This is my first blog page where I will be regularly letting you know what is happening in Weybridge and any plans that Surrey County Council or Elmbridge Borough Council have that may affect you.

Please do let me know if you find the information useful as well as telling me any issues you may have.

Tim

The past few months have been very busy working with residents and key groups on starting to build a master plan for the town. There is a very real opportunity to create an all purpose community hub bringing together healthcare and community facilities such as the library as well as the community and sure start centres and not just in terms of physical buildings but in a way that all of our Weybridge residents can access those services in the best way for them. This work is running alongside the Surrey County Council  consultations on modernising the way in which they engage with the more vulnerable members of our community and I hope everyone will feed back their views.

I recently held a public meeting at the Community centre to listen to your issues. We discussed the Hospital and Library sites (more detail below) as well as parking across the town, traffic congestion, the High Street and recent planning permissions. There was also a number of questions about a possible sale of some of the Churchfield allotments by the Weybridge charity.

I have provided an update below on the latest position wherever I can.
Weybridge is a great place to live and work so please do contact me if you have any issues that you think I can help you with.

Tim Oliver
Surrey County Councillor for Weybridge.

Streetscape 

Elmbridge Council are working with the Weybridge Town Business Group to host a meeting with the businesses directly facing on to the streetscape works area at the Ship Hotel to update and further engage on the plans to improve the pavement area. The project aims to create a small plaza as a focal point with new paving and street furniture to deliver shared flexible spaces for markets. The work will commence very shortly. In addition and to enable further works to be done on the High Street a CIL application has been submitted to request the additional funding required by the extended project.

Brooklands Business Park Accessibility Project

Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnership funding has been confirmed for the sustainable transport project that links the business park with the station and town centre. The project is due to start in the financial year 2019/20 . Planning permission has also been granted for the Heath Road cycle pathway following the planning inspectors visit earlier in the year. Further meetings with South Western Railway have agreed improvements for the station package including improving cycle infrastructure, real time information screens, improved pedestrian access and signage. Part of the scheme will also see the resurfacing of St George’s Avenue as early as possible in the project plan.The scheme will provide sustainable transport improvements (cycling, bus infrastructure, walking and station facilities) between Brooklands Business Park – Weybridge Station – the town centre. More details can be found on the Elmbridge website.

Brooklands Transport Study

Surrey highways is gathering evidence from businesses, commuters and customers to understand the journeys undertaken in and around the Brooklands Business Park with a view to developing options and ideas to improve congestion in this vital employment area.

The study, which will be carried out over the next couple of months, will provide detailed data on traffic movements across the major entry and access points across the town and Brooklands. Contacts will be made with key businesses and facilities managers across the park to better understand business need and private bus service provision locally. Surrey Highways have developed a survey to go with a request for anonymous postcode data from businesses  and the results  will be used to help understand Brooklands congestion, develop options for improvements and feed in to wider project across the town

Weybridge Station ramp access

South Western Railway have agreed to provide an estimated cost for the ticket barriers they require before they will reconsider reopening the ramp.  SWR indicated that they currently have no funds to provide for the project so it would need to be 100% funded locally. Many residents use the ramp so once we have details of the likely costs I will see if I can obtain funding.

One Public Estate application -the walk in centre and the Library

Following the hospital fire and Surrey County Council’s long term ambition to improve the library building there is an opportunity to apply for funding to look at maximizing the value of the publicly owned sites in the town centre to integrate services and meet wider economic development objectives.

I am working with Surrey County Council and NHS England on an application for a specialist feasibility study and master plan to be developed in consultation with local stakeholders  to make sure  any development meets resident needs while trying to deliver additional benefits for the town centre vitality and viability. The application for funding will be submitted by the end of November with a likely decision from the One Public Estate team in February 2019. This work sits alongside the CCG consultation, details of which are below :-

Re-thinking out of hospital services – join our conversation

NHS North West Surrey Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is working with local health and care partners to launch The Big Picture – an opportunity for local people to join an open and honest discussion about the future of care delivered outside of hospital.

This follows our earlier commitment to engage the public across North West Surrey on our out of hospital and urgent care strategy. Following this engagement we will be better placed to determine the services that will eventually go into the new healthcare facility at the Weybridge hospital site.

