In 1988 the South Sutton Neighbourhood Association celebrated the tenth anniversary of its foundation by funding a bench in Cavendish Road close to Ambleside Gardens. Richard noticed that the bench was, after over twenty years of use and exposure to the elements, in a very sorry state. He took action to get the bench restored, with the plaque explaining the history of the bench moved to the new bench.

LET US KNOW IF THERE IS A GRIT BIN IN YOUR ROAD THAT NEEDS TOPPING UP.

Richard and Trish have worked hard to ensure that there are plenty of grit bins at strategic places in the Ward. We need to know if they need topping up with grit.

Yet again this year Sutton Council is offering residents and businesses 10kg of free grit per household/business to collect from the Household Re-Use and Recycling Centre, Kimpton Park Way, SM3 9QH. This can be collected between Monday 22 November and Sunday 28 November. This year a booking system and a number of other changes have had to be introduced to help the operation run safely and in accordance with Government guidelines designed to contain the spread of COVID-19. Anyone visiting has to have a valid booking to be allowed access to the site and will need to show ID and proof of entitlement such as a Council tax bill. You can book a slot via the Sutton Council website.

Residents can also collect grit for elderly friends and neighbours or others who don’t have cars. 

LET US KNOW IF THERE IS A GRIT BIN NEAR YOU THAT NEEDS TOPPING UP.

In support of our policies to combat global warming and reduce carbon emissions, electric vehicle charging points are being fitted in lampposts in our Ward. The first locations are in Camborne Road, Stanley Road, Cedar Gardens and The Ridgway.

The photo shows the first vehicle that used the new charging point in The Ridgway. Given the policy to ultimately phase out petrol driven vehicles, a big and continuing expansion will be needed.

Sutton Council is working with Siemens to install Ubitricity lamp column electric vehicle charging points. Ubitricity lamp column charging points are compact and fit into the door of a lamp column. The aim is to deliver around 100 lamp column charging points in 2021. 
The aim of lamp column charging is to give residents the ability to easily charge electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles on the street where they live, especially if they do not have off-street parking or are unable to install their own home charging point. Installing residential charging points is important because a key barrier to people switching to electric vehicles is the concern around where they will be able to charge their vehicle. 

These will be a new feature for Sutton, though they are now becoming commonplace on residential roads in other London boroughs and the numbers are increasing rapidly each year.  

Lamp column charging points are most likely to be useful in roads with limited off-street parking (such as in private driveways), so priority is being given to locations where many residents park on the street.

Not all lamp columns are suitable for lamp column charging points. The lamp columns need to be “electrically suitable”, be positioned near the kerb and have enough internal space to fit the charging point. They need to be sensibly located so that a vehicle could safely park and charge next to the lamp column. The lamp columns also need to be made of metal, not concrete. 

An “earth mat”, a small metal grid, is also installed in the footway next to the lamp column. This is to make the charging point “electrically safe” if there is a fault. The current parking restrictions in any street where there is a charging point will continue to apply and be unaffected by the charging point. There will be signs to indicate that the lamp column has a charging point fitted, though this sign will not prevent non-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles from parking next to the lamp column. 

This is a major advance in our drive to promote electric vehicles and combat global warming.

Many of our residents use Warren Park, and the footpath between the railway lines has a real rural feel about it. A small area of Warren Park is protected by a wooden picket fence, to prevent the area being trampled. This is an area of chalk grassland, an important area for biodiversity which encourages some unusual plants and butterflies. Earlier in the year the fence was extensively vandalised and the area damaged by trampling (and dog poo). There was discussion, which we were involved in, about whether the fence should be repaired, replaced by sturdier fencing that would be more effective but unsightly, or removed, with the biodiversity area abandoned.
Eventually it was repaired but within a few days it had been extensively vandalised again. It has now been repaired yet again and notices put on the fencing to try to explain the importance of the area and to appeal to the vandals to leave it alone.
We are not sure what the impact is likely to be but hope for the best. 

On Friday 15 October Richard joined residents of Sutton Court and Beauclere House (in Brighton Road) on a “walkabout” of the estate to look at issues the residents wanted to raise. The party was joined by Sutton Housing Partnership (SHP) staff, including the estate manager and the Chief Executive of SHP. SHP manage the housing stock originally owned by the Council as social housing, but about half of the properties in Sutton Court have been purchased by residents under the “Right To Buy” provisions so are now rented out in the private sector rather than being social housing. The residents raised a variety of issues including surfaces that needed re-painting, guttering, garage roofs, faulty lights and notice boards that needed attention.

The panel is our opportunity for residents to discuss with the police the policing of Sutton South Ward. It met for the first “in person” meeting since 16 June 2019, on Friday 8 October at the hall at Christchurch, in Christchurch Park. There was a good turnout with about 20 residents attending. The police team was led by Constable Robyn Skivens.

The police reported that crime in the area remains low with, in the period since 1 July, just one burglary, 8 thefts of motor vehicles and 14 thefts from motor vehicles. There was a wide-ranging discussion covering issues including how to ensure people report crime, abandoned vehicles, e-scooters (their use other than on private land is unlawful), anti-social drinkers and the successful use by the police of Community Protection Orders. The likely impact on crime from having more people working at home was also noted. It was agreed that, while the Metropolitan police have had a bad press recently and the issues exposed by the Sarah Everard murder are of genuine importance and concern, in Sutton South the performance of our local police officers has been exemplary. The panel will meet again on 28 January.

Arif Syed is our newly appointed Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator for the Ward and chaired the meeting. Arif lives locally. He is pictured in the Mayor’s Parlour with Trish and Richard.

Several residents of Copse Hill and Dunsfold Court have put to us the point that the parking bay reserved for motorcyclists outside Dunsfold Court is rarely used by motorcyclists, and that those with a motorcycle do not usually have difficulty finding somewhere off the road to park.

Consequently we have explored the suggestion that this be restored as a parking place for other vehicles, alongside the adjacent parking places, and this change will go ahead unless there is significant local objection. Please let us know if you have views on this.

We are aware of pressures on parking spaces in the area, which is one of the reasons we opposed the proposal for a new tower block with relatively few parking spaces at 2 Copse Hill. This proposal, twice turned down by the Council, is again with the Planning Inspectorate in Bristol as an appeal.

We are also aware of a proposal for a further block of flats opposite, on the other side of Brighton Road, which was also deficient in terms of the number of parking spaces. This proposal is not yet the subject of a planning application and we are concerned about policies set out in the recent Government White Paper on planning that would, in some areas, lead to automatic consent to planning applications without a process of neighbourhood consultation. We will keep residents advised of progress.