Welcome to this week’s blog - as always, thanks for having a read.

We were recently reminded that it is a small world when we filmed the fourth episode of Tim's Travels at Wakehurst Place near Ardingly because we bumped into some neighbours. As we are doing more digitally, and younger generations embrace technology more readily, I asked Gemini about youth unemployment in the UK; it is 735,000 16 - 25 year olds, or 16.2% of them. There are also a million NEETs (not in education, employment or training.)  This compares to overall unemployment of 4.9% and the EU average of 14.6%. I find this sad because futures are potentially blighted. If you want to do a country by country comparison, this article should help:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/europe-youth-unemployment/ 

Last Monday, July 13th, I had Chichester District Council’s Corporate Governance and Audit Committee which included the Internal Audit Conclusion 2025 - 26 and Treasury Management Outturn. We also considered the annual Corporate Health & Safety and Business Continuity Management report. I asked Mr Townsend, the Business Continuity Manager, whether he felt anonymous social media interactions were reducing filters and therefore contributing to the increase in verbal abuse, threats and aggression. He agreed they might be.

On Tuesday, Donna, Val and I had Full CDC Meeting which included an Urgent Decision about West Beach Selsey, the Climate Emergency Action Plan annual progress report and a Review of Political Balance and...