Development Control last night
As expected the DC committee granted planning permission to build both a seven practice ‘polyclinic’ and a school for 461 pupils and staff on the Surbiton Hospital site last night. The votes were 5 in favour, all Lib Dems, and 4 against, all Conservatives.
The proceedings took a full 2 1/2 hours and, as well as the lengthy reports which were received, it was still thought necessary to submit quantities of ‘late material’, including the opinion of Transport for London that the intensive development envisaged would not create congestion in the area! At least, that was what we were told they said, though one of the glories of late material is that neither members nor objectors get to see it and examine it before the meeting starts. I can’t believe that TfL took until yesterday to deliver an opinion on an issue so well flagged up in advance or as important as this one. But followers of this saga will be aware already of the manipulations and distortions of facts and figures which have bedevilled this whole process from the beginning in 2009.
I won’t rehearse all the arguments put forward but I will observe with Cllr. David Cunningham that a proposal such as this, demolishing buildings of townscape merit, despoiling a conservation area, felling 43 trees and risking the creation of gridlock in the area on a daily basis would not have been likely to win approval if put forward by a developer. The arguments put forward by supporters, which included the planning officers (I speak as I heard from the public gallery) failed to address any of the objections in a convincing way and, as at last week’s Scrutiny, relied heavily on ‘confidence’ and ‘belief’ that it would be ‘all right on the night’ as their basis for this major and irreversible decision.
There was little controversy about the health facility aspect of the application – but there never has been. The whole object of the exercise, since we managed to stop KPCT closing down the site in 2005, has been to preserve it for health care in Surbiton. But, before the Lib Dems accuse the Tories of voting against the new health centre, it should be understood that the Council and the NHS linked the two buildings in one application so members could not support one without supporting the other – a proceeding which smacks of subterfuge and one which I was assured as long ago as the summer of 2009 would not be adopted.
In general Cllr. Vicki Harris chaired the proceedings well but spoilt the effect by taking 12 minutes at the end, not to sum up the arguments on both sides, but to make yet another series of assertions in support of the school. She even went so far as to suggest that a playground on the roof was a good thing and that children she knows were asking ‘can we have one too?’ Let us hope that they never get to work out in practice how you get children from a rooftop playground in the event of a fire underneath them.
Cllr. Umesh Parekh had a lot to say, which struck me as odd, considering that he (a) appears in sundry Lib Dem publications promoting the school plus health centre concept and (b) failed to absent himself from the room during the discussion on the application at Surbiton Neighbourhood (whereas Cllr. Frances Moseley, to her credit, did!). This puts a novel interpretation on the words ‘prejudicial interest’ – but perhaps things have changed so much in the last 10 months that I am now sadly out of date!
Cllr. Barry O’Mahony relieved himself of some rather dyspeptic comments on the extent to which Residents’ Associations represent residents. His target appeared to have been the Southborough Residents Association, where he lives, and which he says doesn’t represent him. I believe it has about 300 members in all.
Where do we go from here? Time will tell
CornerHOUSE newsletter
The March 2011 edition of the CornerHOUSE newsletter is here. Just go to the CornerHOUSE page, click on the link and do support Surbiton Hill’s own local theatre, whenever you can.
Hospital site planning meeting
The meeting of the Development Control Committee to determine the application to build both a health facility and a school totalling 461 pupils and their teachers etc. on the Surbiton Hospital site will be held at the Guildhall, High Street Kingston, on Thursday 3rd March at 7.30 p.m.
It will be intriguing to note whether Lib Dem councillors consider themselves compromised by the publication of literature, especially the latest ‘Voice’ proclaiming the building of the school as Lib Dem party policy.
Hospital site scrutiny
This meeting at the Guildhall last night was probably the fullest examination in public of the issues around the proposal to build a huge primary school on the same site as a new health facility at Surbiton Hospital site.
There were problems in dealing with such an issue in that particular forum as planning issues dominate the debate and yet the Scrutiny Panel is not empowered to discuss them. Problems were further exacerbated by the large volume of information on this issue which the Council is keeping to itself as ‘commercially sensitive’ or ‘confidential’. I think almost everyone in the room, with the possible exception of Cllrs. Parekh and Self, saw this as a device to close down proper public discussion on the part of the Administration and Council Officers, together with Kingston NHS.
