Conservatives gain Beverley
The Beverley ward by-election on Thursday resulted in the gain by the Conservatives of a seat the Liberal Democrats had held since its creation. The by-election was necessitated by the recent resignation of former Lib Dem Cllr. Derek Osbourne, following his arrest on a criminal charge.
Apart from the substantial swing to the Conservatives, Labour also made substantial improvements on earlier performances in the ward, almost equalling the Lib Dem vote. UKIP came fourth but a long way behind Labour in third place.
The result was:
Terry Paton (Conservative) 1033
Lib Dem 760
Labour 717
UKIP 223
Greens 207
Con. majority 273 Turnout 42.4%
This week’s full Council meeting was a resounding triumph for the Kingston Conservative Councillors.
Two petitions were submitted at the meeting. The first one to be debated was to ‘move the needle exchange from Surbiton Hospital shared site’, showed the Lib Dems in total disarray. This petition has so far attracted 740 signatures.
The new leader, Cllr. Liz Green (Lib Dem. St. Mark’s Ward) could not defend the indefensible decision to allow a needle exchange and provision of methadone to take place in close proximity to Lime Tree Primary School. She was a strong advocate of siting the School on the same site as the Health Centre regardless of warnings of problems that might ensue. The contributions by two Surbiton Hill Lib Dems, Cllrs. Self and Houston – a well-known Elmbridge resident, were met with well-deserved derision from the public gallery. This included many parents and also people who had come to address the other petition on the future of Cocks Crescent, New Malden. The third Lib Dem Councillor for Surbiton Hill was either absent or silent – possibly both – one couldn’t tell! No-one does absence or silence quite so well as John Ayles!
Conservative Councillors argued vigorously with the key theme of their argument ‘Doing nothing is not an option.’ Councillors Julie Pickering, Craig, Karen George, Lynne Finnerty and Dennis Doe had the full support of all the residents present who cheered every time a Conservative spoke. The atmosphere in the public gallery was electric.
In resounding defeat the Lib Dems agreed to refer the issue to the Health Overview Panel, which is chaired by Cllr. Houston (you now know where he lives). The meeting is on 18th September.
There is to be a full risk assessment at some stage, though we were told this wouldn’t be ready in time for the Panel meeting. Your Editor is amazed at this – surely there must have been a risk assessment undertaken before the decision to move the service to the Health Centre site was taken. If so, why isn’t that assessment available now?
Sunray: clean-up goes on!
Over 50 enthusiastic residents from the Sunray and Egmont Residents’ Association (SERA) came out on the 9th June to help clear away rubbish and overgrown vegetation across 8 roads within the estate.
One Knollmead resident brought a mini digger to assist with clearance and another joined in with an industrial hedge cutter to help clear away the overgrown vegetation. 240 large bags of rubbish and vegetation were cleared away by the local residents, as well as various dumped bulk items such as mattresses, settees and builders rubble. All the waste was then collected by the Council the following morning – it took 3 separate lorry loads to clear!
Conservative Councillor Richard Hudson, Chris Hayes and ex-Councillor Ian George joined in to give a hand and to witness the efforts made by the community to improve their neighbourhood. SERA gained a further 3 members on the day and the morning clearance signified the largest turnout of residents to date.
The clearance of the estate will continue with dates to be announced later by SERA – any support is greatly appreciated. Any contribution made, small or large is equally important and Councillor Hudson encourages everyone to get involved for a couple of hours to clean up your local neighbourhood and to support the local community.
Busy time at the cornerHOUSE
Over the next few weeks we are having some very busy times at your community arts centre. Here are the highlights :
Friday 21 June : Social night in the bar, including book swap
Saturday 22 June : the first meeting of the Crafty Arts Workshop
Sunday 23 June : a try-out screening for the cornerHOUSE Film Club
Wednesday 26 June/ Tuesday 2 July/ Wednesday 3 July : Performances by the Kingston Junior Drama Company
Sunday 7 July : Top comedian Russell Kane tries out new material
Thursday 11 July/Friday 12 July/Saturday 13 July : Kingston Musical Theatre presents No One In The World
Tuesday 16 July : gala event for Hilary Walker‘s multimedia exhibition
In addition the cornerHOUSE is being used for “by invitation” events run by Tolworth Junior School and the Anglo-Italian Women’s Club during this time.
If you want more information about any cornerHOUSE activities or events please e-mail us at info@thecornerhouse.org Fuller details of most events are on the cornerHOUSE website at www.thecornerhouse.org
Help needed : we are always keen to receive offers of assistance for many aspects of running the cornerHOUSE, including the public events. We are currently also looking for help with our book-keeping, our website and social media activities.
If you can offer assistance in any way please let us know : e-mail us at info@thecornerhouse.org
Cllr. Karen George at the Alpha Road Fun Day
Pictured here are Cllr. Karen George with the Mayor of Kingston, Cllr. Penny Shelton and Cllr. Alan Dean. Karen’s dog Archie is taking a semi-detached view of the proceedings!
Cllr. Karen George meets SW Trains
Cllr. Karen George has been having meetings with Southwest Trains and Network Rail which have proved informative. They have a new Performance Improvement Team implementing various initiatives to benefit commuters such as the Carriage Lengthening Programme, which will see peak hour trains which are currently eight carriages long increased to ten. They have commenced the necessary platform lengthening at Hampton Court and Guildford and the additional carriages will be added from May 2014 onwards. The new Head of Performance, Joel Mitchell, is addressing reliability issues and praised the government for providing additional investment. Waterloo is the busiest station in the country with passenger footfall at 94 million, an increase of one-third since 2004. Southwest Trains experience about 100 delays per month compared to Northern Rail which has 1000 per month. They readily admit however that the service this year has fallen below standard and are working hard to address this problem.
Surbiton Forum 