WELL DONE SUTTON!

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.

SOME NEW RESPONSIBILITIES

Trish visiting Devonshire Avenue school

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!

IMPROVING THE DEVONSHIRE AVENUE NATURE AREA

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.

The vandalism in Warren Park

SPEED LIMITS AND CONTROLS ON PARKING

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. 

WELL LIT STREETS AT NIGHT

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.

THE COUNCIL SETS A RESPONSIBLE BUDGET WITH THE EMPHASIS ON HELPING THE VULNERABLE

On 1 March Sutton Council debated and agreed its budget for the next financial year. This was the annual budget meeting where we agree the Council’s budget. It is a responsible and balanced budget with the emphasis on helping the disadvantaged as we come out of the pandemic and the recession. Sutton has enjoyed safe and careful stewardship of its financial resources under the Liberal Democrat administration, in contrast to neighbouring Croydon, which has gone bust. The Conservative Councillors tabled no alternative proposal but voted against our budget. The debate was ably chaired my Trish, as Mayor. This was Richard’s speech.

“When I spoke on the budget last year I said that ever since I studied economics at University in the 1960s I seem to have been having arguments with right wing economists and politicians who hold the view that there is virtue in:

less Government intervention in the economy,

reducing the size of the State

and cutting taxes.

Since then, the pandemic has proved how wrong these views are – and proved the need for strong and well resourced Government at national and local level.

In the local context this means being able to provide effective health services to care for the many thousands of Sutton residents made ill by the pandemic, and being able to provide welfare support for the almost 19 000 Sutton residents, at the last count, reduced to poverty and relying on Universal Credit. That is approaching one person in every four homes in the borough with – if the proposed £20 cut in Universal Credit happens – a major increase expected in the number of Sutton residents using Foodbanks. And if the moratorium on evictions is not extended, more homelessness.

The economic and welfare effects of the pandemic are significant and we need strong government at all levels to deal with these consequences.

What we are celebrating tonight is a well structured and responsible budget that will give help to those who most need it – the emphasis being on supporting the most vulnerable by building on work with the health and voluntary sector, increasing funding on adult and children’s social services, and on helping local businesses and employers to mitigate the impact of the recession in Sutton – which, I see research for the Sunday Times has found is the fifth happiest place to live in England.

I support this budget, but I would stress most of all tonight the need for Government to help our 19 000 residents living in acute poverty by scrapping the £20 cut in Universal Credit planned for the end of March. Surely we must all agree on that.”

DEALING WITH ABANDONED CARS

IF YOU SEE AN ABANDONED CAR, LET US KNOW

Abandoned cars can be a problem and we discover abandoned cars from time to time in our Ward, or residents report them to us. This abandoned car was dumped in Langley Park Road. The Council will affix a letter to the windscreen and this gives the owner fifteen days to retrieve the car before it is removed and disposed of. This car was clearly abandoned, with the windows broken and number plates removed.

SHOCKING EVIDENCE OF LEVELS OF POVERTY IN OUR WARD

Trish and Richard have expressed their shock at the finding from the latest Government figures that almost 19,000 residents across Sutton are currently relying on Universal Credit – on average one person in every four homes in the borough.

This implies that up to 4,000 Sutton residents could end up being driven to Foodbanks if Ministers proceed with cutting Universal Credit by £20 per week. Richard estimates that possibly approaching a thousand residents in our Ward are relying on Universal Credit during the pandemic and perhaps 200 residents in our Ward will have to rely on Foodbanks if the current level of Universal Credit is cut.

Research by the Trussell Trust has shown that one in five people receiving the Universal Credit benefit said they are very likely to need to use a food bank if the benefit is cut. Almost one in five said they would be likely to fall behind on housing costs, such as mortgage payments or rent.

The Government has yet to say whether the temporary increase, introduced at the start of the pandemic and in place until the end of March, will be extended.

Richard says “We have no reason to believe that Sutton South Ward is much different from the rest of Sutton. While the Ward is sometimes regarded as more affluent, as local Councillors we know there are pockets of extreme poverty, not just on our social housing estates. The benefit system, though cut significantly in recent years, is a lifeline for struggling families, and has prevented many families in our Ward needing to turn to a food bank. We call on the Government to maintain Universal Credit at its current level.”

NEWS ON TRAFFIC SCHEMES

The Council has been taking legal advice on a recent High Court judgement against the Mayor of London which indicated that London Boroughs were misdirected and should not have been prevented from consulting in advance of implementing the “low traffic neighbourhoods schemes” introduced across London last autumn. Last year, the Mayor and the Conservative Government required Councils to move at pace to introduce these schemes and only consult after the measures were in place. We told them at the time that this was a mistake. We have been proven right. 

Sutton Council has concluded that in the light of the legal case all schemes have to be removed. We are disappointed as some schemes were working well, but we have no choice given the legal judgement. We are angry at Transport for London, who required introduction of the schemes without consultation but were so inattentive to the legal requirements that they left themselves open to legal challenge. The result is the withdrawal of the schemes.

In our Ward this affects three interventions, all of which were six month trials – the “school street” at Overton Grange school (to close the road to traffic for a short period as students arrive and leave to create a more peaceful and safe environment at the start and end of the school day), the 20 mph speed limit in roads east of Mayfield Road, and the closure of Kings Lane. The legal case means all three will have to be discontinued.

Of these interventions, the 20 mph limit was supported by residents in the Council’s “Streetspace” consultation, and we are pursuing how it might be restored in due course. This is not the end of the process. We remain committed to reducing traffic and pollution on residential roads and would very much welcome your views and suggestions. Drop us an email.

We will keep residents advised concerning future action. Stories that have been put round about other, new, road closures have no foundation.