Latest smear from ED – shame!
Edward Davey’s latest smear against Conservative candidate Helen Whately (latest issue of the ‘Voice’) is that she works for ‘health privatisation (sic) experts McKinsey and Co. who, he says, ‘are being paid millions…..to recommend Hospital closures to NHS bureaucrats and Labour Ministers.’ This smear comes from the man who piously says that he ‘wants the whole community to work together’ on the Hospital issue.
I didn’t notice Mr. Davey making any complaints about the employment of the same firm as consultants on the future use of the Surbiton Hospital site. There was no talk about ‘privatisation experts’ when their report came up with the basic recommendation that the site should be developed as a polyclinic/ community hub. But, in my 20 years experience of them, the Liberal Democrats have never shown any concern either for accuracy or consistency in what they say.
- Helen Whately and Zac Goldsmith have worked with Shadow Ministers to guarantee Kingston Hospital. David Cameron was there before Nick Clegg and was unequivocal in his support for the A&E and Maternity units.
- The Conservative Group in RBK has consistently said that it will oppose tooth and nail any closures proposed by anyone – we even amended and supported a Lib Dem motion in full Council to create a unanimous front against cuts. And this ‘Voice’ is Mr. Davey’s response.
- How can any of us work with him when all he does is try to smear us and the Health Service personnel who are alarmed by his tactics?
Road works this week
Election or no election, life goes on.
This has come in from RBK Highways:-
The new main has been laid along Cadogan Road and Maple Road and will be crossing into Balaclava Road starting on Friday 23 April 2010.
On Friday 23 April 2010 for about 5 days, Maple Road and Balaclava Road will be closed with local diversions.
Brighton Road will be controlled by temporary signals reducing traffic to a single alternative traffic flow with an extended all red phase for pedestrian movement.
Out of FOCUS – again!
Our Liberal Democrat opponents are still taking the electors of Surbiton Hill for fools.
These complete newcomers to the Ward have put out a letter to postal voters claiming to have done everything.
Let’s deal with the issues they raise;
- Schools, It was Nick Kilby who alerted a complacent Lib Dem administration in Kingston to the growing pressure on primary places, which they had ignored – and Dennis Doe who demanded a new secondary school in North Kingston, which they said wasn’t necessary.
- Recycling: we campaigned for weekly recycling in 2006. Our Focus team wouldn’t know that because they weren’t around at the time. I spoke about it at length in that year’s Budget debate and was told it wasn’t affordable. By whom? You guessed it!
- Tesco at Tolworth: they claim to have ‘fought it off’ They weren’t even at the Planning meetings.
- Tolworth Broadway Post Office: was saved because the present occupiers came forward to take on the business, thus solving the only reason it might have closed. Well done the business people that took it on.
- Council Housing: Everyone in School Lane knows that Nick and I have campaigned ceaselessly against the Government’s Negative Housing Subsidy. So do the Leaders of the Residents’ Associations on all estates. That’s why they have elected me Chair of the Housing Consultative Committee for 12 years in succession. Every Lib Dem councillor knows this too and it is just plain dishonest for any Liberal Democrat to put their name to such a patent falsehood as the suggestion ‘(we) have failed to stand up against a Labour Government that takes £7m from local tenant rents.’ when Nick Kilby, Ian George and I have been at the cutting edge of attempts to improve resident participation and foster the only thing that will get this system altered for Kingston residents, usually in the face of an inactive Lib Dem Executive Member, who sits in meeting after meeting of the Housing Consultative Committee failing to communicate with tenants and leaseholders. Only in the last month has the Executive finally woken up to the fact that it has been habitually ignoring residents at its own peril.
- Only profound ignorance can possibly excuse such a blatant untruth – Until I read with a magnifying glass the name of their agent, I was inclined to ascribe it to ignorance rather than a deliberate attempt to deceive. But their Agent, an ex-Lib Dem Leader and Lib Dem councillors, including those in St. Marks and Berrylands, cannot be so excused.
- Less than a year ago the Surbiton Hill Focus Team did not exist, yet they repeat the tired old Lib Dem formula that ‘many residents say we’re the only ones they hear from all the year round.’
SAME OLD LIB DEMS – SAME OLD HUMBUG: PLEASE DON’T BE TAKEN IN BY IT
If you receive one of these missives – please recycle it.
Planning Decision: Coach House, Kingswood Close
We have just received the Planning Inspector’s decision to dismiss the appeal on the Coach House in Kingswood Close.
Read the full text in PDF format here CoachHouseKingswood
Attention Oakhill
Oakhill residents should access the Environmental Impact Assessment which has just been made and approved by officers and the Chair of Development Control 3 days ago. It was reported to Development Control Committee last evening.
We would be very interested to receive comments from residents either to this site or to us individually by email.
Potholing in Ellerton Road
I spent part of this morning examining the recently filled in potholes in Ellerton Road. I had some Highways officers and a representative of R J Dance (contractors) and one or two local residents with me.
I must say that they had responded with commendable speed to complaints raised with them by John Tellick of EBRRA and myself. The pity is that the holes had been cold-filled in the first place, leaving a rather crumbly top and edges, whereas I would rather they had been ‘hot-boxed’ – a more expensive but also more durable method of repairing potholes. In discussion I pointed out that construction work will shortly start on the Police pound site at 2 Ellerton Road. This will involve some extensive excavation to construct an underground car park, then there will be lorries bringing in materials for the work. These heavy lorry movements would soon make mincemeat of the filling inserted in the holes. Cars are already sending showers of loose stones around.
Work to rectify should start very soon. I’ll post the details here as soon as I have them to hand.
Surbiton Forum 