island resilience
Detached, family run home.
12 single rooms with facilities including ensuite.
24 hour quality care, from highly trained,
award winning staff.
Excellent home cooked food daily, all diets catered for.
Regular Social events, activities and outings organised.
Hairdresser, Chiropodist, re昀氀exologist and
beautician visits.
Spacious lounge and conservatory.
Respite care available.
Swimming pool (outdoor heated) available for use.
Visitors always welcome
Spacious rooms available now, with ensuite bathrooms
12 Saltmarsh Lane, Hayling Island
Tel: 023 92462183
saltmarshcare@outlook.com
www.saltmarshhouse.co.uk
By Councillor Mark Coates
HAYLING Island is a wonderful place to live,
but our geography does have a habit of reminding us who is really in charge.
We live on a low-lying coastal island, exposed
to strong winds, high tides and flooding, with
one principal road connecting us to the mainland. Add a power cut, fallen trees or surface-water flooding, an autumn storm and relatively
small problems can quickly combine into something more serious, as we saw in April 2024.
That is why, as we head towards autumn and
winter, we have asked council officers to look at
bringing a Resilience Roadshow to Hayling Island. The idea is not to frighten people or suggest
disaster is lurking around every corner. Quite the
opposite. Resilience is largely about doing the
mundane things in advance so that, when something does go wrong, everybody is rather less
inconvenienced by it.
A Hayling roadshow could give residents practical advice about preparing for storms, flooding and power cuts, signing up for warnings,
protecting homes and knowing who to contact
when problems arise. But there is another part of
resilience which is perhaps even more important:
people looking after people.
During Covid, something wonderful happened
across Hayling. Streets and neighbourhoods
established Hayling Helper WhatsApp groups,
10
A submerged Northney street in the 2024 storms
connecting people who might previously have
done little more than wave at one another over
the garden fence.
Those groups helped with shopping, prescriptions, information and, sometimes, simply
checking that somebody living alone was alright.
Should we revive that network? A WhatsApp
group covering a street can mean that when
severe weather arrives somebody checks on the
older resident three doors down, asks whether a
neighbour needs anything and shares information about a power cut.
It also means we are less reliant upon social
media algorithms deciding whether important
information deserves to appear between photographs of somebody’s dinner and an advertisement for garden furniture. Communication
matters enormously during an emergency.
That means keeping mobile phones charged
when severe weather is forecast, having charged
power banks available as back-ups, keeping useful telephone numbers somewhere accessible and
perhaps having a battery-powered radio in the
house. If the electricity goes off, our increasingly
digital lives become considerably less clever.
There are simple things we can all do before
autumn properly arrives: check fences, sheds and
gutters; secure garden furniture; know where
utilities can be switched off; check torches and
batteries; keep essential medication accessible;
and, in areas susceptible to flooding, know what
you would need to move to safety first.
Most importantly though, know your neighbours. That is something Hayling has always
done incredibly well.
Think about somebody nearby who is elderly,
disabled, living alone or particularly vulnerable
during a prolonged power cut. Swap telephone
numbers now rather than introducing yourselves
for the first time during a November gale.
None of this requires panic, enormous expense
or a well-stocked bunker beneath the patio. It
simply requires a little preparation.
Hayling has always possessed a strong sense of
community. We see it magnificently during our
most testing times, during floods and pandemics,
when residents quietly look after one another
without waiting to be instructed to do so.
Perhaps one useful legacy from that extraordinary period is worth rediscovering. If we
can combine that community spirit with better
information, practical preparation and a Resilience Roadshow here on the Island this autumn,
Hayling will be better placed for whatever the
weather decides to throw at us.
Do the boring little jobs while the sun is shining. Keep the phone charged. Know your neighbours. And when the wind is howling across
Hayling at 2am on a November morning or a
February evening, we might all be glad we did.
