And so to vote…….
The last night of campaigning saw a further impressive turnout of Tories delivering Nick’s final letter to voters. There was also a good turn out of Labour canvassers, somewhat to the all-too-evident alarm of the few Lib Dems to be seen.
Mr. Davey published a final letter on behalf of the beleaguered Mr. Ayles. At least I think it was final – he’s been churning them out so frequently in the last few days that I confidently expect another one on Saturday!
Mr. Davey is really not doing his own credibility much good. To describe the Lib Dem councillors as effective when one has moved out of the Borough less than 12 months after election and another has resigned 15 months after asking the voters to elect him for a 4 year term is stretching credulity a little far. Their claims on achievements are laughable to all who know the truth.
- What had the change of developer on Langley Avenue from Sunrise to the Royal Star and Garter Home to do with them? Nothing!
- The new windows at School Lane were negotiated by Nick and myself two years ago. The details are archived in this blog. The programme needed following through, which our successors failed to do. I took the matter up again with Housing. And the spiral fire escape had been out of commission for months before they did anything about it.
- The claim to have saved the hospital site from Conservative plans to sell it off for housing is a story that only a complete stranger to the truth – or to the history of the site – could have made up.
And the suggestion that Mr. Ayles has been a local campaigner for 25 years – without telling us of one single campaign in which he has taken part – apart from telling us that he has lived locally, married a doctor and had four children, none of which constitutes ‘local campaigning’ – is a misrepresentation of the man. Such a ‘keen campaigner’ would have sought election last year or earlier, wouldn’t he?
So please, tomorrow, vote for Nick to restore some guts and honesty to the politics of the ward all three of us love.
Another hole in Hook Road
from RBK Highways
Please note the following traffic information:-
Location Hook Road, Surbiton
(between junctions Thornhill Road and Tolworth Road)
Restriction Temporary Traffic signals
Start Effective immediately
Duration To be advised upon outcome of initial investigations
Work Emergency Gas Leak
Promoter Southern Gas Networks
Comments Delays are possible at this location
Angry response to Davey’s latest
The response of an outraged constituent to the latest intervention by our MP in the bye-election campaign.
Unfortunately our household and our neighbourhood will not be supporting this candidate or the Liberal Democrats, at any time, in any way shape or form. The LDs have lost many votes in this neighbourhood as a result, inter alia, of the outright lies printed in the most recent Focus newsletter. So, in answer to your question. No. We won’t be voting this Thursday for a Liberal Democrat.
Folks: please feel free to pass this on to anyone I’ve missed of the distribution list.
We had another great evening of canvassing today.
I looked very hard and was able to spot one Lib Dem canvasser, not the candidate, by himself, in Tolworth Park Road.
The Tories and the hospital site 2
from the Archive, posted in August 2009
There have been a number of meetings of ‘stakeholders’ in the last few weeks, a special meeting of the Health Overview Panel of RBK and a meeting of the Board of the Kingston PCT on Tuesday 11th August.
The PCT has now appointed consultants to design a scheme and take it forward. Key to the thinking on the future development of the site will be the findings in the report produced by McKinsey’s last year. Essentially the core development will be a polyclinic arrangement housing several GP practices and other, outpatient, facilities ancillary to them. This could mean that some treatments for which Surbiton and Chessington and Hook residents now have to travel to Kingston Hospital, may be carried out at the new Surbiton facility.
Other facilities could be developed on the site in addition to the purely medical ones in what is coming to be called a ‘polysystem’ approach or ‘community hub’.
Consultation should be starting in September and we would encourage all residents to make their views on the future services they would like to see on the site by whatever means they can. We happily offer this site as one means by which people may do so.
Paul Johnston, who has attended and spoken at all the meetings on the future of the site, told the PCT Board,
‘ I very much welcome the assurance of a future for this site as a state of the art health and social facility for the people of Surbiton. It has always been our aim and we will do all we can to speed the exciting plans forward’.
The core health and ancillary faclities will not take up the whole site and a question which will have to be addressed is what else might usefully go there. One idea being canvassed is a new primary school to meet the demand for school places in parts of Surbiton. Addressing the PCT, Paul said, ‘Everyone knows that there is a need for places for more school children in Surbiton. But I have serious doubts over whether any part of the hospital site is the right place to provide a new school, given problems of access that might very well arise, using the local roads.’
The ‘school question’ is, however, an entirely different one from the matter upon which the PCT will be consulting and residents should avoid confusing the two issues. RBK will have to consult on the school question entirely separately.
Or so I was led to believe at the time!
Local roadworks
It is almost a relief to take a moment off from the by-election to update you on local roadworks.
Info comes, as usual, from RBK Highways.
- VICTORIA ROAD: The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames is reconstructing the carriageway and re-laying the station-side footway, between the junctions of St James Road and St Andrews Road. Works due to be completed by 22/09/11.
More info on the Council website: http://www.kingston.gov.uk/information/news_and_events/news.htm?id=117466
The Tories and a new school……
A group of local parents have launched a petition to pressurise the Royal
Borough of Kingston into providing sufficient primary school places in
Surbiton.Please sign the “Local Schools for Local Children” petition at the following link: http://www.epetitions.kingston.gov.uk
(and please email the petition link to your friends and neighbours as well).
We want the council to:-
- Add places in local primary schools to ensure no Surbiton child starting school in 2009 has to travel for more than 30 minutes (on foot or by public transport) to get to school.
- Adjust admissions policies for 2010 onwards to make schools take into account how far a child will have to travel if they don’t get offered a place at their nearest schools.
- Add capacity in the local area for the long term to make sure that this problem doesn’t keep happening every year.
This year there are 300 more applicants than places originally available in the borough. Last year there was a shortfall of over 200.
Surbiton is the worst affected area. The problem is plainly getting worse. We need a permanent solution, not a series of last minute temporary “bulge classes”.
The Cranes Park / Cheyne Hill / North Berrylands area is no longer covered by the catchment area of any of the four local Surbiton schools. Uuntil very recently it seemed as if RBK were hellbent on forcing children in this area to schools as far away as Knollmead, New Malden and Malden Manor.
Political pressure has hopefully persuaded RBK to provide more bulge classes in three out of the four Surbiton primary schools for this year’s intake.
But what will they do for the next four or five years when the Surbiton schools run out of space to accommodate bulge classes, and any new buildings have yet to be completed? If you have any children aged under two, there is a very real possibility that you will be forced to travel well outside Surbiton to find a school place.
Surbiton Forum 