At the meeting of Sutton Council on 17 January, chaired by Trish as our Mayor, Richard moved a motion drawing attention to the number of residents of the Ward living in poverty, the support they got from Sutton Council, and the need for Government to properly fund Councils, while increasing spending on welfare to help the poorest. This is the text of his speech:

“This motion is about poverty and the impact the pandemic has had in exacerbating the gap between the wealthy and the poor in what was already a very unequal society.

In current political debate the phrase “Levelling Up” is sometimes used, but in a vague and unspecific manner. I have always seen “levelling up” as a key political aim, but what I mean by this is the need to level up to help those in poverty. It is a preoccupation that is one of the reasons I have always wanted to play a part in public service and political life. I am a Councillor for Sutton South Ward, one of the more affluent Wards in a borough that is more affluent than most of the 32 London boroughs. But in knocking on the doors of my residents I sometimes find people living in shocking poverty, families crowded into small flats, well down the queue for social housing despite their crowded living circumstances, using food banks, often struggling to put food on the table, sometimes out of work due to long term illness but often in these circumstances despite working long hours in low paid jobs. The statistics are frightening – in a borough with a population of about 200 000 over 18 000 of our residents are in such poverty that they are relying on Universal Credit to feed themselves and make ends meet, while over 800 of our families are homeless and living temporarily in nightly-paid accommodation, often far from Sutton with all the problems of getting their children to school here.

Who is helping these families? Not the Government, and the low point was reached on the sixth of October of last year when, on the very day that the Government cut £20 a week from the welfare support to the poorest in society, making us one of the European countries that gives least help to the poorest in society from welfare, Boris Johnson made his famous closing speech to the Tory party conference which even one Conservative newspaper described as being like an after dinner speech full of jokey one-liners rather than a serious speech, talking in serious terms, about serious problems, given by a serious politician. We are still waiting for such a speech. I doubt if we will ever get it. And I think that even the Tories now doubt we ever get it. And in recent months it has become evident that the public at large have clearly recognised we will never get it.

The Resolution Foundation estimated that despite the minimum wage rise and other Government tinkering, the lowest paid fifth of households will lose £280 in support this financial year – and that was before the rise in National Insurance contributions was announced, and before the coming tidal wave of inflationary pressures became clear. This is a massive sum for those whose budgets are so stretched. Not a lot of “Levelling Up” here.

By contrast, what does local Government do? Despite the £36 million annual cut from our budget by central Government since 2010 Sutton Council continues to give priority to services that help the poorest, in accordance with our Liberal Democrat principles. We are one of a minority of Councils keeping Meals on Wheels going. We fund Admiral nurses to help families struggling with illness and dementia. We maintain a system of crisis loans and grants for those in greatest need, though central Government support for this was cut back years ago. We support families whose children are eligible for Free School Meals due to the financial position of the family, children who might otherwise go hungry over holiday periods. We can hold our heads high.

We have stuck to our principles and to these policies while maintaining our concern for financial responsibility – and despite the savings and cuts to services we have had to make over the years to balance the books as Government support has been cut. The pandemic has added a further layer of financial difficulty with demands for community support that the Council has responded to magnificently, but that have been expensive.

What this motion says is:

The pandemic has left many families struggling to survive financially

The actions of Government have not helped them

We are the key driver locally to spearhead the recovery of the community and help those in most need

We need to be funded properly and the welfare support to those of our residents who are the poorest in society needs to be restored.”

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.

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.  

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On the day England qualified for the final of the European football championship, 7 July, Richard attended a meeting of Sutton Council’s Planning Committee, where we approved the proposals of Sutton United for a new stand, floodlights and a grass pitch, following their promotion to the English football league. Well done Sutton! Richard made a speech recollecting that in 2017 the club had, for the first time ever, reached the fifth round of the FA Cup, playing Arsenal at home. He was Mayor of Sutton at that time and attended the match. The facilities at the ground need upgrading, so he was delighted with these proposals for renovation. This puts Sutton on the map. Now that Barnet have dropped out of the football league, Sutton is the only one of the 32 London boroughs that people will regularly hear of, as a borough with a football league club that has the same name.

