WILL THE TRAM COME TO SUTTON ?

tram

Consultation to gauge public views on phase 1 of the proposed Tramlink extension to Sutton indicates overwhelming support.

The proposed route consulted on would involve a branch to the current Tramlink route after it has left Wimbledon and got as far as Morden Road. The branch to Sutton would leave the current Wimbledon to West Croydon Tramlink route at that point, proceed via St. Helier Avenue to the Rosehill roundabout, then to Angel Hill and on to Sutton, where it will go round the gyratory. There will be a loop from the Rosehill roundabout to St. Helier hospital.

Full details can be found at  www.suttonmertontramlink.co.uk or by clicking on this link.

If agreed and built, phase 1 may be followed by phase 2, an extension to the re-developed Sutton hospital site in Belmont. This is as yet far into the future. We remain hopeful that funding will be found for phase 1.

RICHARD SETS OUT HIS VISION AS CHAIR OF THE PLANNING COMMITTEE

richard-councillor-002

On 11 July Richard took the helm as chair of the Council’s Planning Committee (formerly the Development Control Committee) by chairing the first meeting of the Committee following the election and his appointment as chair.

A lively meeting dealt with some important planning applications, including one for the re-development of Times Square in the Sutton shopping centre.

Richard commenced by thanking his predecessor, former Councillor John Leach.

Richard introduced his first meeting by setting out his view of the vision and mission of the committee, saying that the work of our committee is massively important and our mission is:

– to achieve the vision for Sutton in our plans and ensure that acceptable standards are observed in all developments within the Borough.

He said “The business of the committee is to consider certain categories of planning applications, particularly those that are significant to the development of Sutton and those that are disputed.

The way the planning system works is that Sutton Council adopts and publicises planning policies, setting out its overall plans for the Borough and standards on such matters as design, environmental impact and the impact on local amenities.

These policies are discussed and adopted by the Housing, Economy and Business Committee (HEB).

Our committee is concerned with the implementation of those policies – in the actuality of the proposals for new developments in Sutton, in the planning applications that come before us and thus what is actually built.

In considering planning applications we will not grant them where there is clearly a conflict with our planning policies. A decision not to grant an application is of course subject to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.

But the work of our committee is massively important – to achieving the vision for Sutton in our plans and in ensuring that acceptable standards are observed in all developments within the Borough.”

 

RICHARD AND TRISH TAKE ON NEW RESPONSIBILITIES

TWO 1 ROTATED

Trish and Richard are taking on a range of new responsibilities, following their election.

Trish will be a member of the Council’s important Housing, Economy and Business Committee. She will be a member of the Licensing Committee, having had experience in matters relating to licensing. She will also be a member of the Appeals Committee and of the Merton and Sutton Joint Cemetery Board.

Richard will be chair of the Council’s Planning Committee (formerly Development Control Committee) and continue as chair of the Health and Safety Committee. As a former chair of the Board of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work he cannot escape that task. He will also sit on the Strategy and Resources Committee and the Standards Committee. He will also sit on the Council’s joint committee with recognised trade unions and have other responsibilities on joint committees of London Councils. His wife Gloria sometimes reminds him that he is supposed to be retired.

RICHARD AND TRISH ELECTED TO SUTTON COUNCIL

 

We have won. On 22 May Trish and Richard were elected Councillors for Sutton South Ward. Sadly,  John was not successful. The voting figures are below.

TWO 2 ROTATED

SUTTON SOUTH WARD
Electorate 7,640 % Poll 39.10%
Name of Candidates Votes %
Steve Appleton Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition 108
Kathryn Theresa Anne Brennan Labour Party Candidate 371
Richard Francis Clifton Liberal Democrats 1380 15.40%
Trish Fivey Liberal Democrats 1296 14.46%
Heather Rita Howell Conservative Party Candidate 1075
Jason Robert Hughes Conservative Party Candidate 1089
Tiz North Keep our St Helier Hospital Party 372
John Phillips Liberal Democrats 1040
Ronald James Phillips Labour Party Candidate 307
Tony Alfred Shields Conservative Party Candidate 1197 13.36%
Patricia Anne Simons Labour Party Candidate 302
Jerry Wraith UK Independence Party (UKIP) 418

WHY I CAME INTO POLITICS AS A LIBERAL DEMOCRAT – TO HELP THE DISADVANTAGED

nali and me at meeting

At the Sutton Council meeting on 31 March Richard set out his personal philosophy in a speech supporting the Foodbanks.

Here is what he said:

“I came in to politics as a Liberal Democrat because of a concern about the disadvantaged in society. There can be no more telling indicator of disadvantage than needing to seek help for something as basic as feeding your family.

I welcome and support the help given to those in desperate need by the foodbanks, but I feel uncomfortable with the fact that in what is still on some measures the seventh most affluent country in the World some of our families are needing to seek the help of a private charity for something as basic as food to eat, and that the foodbanks – conceived as a response to short term needs – are in danger of becoming a permanent part of the structure of welfare support in Britain.

The Council has, of course, a number of schemes to assist those who are in the most severe financial distress, including giving appropriate help to the Foodbank. Government policy has not always helped.

