Colin Taylor - Liberal Democrat Councillor

This week we debated Surrey County Council’s 2007 Community Survey, which reveals that:

• Only 3 in 10 respondents believe that they can influence decisions affecting their local area.
• People who feel able to influence decisions are more likely to be satisfied with the way SCC runs things.
• A quarter would like to be more involved in decisions and another quarter said it depended on the issue.
• Less than 1 in 6 had heard of SCC’s Local Committees.

I pointed out that if we are to do anything effective about publicising Local Committees before next June, we need to take action now.

The Tories on the Executive had agreed to provide residents with information on how they can have a say in the local decision making process. Yet they failed to mention Local Committees, despite the Survey revealing that less than one person in six had heard of them.

I proposed that instead the council should promote the work of Local Committees more effectively.

At one time there were Press Officers promoting Local Committees. Now some Local Committees have had to divert money from their allocations just to advertise the dates and venues for their meetings and take “pot luck” on subsequent press coverage.

Yet Local Committees are the best things this Council does to engage and involve local people. SCC ought to build on success, not strangle it by cutting the numbers of meetings.

I added that the PR department should be publicising the outcomes of the meetings, as well as the dates and venues. Of course the Tories voted through an amendment emasculating the whole motion, though it did take a step forward by mentioning Local Committees in passing.

Ironically, on the very same day, the county’s PR department did issue an excellent Press Release about the Runnymede Local Committee – one with no Lib Dem members.

Having been advised by SCC Highways that only 5 street lights now remain to be fixed in Hook Road, out of the 12 I reported last week, I went to check this evening - and found no less than 10 still out of action.

They also advised me that they are all due to be working by 7th July. On the other hand, on 10th March they had assured me they would all be working by 31st March.

No harm in hoping, meanwhile I shall be keeping up the pressure.

Today the county council’s planning committee voted 11 to 4 to refuse an application to build a ready-mix mortar plant in the sand quarry at North Park Farm, Godstone. Nothing too unusual there, you might think. Well no, except that the same committee had already considered the same application back in February and approved it!

Or did we? The members had actually voted 6 to 5 for refusal, but the voting was miss-counted and reported as 5 all, whereupon the chairman gave a casting vote in favour. When members objected that a majority had voted against it, on legal advice she ruled that as she had originally not voted, her casting vote was her first vote and now she would give a casting vote in favour.

After this was reported in the national press, the Council took the advice of a QC and decided that the previous decision was not valid.

The refusal was formally proposed and seconded by my Lib Dem colleagues Fiona White and Ian Beardsmore.

As many local people are only too well aware, early in January most of the street lights failed on a long stretch of Hook Road between Lower Court Road and the former St Barnabas’ Church Hall - and also in Hurst Road.

I asked a formal question about this at SCC’s Local Committee in Epsom & Ewell on 10 March and was told they should all be working by the end of March. Although new lamp posts have been erected, only a minority of these have been connected so far. Meanwhile two others beyond the Church Hall have failed. I counted on Monday and found 12 not working in Hook Road alone.

Workmen have been observed from time to time digging up the footway to connect cables, but the whole operation is proceeding at a snail’s pace. Apparently under Margaret Thatcher’s 1989 electricity privatisation legislation, EDF (the French State Electricity Company) have a monopoly on such work. Although they have promised to meet the targets they have been set by the Regulator (Ofgem), they seem in no hurry to complete this work.

I intend asking another formal question at the next Local Committee in June. You need to be an optimist in this job.

A new website was opened yesterday giving a wealth of information about the current review of Maternity & Children’s services at Epsom & St Helier Hospitals. Contents include details of:

• The background to the review;
• The ‘case for change’;
• How the project is being run and who is doing it;
• The latest options for the future of the services;
• How they are engaging with the public;
• Presentations and notes from meetings with stakeholders and staff;
• Agenda and minutes for the review’s Project Board and Project Team;
• Press releases and other breaking news.

Visitors are asked to comment on the options and/or put forward other ideas. It can be accessed at http://review.surreyhealth.nhs.uk/Women&Children’s/

More gypsies have arrived to join those already encamped on Manor Park. They all intend to move on to the Downs for the Derby, but it has emerged today that the authorities there will not allow this before 29 May - Thursday next week.

Meanwhile Surrey Police are monitoring the situation and Epsom & Ewell Council is applying to the courts for powers to move these travellers on if they do not leave as intended.

It seems that the Gypsies managed to force their way onto the field at Manor Park by cutting through a drop-down bollard, recently installed by the Council to allow easier access for the grass cutting contractors, in place of one of the two concrete bollards originally installed to prevent Gypsy incursions. My colleague Cllr Jonathan Lees will be discussing with council officers how best to prevent future problems.

Gypsies have camped illegally on the field alongside Chertsey Way. They arrived on Thursday, having been moved on elsewhere in the Borough, saying they were going to Sutton.

The Council have ordered them to move, but legally they have to give them 7 days notice. The Police are hoping to persuade them to move sooner.

The travellers say they will go to the Downs on Tuesday for the Derby.

This morning the 5 local county councillors were given a preview of the County Council’s plans for Highways work in the next 2 years. The news was not good, because money is short.

However, things they are hoping to do in Epsom & Ewell South-West include:

• Hook Road - major maintenance - Longmead Road to East Street;
• The Crescent - new asphalt surfacing;
• Manor Green Road - new asphalt surfacing;
• Stones Road - replace footbridge by pedestrian and cycle link under railway;
• Traffic lights at West Street/Station Approach junction;
• Improve pedestrian crossing in Hook Road at East Street junction;
• Install bollards in Hook Road to keep lorries off the footway.

Last night the Epsom & Ewell Planning Committee:

• Approved Ewell Apiary, Ewell Court House Grotto and 51 Northey Avenue;
• Refused Hatch Furlong Nursery and 147 Hook Road;
• Deferred the signs on the Racecourse Hotel.

After last year’s successful event with Vince Cable MP (just before he became famous for dancing with the stars and cracking jokes in the Commons), this year’s Epsom & Ewell Lib Dem Dinner at South Hatch was a sell-out.

This time the guest speaker was Steve Webb MP, who was formerly Lib Dem Health spokesperson, then led the team producing the party’s Manifesto for last year’s “election that never was”. Now he is Lib Dem shadow Minister for Energy, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

As Steve explained, this is a wider portfolio than the government minister’s, but as he had pointed out to Nick Clegg, it was difficult to develop policies to save the Environment, when Energy was the responsibility of a different department. Indeed, the more one looked at it, the more it became clear that the present government machine was far from being “joined up”. He went on to point out many more examples, contrasting this with the Lib Dem approach of a Green backbone linking every policy, rather than adding green issues as an afterthought.

Another theme that he developed was communication, stressing the importance of using modern media to contact and interest the younger adults in today’s society. Steve Webb has not only his own Website and Blog, but is also to be found on both Facebook and My Space.

Mr Webb, who is also a former University Professor, then bravely tackled a wide range of questions on almost every topic, without once flinching or dodging the issue. He is indeed, as our parliamentary candidate Jonathan Lees said in introducing him, an inspiring and challenging example to every Liberal Democrat.