I am writing this the day after full council. Labour councillors shone a spotlight on health and wellbeing in the city and we targeted our questions and notices of motion accordingly.

But first, the public engagement session included several interesting questions from the public. This is a positive way for people to take part in the democratic process and I urge residents to participate and put their policy questions directly to the administration.

We heard a deputation by Hove Civic Society asking to create a “Hove Boulevard” out of our neglected New Church Road. This was very well presented, and included mocked-up pictures of what the street might look like. As a resident living nearby I am fully supportive of this idea and I look forward to it being discussed again at the next environment, transport and sustainability committee.

The petition about starlings was also amazing, highlighting the huge loss of bird numbers and possible loss of the famous murmuration, which is likely to have resulted from the loss of habitat caused by herbicides pesticides and fungicides, as well as noise and light pollution.

Increased urbanisation and development, and the devastating loss of hedgerows have led to the loss of habitat and food for many species of bird, including starlings. Fortunately, we have protected our downlands from development but we need to move further in encouraging farmers to use non-chemical resource management on their farmland, such as margins, buffer strips and beetle banks, which is just one of the things we hope to achieve through the Downland Estate Plan.

We discussed two reports, and then presented a cross-party motion in support of refugees, with a particular focus on Ukraine, which I was very happy to co – propose with my colleagues from the Green and Conservative parties. I meant it when I said how proud I am of our residents and their willingness to open their doors, and their wallets where they can, and help those fleeing war and persecution.

Our motion on a dementia friendly community, which was agreed unanimously, called for improvements for the many people living with dementia in the city and their relatives and carers. There are already many good initiatives under way, but there is much more we can do, including improving diagnostic rates within the NHS and improving dementia awareness among our customer facing staff, as well as appointing dementia champions in each council directorate.

Our motion on fast food and energy drinks advertising sought to discourage unhealthy eating by limiting adverts targeting children.

Following a ban on advertising across the London Transport network, an in-depth study into the effects of the ban over the first year, pre pandemic, says it has contributed to an estimated 1,000-calorie cut in high fat, salt and sugar items in people’s average weekly shop.

For chocolate and confectionery, there was an almost 20 per cent decrease in the average weekly household purchases of these products. That’s the equivalent of about 1.5 fewer bars of chocolate per person each week.

We also had a very thorough debate about farming on our downland. Councillor O’Quinn reminded us how important the downland is to our city: 95 per cent of the city’s water comes from aquifers in the Downland Estate and we should be grateful to those who had the foresight many years ago to buy all this land that surrounds the city to secure the future of the city’s water supply.

However, it is not just water that makes the Downland Estate so important to us, it is the fact there are a considerable number of farm tenancies and food growing community tenancies that assist in the production of food, and the importance of this will grow in the coming years.

Our tenant farmers and food growers have been well represented in discussions of the Downland Estate masterplan, and I am sure that they will contact us if they feel that they have been overlooked or underrepresented.

Following on from a couple of weeks ago when I visited Wish Park, I attended another event this week, this time, a social at the Friends of St Ann’s Well Gardens.

I was told there were pipistrelle bats in the park and about how much the local bird population is cherished.

It is truly amazing what the Friends groups across the city achieve in their local parks through community effort and organisation. The Friends keep their local, urban communities interested in wildlife, and raise money to improve planting and the general condition of our parks.