 Spreading salt and grit and spreading cheer among villages in the Lavent Valley. A problem for villagers in Singleton, East Dean and West Dean has been solved thanks to a grant from West Sussex County Council. It set the wheels in motion to show how, if you give the people the tools, well as someone once said, they can finish the job. The snow plows cleared the main roads alright but didn't visit the side roads, leaving people stranded. So the villagers decided to do something about it. They joined forces with the Wheeled and Downland Open Air Museum and the West Dean Estate and asked West Sussex County Council for some big society cash to buy their own equipment. And this is the result, their very own mobile salt spreader. It was bought with a grant from the Big Society Fund of West Sussex County Council and it means the villagers are now independent as far as their back roads are concerned. They can clear them themselves. Around half a dozen volunteers got together and asked their local county councillor to ask for big society funds on their behalf. The result, just over £5,500 to buy this salt spreader outright. It was an easy decision for me. I've lived locally, I know the area locally and I know the problems that occur during the bad winters. In fact the salt spreaders from the county can't actually reach them. And I think this was a marvellous idea and a wonderful way to help them to help themselves. Most of the time the Lavend Valley has no serious road problems but roads like this one can quickly become impassable in bad weather and whole communities can find themselves completely cut off. It'll make a vast difference. County councillor we all know can't sort all the roads there are and from that point of view it will help an awful lot from the valleys through East Dean, Singleton, Chulton, West Dean. We're able to help ourselves through the grateful help of the council. Even the man who runs the full-sized gritter fleet across West Sussex is pretty impressed by the do-it-yourself answer. We'll be providing them with the salt and the local community will be finding drivers. One would hope that more communities can get together, more parishes and other local councils can get together and organise themselves in a similar way. Now other volunteers are being trained to use the salt spreader. Whenever there's snow and ice this group of local communities will have their own way to beat the big freeze.