Last few days to vote for your favourite shop window this Christmas.
THERE ARE just a few days left to vote for your favourite shop window in Brighton & Hove’s Dressed for Success competition. Voting closes at noon on Tuesday December 23.
Around 30 independent retailers across Brighton & Hove have received expert advice on how to make the most of their window displays, as part of a package of support for small businesses from Brighton & Hove City Council in the run up to Christmas.
Shoppers can follow a trail of participating shops around the city and vote for their favourite Christmas window display via the council’s Facebook page.
Warren Morgan, Labour councillor for East Brighton Ward and Leader of the Labour and Cooperative Group on Brighton and Hove City Council looks back on 2014.
Cllr Warren Morgan
A LOT has happened since I wrote my review of 2013. Every year has its ups and downs, and if you are an Albion season ticket holder like me you’ll know what I mean. Yet every time I walk on the Downs, in view of the sea and the city centre, I’m reminded of how lucky we are to live here.
Of course, our location between the sea and the South Downs National Park make building the homes we need very difficult, and being so close to London makes housing increasingly expensive. One of the tough choices we faced this year was on our City Plan; deciding how best to build homes for local families without losing our open spaces. Others involved opposing the Greens 5% council tax increase, their £36 million loan to the i360, and recently their council tax benefit proposals.
One of the highlights of 2014 was May’s European elections. Labour in the city doubled its vote on the last elections in 2009, from nine thousand to over twenty thousand, pushing the Greens into second place and helping to elect our fantastic new MEP Anneliese Dodds. Our positive offer to the electorate and strong local campaigning paid off. Despite topping the poll nationally, UKIP came fourth in Brighton and Hove.
Opinion polls have continued to show Labour in pole position to beat both the Greens and the Tories next May. We are not complacent though, and have worked hard in the past twelve months to put the foundations in place for success at the elections next May.
Over the course of this year I’ve spoken to over fifty key organisations and leaders across the city, whilst colleagues have knocked on thousands of doors from Portslade to Saltdean, the seafront to Patcham.
We have put what we learnt into our ten key pledges; our Contract with Brighton and Hove, which will form the foundation of our offer to voters next May.
Together we have campaigned for new rights for tenants in the private sector, for our local firefighters, for new play area facilities, for more local GP surgeries, for a safer city and for an end to violence against women, for a Live Wage, allotments, foodbanks, payday loans and much more.
Throughout the year we have urged the Greens to do better on keeping our streets clean, collecting the city’s refuse and reversing the decline in recycling.
We’ve pledged to set up a Fairness Commission to tackle poverty and inequality in the city during our first year in office. Our team is in place, our priorities are clear, our campaigns are stronger than ever.
2015 will be a very challenging year for Brighton and Hove, but also one of opportunity to put our co-operative values into practice. As our local politics becomes more polarised between the Greens on the left and the Tories and UKIP on the right, and despite the huge financial challenges Brighton and Hove faces, my New Year’s Resolution is to try an offer our city hope for positive change in May.
We will deliver a fairer, better Brighton and Hove.
Two months after their marriage, wife and wife team Hizze Fletcher-King and Jojo King have combined their skills to bring a new concept in creativity.
Jojo and HIzze
BRUSH is their brand new independently owned boutique featuring an art gallery/shop and a one-chair hair salon in the heart of central Brighton’s historic North Laine.
The salon offers a high standard of hair cutting + colouring services, a fair and gender neutral price structure and is trans-friendly.
The artist run gallery represents Brighton’s mightiest emerging and established artists and makers, including LGBT artists Romany Mark Bruce, Kitty Finegan, Precious Murphy, Fox Fisher and more.
Jojo has always had a thing about cutting hair, travelling with her clippers and cutting anyone’s hair who would allow it. After an inspiring stint working in Australia with the WeirdSistas, an ethical + professional dreadlocking business, she decided to train to become a hairdresser.
Jojo now has over 5 years experience, she completed her training at The Bomb and Forde Hair before going solo in 2013. Hair By Jojo established itself as a one-chair salon in an emporium of self-employed businesses within a tattoo parlour in Brighton in October 2013. During her time there Jojo built up a loyal clientelle due to her fair price structure, consistent high standards and friendly manner.
Since graduating from Central St. Martin’s School of Art, Hizze has had a varied and extensive career in the creative industry spanning over 25 years involving her with the likes of Vivienne Westwood, MTV and BBC TV.
After moving to Brighton in 2006 she formed her own company, Thirteen Art Productions, and has collaborated with the arts community organising group-art shows and events while helping to raise money for charities including The Sussex Beacon, The Terrence Higgins Trust and The Rainbow Fund.
Hizze is also a curator for Brighton Pride Arts & Film Festival and an independent grant panel member of The Rainbow Fund. Added to this she is a fine artist in her own right, exhibiting in the UK and internationally.
Venue: brush: hair + art
Where: 84 Gloucester Road, Brighton, BN14AP
Open for Hair: Tuesday-Saturday 10-6pm
Telephone Jojo: 07852220613
Open for Art: Tuesday-Saturday 10-6pm
For more information about brush, click here: www.brushbrighton.co.uk
Following an outcry over Government plans to cut HIV Prevention funding by 50% in the year commencing April 2015, Simon Kirby, MP for Brighton Kemptown and Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on HIV/AIDS has lobbied Ministers at the Department of Health on the issue of funding for HIV prevention.
FOLLOWING HIS representations, Jane Ellison MP, the Parliamentary Under Secetary of State for Public Health has written to Mr Kirby to confirm that the Government is protecting funding for HIV prevention.
Jane Ellison MP
In her letter she says: “I want to make it absolutely clear that this Government will protect funding for HIV prevention. Suggestions we are going to cut this provision are unfounded. It will continue.”
She goes on to say the Government wants to be more ambitious in their plans to prevent HIV and intend to explore more and new innovative ways of doing things which may involve working with a broader range of organisations including charities who are experimenting with different ways of raising awareness of and preventing HIV transmission.
Simon said:“As the Vice-Chair of All Party Parliamentary Group on HIV/AIDS I was very concerned to read the reports of a cut in HIV prevention funding. That is why I immediately made a number of representations to Ministers at the Department of Health to stress the importance of HIV prevention in the continued fight against HIV/AIDS.
“Whilst it is welcome that the Government has taken steps, beyond awareness raising and testing, for example by lifting the ban on home testing kits, however there is more to be done to help reduce the number of HIV infections, particularly in men who have sex with men.
“I am delighted that following my lobbying efforts, the Minister for Public Health has confirmed that the Government is protecting funding for HIV prevention and that it will not be reduced.”
In 2012/13, the Government committed £630 million on HIV treatment and care, but the MP believes more needs to be done to prevent people becoming infected in the first place.
Jane Ellison MP, Public Health Minister, added:“Your continued campaigning on these issues and other health matters continues to be warmly welcomed.”
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