I have spent the last week walking through the streets of Felpham with an umbrella in one hand and a plastic wallet full of posters like this one in the other, asking shopkeepers and people in all the pubs and the two cafes on the front if they would put it up for display in their windows. I’ve had the most extraordinary reception. They’ve all, without exception, taken the poster and displayed it saying ‘they’re not really going to do this are they?’ or ‘they can’t do this.’ Many people were quite cross because they hadn’t been told anything about the plans for the cottage until they read about it in the local paper.
The headline had made them think that half a million pounds was available to repair the cottage, which as pretty well everyone in Felpham now knows, is desperately in need of it. A local photographer has been asked by the three man team of the Blake Cottage Trust to take pictures of the cottage inside and out and they were on display when the Blake Cottage Trust opened the cottage and served tea there on June the 11th. They told a sorry story.
The cottage was bought by the Blake Cottage Trust on 21st September 2015 after being on the market since 2013 and it was seriously in need of repair then, but as those of us in the village who have been watching it and know, nothing at all has been done in the way of repairs. On Thursday June 16th, the Bognor Observer reported that the Blake’s Cottage Trust ‘hoped to have permission to carry out urgent repair work to the roof within days.’ On Saturday, it will be a month since those words were written. Umm! 
This meeting bids to be a very interesting occasion. If you are a Felpham resident I do hope you too will come along and let me hear what you think about all this.
See you there. Saturday 16th July at 7pm at the Felpham Memorial Hall.
More in my next.
Beryl Kingston Blog 