The evidence of the Executive Member, Cllr. Green, and most of the supporting officer team was littered with phrases such as ‘I am confident that’ and ‘I believe’, as though their confidence and belief was sufficient evidence in itself to validate their opinion. But assertion isn’t proof and nothing more than assertion was forthcoming. All this sort of thing reveals is the woolly thinking and evasiveness that has characterised the Administration approach to this question ever since Edward Davey first announced his solution to the school place shortage in the summer of 2009.
Graham Goldspring of OADRA led the case for the petitioners with a brilliant exposé of the reasons for the call-in of the Executive decision of January by 119 citizen petitioners. He dwelt particularly on the matter of restrictive covenants and revealed that one of the owners of the restrictive covenants was actually present in the room; this after officers of RBK and NHSK had suggested more than once that they were untraceable. Two Lib Dem councillors and one Conservative (I am very sorry to say) rendered the opinion that the covenants could be safely breached and Cllr. Green repeated the oft-refuted suggestion that the covenants had been breached already by the building of the hospital and rather foolishly suggested that they only applied to setting up private schools because there were no state schools when they were drawn up. I don’t know whether she thought this one up all by herself or whether it was part of the advice she had received and in which she is so confident, but it was quickly despatched to the boundary by your correspondent. And this typifies the whole official response – it doesn’t matter how many times one points out the truth to them, they retreat behind their ‘beliefs’ and ‘commercial sensitivity’ or whatever and hope that the problem will go away.
Alan Manchester gave a detailed critique of the ‘consultation’ procedure, looking both at the way it was organised and the low level of responses. I spoke also, concentrating on the nature of what is on offer to the prospective pupils and their parents. In a nutshell, 461 children, teachers and administrative and support staff crammed onto a site with no amenity space either around it or even near suitable for so many people, except for playing space on the roof! Surely we can do better than this for Surbiton’s children in the 21st century, even if it means having separate Infants and Junior schools.
The Panel, in a rather tortuous resolution, agreed with many of the points the petitioners had made and sympathised with much of the case they put but did not decide to refer the issue to full Council or back to the Executive. As they commented, the real issues must be resolved by Development Control in March.
From Rt. Hon.Iain Duncan-Smith
Dear Paul,
At the election, the Conservatives made a promise to you to get Britain working. Now we are delivering on that promise.
This Government is on the side of people who want to get ahead. The plans we have announced in the last few days will get people into work and will reform the welfare system to ensure that work always pays and no one can say they are better off on benefits.
At the election, we promised to work to reduce the very high marginal tax rates faced by many people on low incomes who want to return to work or increase their earnings. The Welfare Bill I introduced yesterday delivers on that promise. We will start to reduce these rates and simplify the system by introducing the Universal Credit, ensuring it will always pay to work.
This policy is particularly focused on helping those in work on low incomes, who are doing the right thing but lose far too much of their take home pay. One million of these low earning households will now receive up to £25 extra every week.
We said we would introduce a sanctions regime that removes benefits from those who refuse to work. We have delivered on that promise. If you’re unemployed and refuse to take either a reasonable job or to do some work in your community in return for your unemployment benefit, you will lose your benefits for three months. Do it again, you’ll lose it for six months. Refuse a third time and you’ll lose your unemployment benefits for three years.
We will ensure fairness for taxpayers by introducing an annual cap ensuring no family can get more in benefits than the average family earns by going out to work. And we will ensure there will be no more cases of families getting over £100,000 in Housing Benefit by capping it at £400 per week.
After 13 years of Labour, the welfare system has left more than one in four adults of working age out of work, almost two million children living in workless households and generations trapped in poverty and dependency. This is a tragedy, but our proposals mark the beginning of a new era of 21st Century Welfare. Universal Credit alone will lift almost a million people out of poverty: 350,000 children and 600,000 adults – something I am deeply proud of.
We are offering a vision of a stronger society, a bigger society, a more responsible society and yesterday, the building of that society started in earnest.
If you support these plans you can forward this email onto your family and friends.
Yours,
Iain Duncan Smith
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Temporary traffic lights Hook Road
from RBK Highways.
Location: opposite 132 Hook Road, Surbiton
(the slip road to the shops 137 – 165 will be closed)
Works: Emergency gas escape
Duration: From today (17th February) ongoing over the weekend and into next week.
Promoter: Southern Gas Networks
Comments: Works will be undertaken throughout the night for completion as soon as possible.
As the road is formed of concrete, the reinstatement will need a longer period of time to harden.
Surbiton Forum 