The long-awaited Planning Application for the West Park site on the hospital cluster has at last been registered with the council. A total of 373 new homes are proposed, though two parts of the site would still be retained by the NHS.

The main application 09/00971/RES comprises 369 new residential dwellings, of which 149 would be “affordable” dwellings intended either for rental through a Housing Association or for shared equity schemes. In addition a separate application 09/00969/LBA proposes to convert the listed water tower into a further 4 dwellings, with a third application 09/00968/CAC covering demolition of existing buildings.

These documents can all be inspected between 8.50am and 5.00pm Monday to Friday either at the Town Hall or Bourne Hall, between 9.00am and 3.00pm on Saturdays at Bourne Hall and until 7.00pm on Thursdays 25 February and 25 March at the Town Hall.

Comments should be sent to Mr Jacy Yates in the Planning Department at the Town Hall, preferably to reach him by 19 February. The date when these applications will be considered by the Planning Committee is not yet known.

The Liberal Democrats have announced a major funding commitment that would boost education in Surrey. Nick Clegg has given a Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment for a Pupil Premium that would mean investing around £ 25m of extra cash in Surrey schools, raising the funding for disadvantaged pupils to private school levels.

Cllr Jonathan Lees, Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for Epsom & Ewell said: “I am delighted with this announcement. In one of the most prosperous areas of the country it’s nothing short of a scandal that children in Surrey have continued to lose out under Labour. Some of the schools here receive significantly less money than the national average and something must be done”. Read the rest of this entry.

Nick Clegg launched the Party manifesto this week. This is about 4 key principles:

• Fair taxes;
• A fair start for every child;
• Fair, clean and local politics;
• A fair, green economy with jobs that last.

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A special meeting of the council has awarded the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment the Freedom of the Borough of Epsom & Ewell.

The meeting was only convened after opposition councillors outnumbered RA councillors in a vote to hold the meeting and after the latter had been subjected to widespread criticism in the national and local press for their failure to “honour” the Regiment.

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It is quite wrong of local Conservatives to accuse our Council of not honouring our Armed Forces by not allowing them to march through our streets. In fact the Armed Forces have not actually asked to do so. Read the rest of this entry.

Surrey Highways are currently not repairing street lights except in the most urgent cases. A new PFI street lighting contract is expected to start early next year, which will involve replacing 80% of the existing lamp columns, so they are not spending money on repairing columns that will be replaced.

Damaged street lighting columns, regulatory signs and bollards are still being dealt with, though sometimes just by disconnecting the power and chopping off the damaged part. Routine replacement of bulbs is also still continuing. Read the rest of this entry.

No not the beast in Revelation, the majority in my sixth successive win, virtually double the previous figure on a lower turnout and with more opponents. Can you wonder I’m feeling elated.

Throughout Epsom & Ewell people have resisted the siren call “It’s time for change - vote Conservative” and wisely continued, as they have since 1997, to opt for parties opposed to the Tories running one-star Surrey.

Elsewhere in Surrey the Lib Dems have started their come-back, with gains in Reigate, Spelthorne, Tandridge and Woking, despite losses in Godalming and Guildford.

The message for Gordon Brown is stark. Labour have retained just one seat in Surrey and came bottom of the poll here in Epsom & Ewell South-West.

I was recently invited, along with all other candidates for the Surrey County Council elections, to endorse CPRE Surrey’s “Manifesto for Surrey” which you can read here.

I was happy to confirm my complete and whole-hearted support for all 10 points of this document. But of course I am a member of the Epsom & Ewell branch of CPRE, which I joined when it was formed.

It is not yet clear what CPRE intend to do with the responses received.

With all the publicity about MP’s Expenses attention is also turning to Councillors. Personally I don’t claim any expenses. You can use these links to check the Allowances & Expenses paid to Surrey County Councillors for 2008-2009 and also for 2007-2008.

Allowances are what a councillor gets paid for doing the job - for Income Tax purposes they are treated as a salary. I only get a Basic Allowance - but as you can see many other councillors get additional “Special Responsibilty” allowances. Expenses are mainly travel expenses.

Two explanations: For 2008-2009 I am listed as “John Taylor”. In 2007-2008 they deducted an additional special responsibility allowance paid to me in error in the previous year.

An interesting general conclusion is that Lib Dem councillors cost the taxpayer a lot less than the Tories do - but then they are in charge.

It has been announced that, subject to the approval of parliament, the Surrey Police Authority (SPA) will be capped. They will have to refund £1.6 million (about £3 on average per council tax payer) at a cost of a further £1.2 million for re-billing. The news broke just hours after the SPA meet held in public last Tuesday, when I heard the chairman Mr Peter Williams say they were still awaiting the government’s decision following representations made to ministers by the SPA.
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