Winchelsea is within Rother District within the District electoral ward of Eastern Rother (which includes Rye). Eastern Rother is represented by two District Councillors, Paul Osborne (Conservative)and Nick Ramus (Conservative), who were elected in May 2007. Nick has been in office since May 1995.

In total, there are 20 wards in Rother Districts represented by 38 District Councillors:

• Conservative 28 (up from 26 in 2003)
• Liberal Democrats 8 (up from 6)
• Labour 0 (down from 1)
• Independents 2 (down from 5)

Elections are held every four years: the next will be in May 2011.

Rother District consists of 32 parishes. It excludes Hastings and St Leonards, but includes Bexhill. However, Bexhill is not a parish or town, but is directly administered by the District Council. Some residents of the rural parishes in Rother District, especially Rye, argue that this arrangement favours Bexhill at the expense of the rural parishes and are pressing for Bexhill to be parished.

Responsibilities of the District Council

The District Council is headquartered in Bexhill. Among other things, it is responsible for:

• Planning, building control, conservation, tree preservation
• Recycling bins
• Public toilets
• Sports and arts
• Tourism
• Electoral register
• Public health
• Council Tax collection

Contacting the District Council

To contact the District Council, call 01424-787878 or e-mail enquiries@rother.gov.uk. For particular issues, you can ‘phone some departments directly:

• abandoned vehicles 01424-787508
• animal wardens (District Council partner) 0845-606-6928
• building control 01424-787680
• bus passes 01424-787999
• complaints & comments 01424-787830
• conservation 01424-787630
• dangerous structures 01424-787671
• dog control 01424-787545 (see animal wardens above)
• dog fouling 01424-787527
• elections & voting 01424-787825 
• environmental health 01424-787550
• food hygiene, health and safety 01424-787538
• fly-tipping 01424-787570
• general fault line
• information helpline 0800-393964
• land searches 01424-787820
• licensing 01424-787557
• noise nuisance 01424-787550
• pest control 01424-787545
• planning 01424-787600
• planning enforcement 01424-787620
• pollution control 01424-787557
• refuse collection, litter, street cleaning 01424-787580
• tree preservation 01424-787631
• vandalism & graffiti hotline 0800-7318774

The District Council website is www.rother.gov.uk. This shows planning applications (which are also available on www.planning.rother.gov.uk) and allows you to make comments on applications online.

The District Council's Customer Care standards aim for 100% of letters and faxes to have a full response in 10 working days, for 90% of e-mails to have an initial response in one working day and a full response in five working days, and 90% of telephone calls to be answered within 15 seconds.

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