Every year Sutton Council holds what is referred to as its “Annual Council Meeting” where it elects the Mayor and appoints Councillors to committees. This year it was held on 4 May and held by videoconference. Trish was re-elected Mayor. Richard was relieved of membership of the Audit and Governance Committee but appointed to the Housing, Economy and Business Committee, the Planning Committee, the Greater London Employment Forum (where he is the Leader of the Liberal Democrat Delegation) and the Council and Employees Joint Committee, which he chairs. He will be busy!

We are going to refurbish the small piece of play equipment in the Devonshire Avenue Nature Area, which has become very tatty over the ten years since it was installed. Here is Richard’s grandson, Ciaran, enjoying playing on the installation. You can see how tatty it has become.

The refurbishment of the play area will see the removal and recycling of this damaged timber play equipment, comprising of over two hundred sleepers in various sizes. It will see the installation of new sleepers, wooden kickboards and “play bark safety surfacing” surrounding the play area. This will encourage children to stay active and provide an invaluable communal focal point in keeping with the natural materials of the Devonshire Avenue Nature Area.

The “memorial” bench that has been placed in the nature area, incorporating commemorative images remembering those who died in war, is a moving addition to the area. Here is Trish at the new bench.

The nature area is the only open space in our Ward and, particularly as many families live in flats with no access to a garden for children to play in, the nature area is an important amenity. The nature area has, during lockdown, like most parkland, been much more extensively visited than is normal. This has led to some erosion of its value as a nature area. We would greatly welcome the ideas of residents for improving it.

While the Devonshire Avenue Nature Area is the only open space in our Ward, our residents make good use of Overton Park at the western end of the Ward and Warren Park at the eastern end. On 30 April Richard met with Council officers and other Councillors in Warren Park to discuss the vandalisation of the picket fence protecting the nature area in the park. We are anxious to preserve this chalk grassland nature site, which at certain times of year has a wonderful show of cowslips, ox-eye daisies and other wild plants, which will be lost if the area is trampled. Again, we would welcome views on how Warren Park might be improved.

Dealing with parking problems and speeding vehicles has always been a problem. The Council has now concluded, for our Ward, the long-running consultation on parking and has introduced new measures on speeding. While the Council has, on legal advice, amended or withdrawn the six month trial low traffic neighbourhood schemes funded by Transport for London, we have studied resident reaction to these trial schemes and retained the aspects that were popular.

We have retained the 20 miles per hour speed limit area in the east of the Ward that was originally introduced as part of these schemes. Consultation with residents showed this was popular and we are discussing action to achieve more enforcement of the limits. The speed limit area covers Mayfield Road and the roads in the Ward to the east of it. This is the area where, following lengthy consultation, a new parking control area was introduced last November. This has cleared parking from these roads which has encouraged speeding, thus justifying the new controls on speeding. The Council’s consultation exercise on parking reached a successful conclusion last year with the Sutton South Permit Parking Area now introduced. An earlier proposal was thrown out by residents but this proposal achieved majority support, generally by overwhelming majorities, in the roads consulted. We regard this as evidence of the success of the approach of the Council, with successive rounds of careful consultation. The parking permit area will be subject to a review this summer. Do contact us if there are aspects of the scheme you want reviewed. 

Having well maintained pavements, well lit at night, is important to all of us. Severe weather and footfall leads to the inevitable weathering of carriageways and pavements. The Council’s programme for re-surfacing roads and pavements has been under pressure over recent years due to austerity and the cuts in local authority funding. We are pleased that the programme for the coming year includes the re-surfacing of the footway and the replacement of concrete light columns in a number of roads in our Ward.

Trish and Richard report potholes and damage reported to us by residents or that we observe, to supplement the Council’s programme of inspection and maintenance of carriageways and footways. Please make sure you let us know of problems that need fixing. In the last few years the pavement in Mayfield Road has been resurfaced, and The Ridgway is in the programme for the coming year. The work has started in The Ridgway (see the photos below). The lighting column replacement programme for the next year will cover a number of local roads where the lighting needs to be upgraded, including Effingham Close, Grange Vale, Overton Road, Summers Close, Ventnor Road and Westmoreland Drive. Let us know of other candidates and any roads where there are “dark patches” with inadequate street lighting. And let us know immediately of street lights that have failed as we usually get these fixed quite quickly.

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