Richard has expressed his disappointment at the withdrawal by the owners of Sutherland House in the Brighton Road of plans that he supported for the re-development of the building.

Alongside the other plans to provide jobs and good design to the area – the Sutton Gateway project, the Subsea7 project, opening the side entrance to the station – getting Sutherland House occupied and improving its appearance is an important further aspect. 

Last year Sutton Council and the Planning Inspectorate rejected plans for the re-development of the building, the Inspectorate awarding costs to the Council as the proposals were so unacceptable. The plans were considered inadequate in that there was no provision for affordable housing and the frontage onto Cedar Road was of an unacceptable design.

At the end of 2013 the owners submitted some further plans that remedied these problems. The plans were due to go to the Council’s Development Control Committee on 22 January with a recommendation that they be accepted, and Richard had made arrangements to speak to the Committee in support of the proposals.

Unexpectedly, a week before the meeting, the developers withdrew the plans.

Richard says “I supported these proposals for the re-development of Sutherland House. I call on the owners to make clear what their plans now are.

With the uplift to the area that will come from the opening of the side entrance to Sutton station, the Sutton Gateway project and the prestige new Subsea7 headquarters, getting Sutherland House re-developed remains the final plank in the strategy to bring jobs, prosperity and good design to our area.”

Richard’s first civic duty of 2014 as a Sutton Councillor was to attend the Registrar’s office in Worcester Road, in our Ward, on 2 January to make the speech of welcome by a local Councillor at the first Citizenship ceremony to be held in Sutton this year. At these ceremonies people who have successfully applied to be British citizens are awarded a certificate confirming British citizenship. Richard welcomed and congratulated the new British citizens.

The ceremonies are of particular interest because of the variety of people from distant parts of the world, all of whom have lived and worked in this country for a long time, who take Citizenship. On 2 January there were people from Bulgaria, Poland, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Trinidad, Nigeria, Egypt and the USA (from Hawaii).

Richard says “These are invariably hard working people who have contributed to Britain and want to take the logical final step of becoming British Citizens, something that involves them passing examinations on the British way of life and on our language. I am always struck by their enthusiasm for Britain.”

Last year, Upland Road hosted one of the borough’s biggest street parties, with more than 200 friends and neighbours getting together to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee.

To keep community spirit going well into the winter, Sue Davis and her neighbours set up Snow Patrol to make sure that older residents and those who couldn’t manage the snow could still get essential supplies.

More than 15 people from just one road signed up to become Snow Patrollers – helping neighbours in need. This year we’re doing it all again – and need your help.

We know we’re going to face increased demand for our help from other roads –  so every volunteer counts. In our area, two out of every three of our local neighbours are over 70 and might need our help.

If you can offer your help  – even if it’s just for one day, get in touch to put your name on our Snow Patrollers register today. Ring us on 0208 643 6774 or email Sue Davis at susanupland@aol.com

Weather forecasters have already warned us this winter could be cold and snowy.

That’s why Sutton South’s Snow Patrollers are getting organised early this year.

We’re here to help if you’ve got trouble getting out for food or medicines.

We’re all your local neighbours so you’ve probably seen us around and about. We’re happy to come and have a chat to put your mind at rest.

If you think you might have trouble getting food or keeping up with your medication, ring our co-ordinator, Sue Davis, for help.

0208 643 6774

In addition, Sutton Council has launched an online one-stop-shop to support its residents and businesses though the winter months.

The Winter Information Centre (WIC) brings together information from a range of council services, and those of our partners, so residents can use www.sutton.gov.uk/winter as a place to find out about any disruption, look up health advice and report any problems.

Parents can find out if the borough’s schools are open or closed; there are links to travel advice for the buses, trains, tubes and roads; advice on how to stay warm and healthy, access to five day weather reports for the area; and information about Sutton’s gritting programme including the locations of gritting routes and bins.

Sutton is already leading the way for collaborative winter planning having provided 4,200 residents with free grit to use themselves though our Free Gritting Scheme.

Winter can be a very difficult time for people when the temperature drops so we will make their lives easier by creating one place to find important information.

By providing regular updates through the Winter Information Centre and social media we can help our residents to make informed decisions about what action to take to cope with cold weather disruption. 

We have also taken extra measures to support our vulnerable residents by providing grants for warm homes, making extra checks on their wellbeing and ensuring our meals on wheels vans are prepared for the cold weather. 

“This, along with other measures such as providing free grit to 4,200 residents and filling all of our 450 bins, means that Sutton is better prepared for winter than ever before. 

In addition to gritting, Sutton is taking extra care to support its elderly and vulnerable residents by offering grants and support through its Warm Homes scheme, Meals on Wheels and a new homeless support service.

The mobile hot meals service has never missed the delivery of a hot meal and Sutton Council is doing its best to keep the record intact by fitting 5 out of the 10 Meals on Wheels vans with winter tyres and having access to 4 by 4 vehicles on standby in case of the worst.

Meals on Wheels staff and other council outreach workers will also be extra vigilant in making sure the home of elderly and other vulnerable people are warm and that they have enough information and provisions to look after themselves.

