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.

We learned, on 18 November, that the further planning application relating to 27 Grange Road, to demolish the existing building and erect a three storey building containing nine flats, has been allowed by the Planning Inspectorate, on appeal.

This planning application was turned down by Sutton Council and we deplore a situation where the democratic decisions taken by Liberal Democrat Councillors elected by local people are overturned by a remote inspectorate based in Bristol. That is wrong in principle, but there is no further right of appeal. There are unfortunately a number of locations in Sutton South Ward, for example in Albion Road and Eaton Road, where the Council has rejected applications to demolish attractive family homes and build a small block of small flats offering accommodation of a lower quality than we would like, but it has been overturned on appeal. We will continue to oppose such cases.

A condition imposed by the Inspector, at the request of the Council, is that work will only take place between 8am and 6pm on weekdays and 8am to 1pm on Saturdays, a standard Council condition. When work starts, we will monitor this closely.

The picture above shows the demolition of 39A Eaton Road, another attractive family home demolished to make way for small flats, again originally an application turned down by Sutton Council but allowed on appeal. 

On 14 November Richard attended a major conference for local employers at Sutton’s Holiday Inn, organised under the Opportunity Sutton programme and attended by a range of local employers. Sutton is successfully surviving the recession, but the conference was noteworthy for the number of local employers attending and the positive things that were said about the growth of employment opportunities in Sutton.

Richard, who attended in his capacity as vice-chair of the Housing, Economy and Business Committee (HEB), said “I met a lot of local employers interested in taking on new staff, including one in Sutton South Ward, a financial services firm based in offices in Cedar Road. This was a positive event at which Tom Brake launched his “A Hundred Apprenticeships in a Hundred Days” initiative.”

Our picture shows Tom Brake and Councillor Jayne McCoy, chair of HEB, flanked by representatives of the army and of Metrobank and Subsea7. Metrobank and Subsea7 gave upbeat presentations to the conference.

Heather and Peter at Otterborne

Remembrance Day is a day we rightly remember those who have died in war.

Heather and Peter attended the Remembrance Day Service in Otterborne, Hampshire. Heather’s friend Mary is a Parish Councillor there and her husband, Jim, was one if the four men who cleaned the war memorial. She found the service a moving experience.

Richard attended the Remembrance Day service in Redhill as the band he plays trumpet with, the New London Concert Band, was playing the music and they were short of trumpets. With so many services on Remembrance Day almost every amateur band in south London is pressed into service somewhere and trumpet players are in demand. The music they played included Elgar’s Nimrod and a piece composed in 1919 by Kenneth Alford to commemerate those who died in the war, “The Vanished Army”.

At the meeting of Sutton Council on 4 November Richard seconded a motion noting how well Sutton is surviving the recession. And Heather, speaking in the same debate, drew attention to particular successes in our own Ward.

The motion noted that Sutton is in the top three London Boroughs for the percentage of the adult population in work, at 81%, that it has lower unemployment than the average in London, that there has been record business growth in the last year and an increasing rate of business start ups.

Richard drew attention to the programme spearheaded by the Housing, Economy and Business Committee to match the skills of the local workforce to the growing sectors in the local economy. The full text of his speech is on his blog, on this website (see “Richard’s Blog”). Here is the text of Heather’s speech.

What Heather said to Council about jobs in Sutton 4th November 2013

“As someone who spent nearly twenty five years working for British companies, I am pleased to speak in favour of this motion.

That experience is why I have strongly supported Subsea 7”s vote of confidence in Sutton and its wish to expand here.  I regard this as a litmus test for business support in this Borough. Because the company is growing and winning contracts overseas.  This is what we need. It plans to create nearly 500 new jobs in Sutton, and not just in engineering.  This was described by a Conservative as “just a few” earlier in this debate.

Those jobs are vital in the current economic climate and should not be dismissed. Those extra jobs will lead to more business for local shops, cafes and restaurants.  Surprisingly the Leader of the Opposition found this difficult to understand at a recent Strategy and Resources Committee.