I am concerned with the way the Government has “localised” one of the main planks in helping those in need, the Crisis Loans and Grants Scheme. This is a scheme that assists those in real crisis situations. Many families receiving welfare support are struggling week by week and just keeping their head above water, but it can be the unexpected event that tips them over the edge – which may be into the hands of the Payday loan providers. The Crisis Loans and Grants scheme is a lifeline in these situations, and has helped over 800 individuals this year. But from the next financial year the central funding passed down when the scheme was localised is simply being axed, a cut of over £400 thousand. There is, at some point in the future, going to be a difficult debate about how the Council maintains an acceptable level of support to people in those situations.  

The Council also offers help in other ways, in particular through Discretionary Housing Payments and the Council Tax Reduction scheme.

Council officers have meetings with the organisers of the foodbank. The Council has assisted with accommodation in Apple Lodge on the Sutton Court estate, in my Ward, storage (with the Big Yellow Storage company) and with limited assistance by way of food vouchers from the Crisis Loans and Grants budget. This is because I understand the foodbank struggles to provide certain types of food, such as fresh food, as the donations are mostly of particular types of food, and they do of course want to provide a balanced diet.

The foodbank also offers debt advice to help residents manage their finances better, which is important.

We must congratulate the organisers of the foodbank on the service they are providing to our most disadvantaged residents – which may include the 600 plus households affected by the bedroom tax and the 150 plus affected by the benefit cap, locally. But we need at the same time to seek to ensure that help is given to stop families getting into the position where they need the help of the foodbank. This means continuing with the assistance we currently give, trying to protect the resources devoted to these schemes, but also seeking to help people out of this situation.

A major way of doing that is helping those out of work find jobs, for which reason our successful employment generation programmes under the banner of Opportunity Sutton are so essential. These policies must run together.”

 

A REPORT ON MY FOUR YEARS AS A COUNCILLOR – BY RICHARD

With Mary Burstow and the bench we donated to Richard Sharples Court

With Mary Burstow and the bench we donated to Richard Sharples Court

A REPORT ON MY FOUR YEARS AS A COUNCILLOR – By Richard
The work of a Councillor comprises the work you do for Sutton as a whole on Sutton Council and specific work for residents of the Ward.
 
I have been the Vice-Chair of the Housing, Economy and Business Committee and “lead Councillor” on trading standards and on revenues and benefits. The two most challenging pieces of work I did were the re-design of the Council tax support scheme and the re-design of the Council’s committee system.
 
The Government “localised” Council tax support (the system of support payments to the most needy) by axing the national scheme. It invited local authorities to set up their own scheme but passed down to Councils only some of the funding. This cost Sutton £1.1 million. The challenge was to devise a local scheme which, while inevitably less generous, protected the vulnerable. The scheme I devised, which was ultimately accepted, provided support to those in most need and protected from cuts in benefit the elderly, the disabled, lone parents and families with small children. There were difficult choices and it was one of the most difficult projects I have undertaken in 40 years work in public administration.
 
The revision of the Council’s committee system I worked on was designed to take advantage of provisions in the Localism Act that made it possible to move from an “Executive” system to a “subject committee” system I considered more democratic. I led the group considering options and developed a scheme that was the basis for the system Sutton now has adopted.
 
I also did a lot of work on a scrutiny of the Council’s policies on homelessness. This issue concerned me as I felt that some of the policies being recommended to us by Conservative Councillors would have increased homelessness, and the scrutiny activity demonstrated this.
 
I have also been a member of the Audit Committee, the Scrutiny Committee, the Standards Committee, the Development Control Committee and the representative of Sutton on numerous external bodies and boards, such as the Downland Project (which organises volunteers to, for example, clear scrubland in local woods).
 
When I was elected I obtained an exercise book (I do not trust computerised systems) and wrote on the cover “Casework.” Item number one was an issue raised by a resident of Copse Hill about a tree in the road demolished by a car. I got it replaced. My most recent entry in the Casework book (a disputed parking ticket I got rescinded) is item number 413, but this does not quite do me justice as some of these entries are multiple issues and some issues I was able to resolve almost immediately without resort to the “Casework” book.
 
There are some issues affecting the Ward as a whole that I have worked on that give me particular satisfaction – including the extension of the “no drinking zone” (controlling the drinking of alcohol in a public place) from the town centre to cover most of the Ward, the improvements to the Devonshire Avenue Nature Area while retaining its central purpose as a nature reserve, the safety improvements to the Grange Vale bridge, opening the side entrance to Sutton station (work now underway), getting more trees planted, helping found the Sutton South Hello! Project to tackle social isolation, getting funding for measures to combat speeding in Cavendish Road and Cedar Road, and securing 780 local jobs through the Subsea7 project (jobs are gold dust). The regular surgeries we have held have convinced me that there is a real issue for people in their 50s made redundant from work in getting back into the labour market, and the really big difference you can make to an area is ensuring there are local jobs.  There are very few Councillors in Britain who can claim they have been instrumental in getting so many jobs for their area, given the massive competition between local authorities for such job-creating inward investment.
 
