With another Local Committee due on 15th September, I made another check on progress on this long-running saga. It’s getting better - now only one of the 17 that failed in January is still out. Orange plastic fences have been put round street lights 64, 65 and 66, with power restored to 64 and 66, so we should see 65 light up soon. However 4 of the other lights I reported after the last meeting in June are still out and another was failed since. I have chased all 6 -  let’s hope this is for the last time.

With County Council elections looming, the Tory administration has diverted another £5 million from other budgets to road repairs. Spread over the whole of Surrey, that does not help Epsom & Ewell much, but the following schemes have been added to the work programme for E&E South-West:

• Patching and joint repairs in Temple Road;
• Resurfacing in Christ Church Road (by the Stewponds Car Park);
• Footway repairs in Rosebank;
• Rationalisation of Road Signs in Epsom town centre;
• Repairs to block paving in Epsom town centre.

It has also recently been agreed that overlay repairs will be carried out in The Crescent, rather than just micro-asphalt surfacing. This work will also include the part of Well Way that links The Crescent to The Greenway, rather than the cul-de-sac part of The Crescent which is not part of the bus route.

See also the earlier Highways Plans for 2008-2010.

Figures quoted at the June meeting of Surrey County Council by the Executive Member for Transport, in reply to a Lib Dem question, show that Epsom & Ewell now has by far the worst pavements in Surrey.

The figures quoted are for BVPI 187 - a government defined measure of quality, higher values being worse. For 2007/2008 they are 92% higher for Epsom & Ewell than the Surrey average - and compared with 2005/2006 they got 68% worse in Epsom & Ewell at the same times as getting 45% better in Surrey as a whole. At 31 Epsom & Ewell’s score for 2007/2008 is almost 4 times worse than the best borough of Runnymede which scored 8.

I don’t think the Conservative administration is starving Epsom & Ewell of resources deliberately, they are simply allocating funds using a formula which takes no account of what local needs actually are.

Ever since 17 street lights failed in Hook Road early in January, I have been chasing Surrey County Council to get them repaired. The problem was identified as a cable failure, necessitating 18 new lamp posts.

Promised completion dates came and went. So at the Local Committee on June 9th I demanded a full explanation of the apparent lack of urgency. It seems that the problem is one of Health & Safety. The danger is to the EDF workers struggling to make the necessary electrical connections in the narrow footways, not just from traffic but more from the tangle of other buried services, especially those for telephones and cable TV.

Surrey Highways said that all but 3 of the 18 new lights had now been connected, but the last three required staff from EDF, BT and Virgin to work together under SCC supervision and this could not be arranged before 7th July.

I pointed out that actually 12 street lights were not working, not just the 3 mentioned and promised to supply a detailed list, which I did later that night.

I have subsequently been told that the other 9 have failed for different reasons and will be dealt with separately. Let’s see what happens.

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.

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.

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.