Subsea 7 wants to encourage people in Sutton to understand the opportunities in engineering. For the last few years the company has been going into local schools and  talking to young people  about careers in engineering, and it plans to expand this, for example by inviting GCSE and A Level students into their offices to get “up close and personal “ and see the excitement that there is in engineering.

We need engineers if British manufacturing is to compete internationally. The company’s new investment will also lead to over £500,000 in community developments through section 106 funding.  In my book that means more jobs.

The company must therefore have been surprised to find that the immediate reaction from the local Conservatives was to oppose its plans to expand.  As we heard tonight, they continue to do so.

No wonder William Hague had to pay a flying visit down here!

I am delighted to be a member of the local party that has been so successful at the ballot box that it can offer practical measures to support business rather than the hot airwe get from the Opposition.”

The storm of 27/28 October had an effect locally but not as bad as feared. A fallen tree blocked Devonshire Avenue for a time but was quickly cleared by Council contractors.

Some other trees have been damaged, including one in Cavendish Road.

Given the high winds and heavy rains forecast, we had contacted Sutton Council’s Tree Team.  The trees are all in leaf, which made the branches heavier and created a greater wind resistance.  This means we were much more likely to see trees falling down.

They told us “We are on 24 hour call out this weekend and we have our Tree Contractors on standby”

Priority is always given to keeping the main roads open, then other roads followed by parkland.

Sutton station had no trains during the morning, but services soon returned to normal.

We are glad the weather was not as bad as they say it could have been, and that the Council responded well.

The damaged tree in Cavendish Road

The side entrance

“Stakeholder” meetings to discuss the Sutton Gateway project are now underway, with local organisations, including the Highfields’ Residents Association and the South Sutton Neighbourhood Association. This stage will be followed by wider public consultation including an exhibition.

The project is designed to improve the “Gateway to Sutton” from the south, along the Brighton Road and around Sutton station. The main elements, subject to consultation, include:

– opening the side entrance to the station

– re-development of the Cedar Road / Brighton Road junction to include a “countdown” crossing to tell pedestrians how long they have to cross

– further development of the facilities for cyclists  

– re-design of the steep steps up to the side entrance so they are at an acceptable angle

– better landscaping, street furniture and paving around this area, the station entrance area and the area around Sutherland House. The redundant cycle path outside Sutherland House will be removed to make more room for landscaping.

 The station manager has confirmed that the side entrance would be manned from 7am to 7pm and at other times open but monitored on screens at the front entrance.

Since they were elected Richard and Heather have campaigned for the opening of the side entrance to Sutton station. We are now reasonably certain that this ambition will be realised by next February.

Week in and week out, Heather and Richard deal with a mass of casework on behalf of residents of the Ward.

The story connected to the “dropped kerb”, seen above, is an interesting example.

An inspection of the Borough’s waste clearing services conducted by the Health and Safety Executive last year led to the HSE identifying certain improvements in working practices that they wanted the Council to adopt. This included not requiring workers to have to manipulate heavy metal bins that were damaged and would not roll on their wheels, and not bumping the heavy bins up and down kerbs. At Redruth House, in Grange Road, this created a problem as one of the bin stores, built when the block was constructed in 1969, faces onto the pavement in Camborne Road. It was only possible for the binmen to empty the large metal bins if they could be bumped across the pavement and down the kerb into the road, to the cart. The rough treatment had damaged the bins.

Approached by the Residents’ Association, Richard’s solution was to work with Council officers to get the bins repaired and a “dropped kerb” put in so the bins can be rolled into the road. A white line deters car users from blocking the dropped kerb by parking there.

The Association (the Redruth House Sutton Residents Co. Ltd.), which is in effect a committee of residents who act as “managing agents” for the block, invited Richard to their Annual General Meeting on 24 October, where he was warmly thanked. Richard said he endorsed the view of the chair of the Company, in his annual report that:

“Redruth House enjoys the reputation of being one of the best managed blocks in Sutton.”

He thought this was, in part, because the blocks are managed by a committee of residents and not a remote and disinterested managing agent company.