There were also many things I did for individual residents. Some of these projects gave me great satisfaction – such as getting a disabled parking bay moved so that it was not under a tree and thus the disabled resident did not get her car covered, every day, with droppings. For another resident, I got her over £2 000 in a compensation payment through pursuing her case. Some of the issues I dealt with, particularly those involving anti-social behaviour, were difficult and sometimes harrowing.
 
The background I brought to my period as a Councillor was that I am a retired civil servant who was, at one time, Chair of the Board of a European Agency (the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, based in Bilbao, Spain) and at another time Chair of the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority. After a long career in public service at a European and national level it was a priviledge and a pleasure to use the skills I had obtained, in the service of my immediate, local community. My wife Gloria and I have lived in our Ward for 26 years and both our daughters went to local State schools. I like Sutton, which has a pleasant suburban atmosphere, low crime, good schools, affordable housing and low unemployment. I have been motivated by a desire to play my part in keeping its many benefits. And the values I bring to being a Councillor are those of a concern to use the skills I have acquired in life to benefit the disadvantaged in society – in society as a whole and, in my work these past four years, in the immediate community around me. And I have still managed to find time to play the trumpet in a Sutton-based concert band, playing last year in a concert at Christchurch for the 125th. anniversary of the church, and playing Christmas carols at the Friends’ Meeting House for the past two years.
 
There has been hardly a day in the last four years when I have not been engaged on some activity on behalf of the residents of Sutton.
 RICHARD CLIFTON

COUNCIL TAX FROZEN FOR THE FIFTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR – AND PARKING CHARGES FROZEN

On 3 March Sutton Council adopted its budget for 2014-15 and froze Council tax for the fifth consecutive year. The budget also freezes parking charges for the next financial year.

Richard and Heather both spoke in the debate to congratulate our lead Councillor on finance, Simon Wales, on the budget and draw attention to the positive developments in Sutton South Ward with the Sutton Gateway project and the new Subsea7 office bringing 800 local jobs. Both are described below.

SUTTON TOP COUNCIL IN LONDON FOR FREE VISITOR PARKING

car club

Figures presented to the South Sutton, Cheam and Belmont Local Committee show Sutton is the most generous Council in London for providing free visitor parking in the controlled parking zone.

Of 32 London Boroughs 28 provide no free visitor parking atall. Only four Councils provide any (Newham, Wandsworth, Hillingdon, sutton) and of these four Sutton is the most generous with 50 hours of free parking annually.

NEW STREET TREES PROGRAMME ANNOUNCED

Richard plus tree in Farm Road 

Richard planting a tree in Farm Road.

Richard, Nali, Heather and Sue with trees

Richard, Nali, Heather and Sue with trees

There is a new programme of tree planting in our Ward, over the winter. Exciting news. Some of these are already planted. Here is a listing of sites. Contact us if you have other nominations to make.

There will be a number of different types of tree including laburnum, malus trilobata, corylus colurna, prunus sargentii rancho, crataegus laevigata “Paul’s Scarlet” and acer campestre “Streetwise”.

SUTTON SOUTH WARD

 ALBION ROAD, SUTTON Outside number 20      

 

 ALBION ROAD, SUTTON 10 (FLATS 1-8) near FERNDOWN CL      

 

 CHRISTCHURCH PARK, SUTTON AMBERLEY COURT(FLATS)      

 

DEVONSHIRE AVENUE, SUTTON

 PENARTH COURT      
 

DEVONSHIRE ROAD, SUTTON

 10      
  DEVONSHIRE ROAD, SUTTON  near junction Egmont Road      
 

DEVONSHIRE ROAD, SUTTON

  near junction Egmont Road      

 

EFFINGHAM CLOSE, SUTTON

 57      

 

FARM ROAD

 7, and opposite Kayemoor Road      

 

KAYEMOOR ROAD, SUTTON

 Outside 24/26, outside 10, outside 32/34      

 

PRIOR AVENUE, SUTTON

Outside 41

      

 

 STANLEY ROAD, SUTTON 3-15 ESPRIT COURT (entrance)      
 

UPLAND ROAD, SUTTON

 Close to number 90      

 

 UPLAND ROAD, SUTTON

Outside 45, 53/55, 76

      

 

 UPLAND ROAD, SUTTON

Outside 9, 62, 4

      

 

 MAYFIELD ROAD, SUTTON

Outside 15

      

 

 WILLIS AVENUE

Outside 15/17

      

 

 EFFINGHAM CLOSE

  Outside 5, and outside 6      

 

  CAMBORNE ROAD

 4b

      

 

An additional tree has been planted outside 3 Chalgrove Road at the suggestion of a resident.

Residents have the opportunity to foster these new trees and help leave a green legacy. Under the Council’s Tree Fostering Scheme they can help look after trees that are planted near their homes for up to three years. Maintenance duties include watering the trees with three buckets of water a week in the dry months and, if they want to, loosen tree ties and trim off broken twigs. By signing up, residents will receive a tree care guide with information on how to look after their tree.