Conserving Oakhill
This morning Nick Kilby and I visited constituents in Oakhill, concerned about the lack of progress in getting a decent bin store and bike shed at Tudor Lodge on the corner of Oakhill Road.
There has been an enforcement notice in force on the property since February, but the developers have launched an appeal against the conditions to be enforced with the Planning Inspectorate. This appeal is being determined on paper and it will take time for a decision to come through.
After our session on this issue we were invited to accompany residents into Oakhill Road, where a sight met our eyes that hardly fits in a conservation area. One large property has at least four commercial bins in full view outside. Needless to say they were pretty full.
Please could the owners do something about this eyesore?
Out of FOCUS I
We don’t see these very often, but we hear the Lib Dems are putting out a survey form in Southborough.
It comes with your name and address ready printed on it, so you don’t need to fill that in if you decide to fill in the questionnaire at all. In fact they make it plain that they know where you live already anyway!
Apart from the MP it also lists three people who are unknown to us and we suspect equally unknown to most residents of Southborough.
It’s pretty obvious that the MP is making Expenses a major plank in his election campaign. Three of the ‘questions’ feature it very prominently.
Disingenuously question 10 asks if you’d find it easier if you could vote at home by post. Everybody knows that you can apply for a postal vote on your official registration form, which you have recently received from the Council – so it seems odd to be asking this question. Except that they want to know ahead of the election next year who has postal votes and answering this question in the affirmative would give them a pretty shrewd idea. The same would be true of your phone number and email address, both of which they ask for.
Our advice, if you complete this questionnaire, is to withhold this information and refrain from answering Question 10. Otherwise, please recycle it in the green box provided!
Distribution of bio-bags
As part of the Council’s Recycling and Landfill Waste Collection Service, from last September residents were provided with brown kitchen caddies, outdoor food waste containers and a year’s supply of biodegradable liners to be used in the outdoor food waste container.
We will be undertaking a Borough-wide distribution of a further year’s supply of biodegradable liners during the period 5th – 18th September 2009. A distribution company has been procured to deliver a roll of 52 liners to each household.
In Surbiton Hill the distribution will take place beginning on Sunday 13th September and will possibly be completed on that day.
Misleading ‘Home Life’ ?
‘Stop Press’ in the latest edition of ‘Home Life, which RBK puts out to Council tenants contains the statement that
‘Housing Minister John Healey announced that Councils will be able to keep all the income from rents and sales of housing in the future’.
It goes on to claim that this would end the current subsidy system by which 31p in every pound of rents paid go to the Government to subsidise other authorities’ housing. At the moment 75% of authorities pay the subsidy and the remaining 25% receive the payments.
Reading the quote from Cllr. Penny Shelton which accompanies this , it would appear to many that all problems are now over and we can spend an extra £20 million on housing repairs over the next three years. We know that some tenants have interpreted this article in precisely this way.
All very well and good – but we have some questions we would want answered:
- Where did this ‘announcement’ actually come from? With the aid of Google we have unearthed statements from Mr. Healey dated 21st July talking about consultation on housing finance, the period for which will end at the end of October. This doesn’t look to us like a definite commitment, even if there is a welcome indication of intent.
- Assuming the availability of this £20m, how far will this go towards dealing with the shortfall in repairs over years, as revealed and costed by the recent Housing Condition Survey?
- Is there a possibility that, as Cllr. Shelton seems to suggest, the Government’s final proposals might leave ‘Kingston in no better position to maintain the properties than they have been for quite a few years’?
We ask because we, and Council tenants in this Ward, would really like to know.
Surbiton Hospital: consultation ahead
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.
NHS: letter from David Cameron
Dear Paul,
I’ve been enjoying the sun and touring my beautiful constituency of Witney today. But it goes without saying that just because I and most other politicians are not in Westminster at the moment, politics isn’t somehow put on hold.
People still care about the issues they care about, and thanks to the internet they can voice their concerns whenever they want. Just look at all the support which the NHS has received on Twitter over the last couple of days. It is a reminder – if one were needed – of how proud we in Britain are of the NHS.
Millions of people are grateful for the care they have received from the NHS – including my own family. One of the wonderful things about living in this country is that the moment you’re injured or fall ill – no matter who you are, where you are from, or how much money you’ve got – you know that the NHS will look after you.
That’s why we as a Party are so committed not just to the principles behind the NHS, but to doing all we can to improve the way it works in practice. So yes, we will spend more on the NHS, but we will also improve it so that it is more efficient and responsive to patients. People working on the frontline will actually be able get on with the job they signed up for, without getting tied up in a web of targets. And we will put more power in the hands of patients by giving them better information about the care they can expect to receive.
Underlying these reforms, and our whole approach to the NHS, will be one big ambition – that future generations will be even prouder of the NHS than we are today.
Surbiton Forum 