As cold winter weather approaches, Sutton Council is asking residents to help homeless people by making referrals using the new Streetlink service, if they spot anyone sleeping rough.

Streetlink now provides a single point of contact for all London residents to report rough sleeping in their area. Any Sutton resident who encounters a rough sleeper can contact Streetlink, who will provide an outreach worker and refer the rough sleeper to the appropriate council in order to arrange accommodation and support.

The call to residents comes as Sutton Council launches a new service to help single homeless people from Sutton access the private rented sector.  Vulnerable people from the borough that are identified as rough sleeping will be offered dedicated support to find suitable accommodation, negotiate with landlords, complete tenancy agreements. THEYcan receive help towards paying initial rental deposits. 

The new measure is in addition to Sutton Council’s existing Sutton Rough Sleeping Group which was set up last year to help rough sleepers enter accommodation and rebuild their lives. The group brings together agencies that work with rough sleepers, including drug and alcohol services, Sutton JobCentre and voluntary organisations. 

At this time of year, rough sleepers are at much greater risk from illness or even death due to exposure to freezing weather conditions. 

We set up the Sutton Rough Sleeping Group to help those individuals move into suitable accommodation and now we have increased support.  The service is providing much needed support to help them overcome difficulties such as ineligibility for social housing and expensive private rental costs.

Although we do not have large numbers of rough sleepers in Sutton, many of them  often seek out open spaces like parks. Due to this, the council is seeking help from members of the public to notify them of anyone that is rough sleeping.

Anyone who sees a rough sleeper should first call Streetlink on 0300 500 0914.

Richard has a particular interest in rough sleeping and homelessness, partly because his daughter Ellie is the communications manager for st. Basil’s, the largest homelessness charity in the West Midlands. He led the scrutiny carried out by the Housing, Economy and Business Committee of the Council’s policies on avoiding homelessness, which showed that a change to the policy (leading to people becoming homeless and being put in B and B accommodation before all legal steps were concluded)  promoted by Conservative Councillors would have increased homelessness in Sutton.

We hope all our residents enjoyed Christmas. 

Richard with members of the Phoenix Concert Band

Some festive events Heather and Richard have organised or been involved with over Christmas included:

Wednesday 4 December – there was a very enjoyable carols and sing-song event at the Sutton South Hello! meeting, Christchurch hall, Christchurch Park, from 2pm to about 4

Saturday 14 December – Friends’ Meeting House, Cedar Road, “Second Saturday Tea”, from 2pm to 4, Richard brought a band (members of the Phoenix Concert Band, Sutton) to play Christmas carols and a few Christmas medleys. Richard played trumpet in a ten piece wind concert band. This event was a  great hit.

The band at the Friends’ Meeting House

Richard went on to play the trumpet again at the Straw Cafe in Manor Park, carols and mince pies for the Mayor.

Wednesday 18 December – Sutton South Hello! Christmas party, with folk dancing organised by our good friend Councillor Simon Wales, was greatly enjoyed by a large crowd.

We hope everyone is well prepared for the cold weather with the Council’s grit distribution initiative and “cold room” scheme. All the many grit bins in the Ward are full.

Heather introducing Care Minister Norman Lamb MP at the launch of Hello!

Out of 152 boroughs in the country, Sutton is one of only ten to be awarded a ‘Gold’ rating for plans to tackle the growing issue of loneliness and social isolation, by the national ‘Campaign to End Loneliness’ network.

In Sutton South Ward, we have led the way with our Sutton South Hello! project, on which there is information on a specific page on this site, led by Heather. The top rating has only been achieved by Councils with specific targets in place to reduce loneliness and isolation within their local communities.

 Research from the Campaign to End Loneliness revealed that up to 800,000 people in England are chronically lonely. According to evidence from the Campaign to End Loneliness, social isolation has the same negative impact upon health as ‘smoking 15 cigarettes a day’, and is ‘worse than obesity’ due to an increased risk of blood clots, heart disease and dementia.  In addition, lonely people are likely to drink more alcohol and are also more prone to early admission into residential or nursing care.

As local Councillors who saw this as a specific issue in our Ward, given the more elderly population and number of people living alone, we are delighted by this national recognition. We’re committed to continuing our work in Sutton to prevent social isolation amongst our residents and combat loneliness. In Sutton our Health and Wellbeing strategy describes our priorities for taking action to improve the health and happiness of our residents and ensure that people are not isolated and instead feel included within their local communities.

The nine other councils awarded gold status are:

·         Bath and North East Somerset

·         Blackburn with Darwen 

·         Manchester 

·         North Lincolnshire

·         North Yorkshire 

·         Sheffield 

·         Thurrock 

·         York

Shovelling snow last winter

Sutton’s Liberal Democrat Council once again offered residents free grit as we prepare for winter, and once again the scheme was a massive success with residents. Some 42 tons of free grit was collected by residents.

It is a scheme first piloted by Sutton Council and now copied elsewhere.

With the night’s drawing in and a chill in the air the Council offered 10kg of free grit to every household, to prepare for when the snowy and icy weather hits us.

The grit was provided over  four weekends in October.