The majority of health and care support happens outside our main hospitals and we know the system isn’t working as well as it could. Increased demand from a growing population, the changing needs of people living with long-term conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, and continual difficulties in recruiting the right staff are all putting pressure on our health and care system. Read the case for change – full version and summary version – which explain why change is needed and the emerging thinking around how we can support people to stay well for longer and reduce the burden on urgent and emergency services.

The ambition in North West Surrey is to offer a much more joined-up way of providing care and we want people using our services, their carers and the general public to be involved these discussions. We want to hear what you think about how we can improve and redesign services in the community, outside the main hospitals.

Importantly we will also be thinking about how we support NHS England’s recently published standards for Urgent Treatment Centres – this is the new name being given to all walk-in facilities such as Urgent Care Centres and Walk-in Centres which will improve and standardise how these services are provided.

These discussions will also help to inform the services that eventually go into a new healthcare facility on the Weybridge site. Once we have clearer plans for urgent care services across North West Surrey, we will want to engage the local community more closely around the new healthcare facility. This will include a dedicated group to consider services and the look and feel/design for the new building.

Weybridge Hall

Works are due to commence shortly with regard to this development. It will convert Weybridge hall on Church Street back to its original use of a cinema and the upper floors will be converted into 5 affordable residential flats

The build will take 15 months to complete. This is partly due to the complexities of the cinema fit out but once completed it will hopefully bring more footfall to that end of the High Street.

Local Plan

The Council has carried out a considerable amount of work in preparing its new Local Plan. A Strategic Options consultation (Regulation 18) was published in December 2016 which outlined initial options of to respond to the challenge of addressing  housing need including the release of green belt,  but the Conservative administration that took back control of Elmbridge Borough Council in May from the Liberal/Residents coalition asked the officers to rethink the plan.

A great deal of work has been done to improve the  Council’s Local Plan evidence base as well  including  a Borough-wide Density Study, Urban Capacity Study and supplementary work on the Green Belt Boundary Review. This further evidence base work also includes commissioning a highways consultant to help understand the current highways demands and work on future mitigation requirements.

It is expected that a revised local plan will go out for public consultation next Summer.

Protective Injunction from Traveller encampments

This year has seen an unprecedented increase in levels of unauthorised encampments, totalling 27 on public parks and open spaces as well as other recent encampments on private owned land such as Painshill Park. The size of these encampments has also risen dramatically with some encampments being over 60 vehicles in size. Elmbridge Borough Council was granted a protective injunction banning the setting up of unauthorised encampments and fly-tipping on all identified public land. They are applying to extend that to 3 years.

The encampments caused  large-scale fly-tipping, significant  clear up costs , damage to gates and barriers, lost parking income  as well as the significant impact on communities living adjacent to each encampment and the loss of community facilities during the summer.The injunction prevents any individual from occupying land and/or depositing waste as well as stopping anyone from entering or occupying any part of the land for residential purposes, including caravans, mobile homes and vehicles. It will also prevent the Council from having to obtain court orders for the removal of these encampments, which can take several days to obtain, and will authorise High Court enforcement officers to move people on if they take no notice of the injunction order. Failure to do so can result in imprisonment, fines or seizure of assets.

The Triangle and Manby Lodge School 

I commissioned a safety survey outside Manby Lodge school earlier in the Summer. This confirmed that children and parents found it difficult crossing the road in view of the speed of the traffic. Working with the Triangle residents association we have also progressed installing 20mph signs in the triangle area as well as devising a scheme to redesign the bell mouth at Pine Grove and Princes Road. Funding is currently being sought enable these works to be carried out as soon as possible.

Contact me

I will provide further updates over the coming weeks on these important issues and others as they arise,  but please do get in touch if you have any concerns or want to discuss any of these matters further

tim.oliver@surreycc.gov.uk

07803 518933

 

Weybridge Hospital Site
The CCG is finalising its plans to carry out a public consultation over the summer to help shape its out-of-hospital strategy. There will be a range of workshops and events as well as direct communication with key stakeholders including Surrey County Council.
Please let me know your views on what future provision of health care you would like to see on the existing site as well as emailing nwsccg.comms@nhs.net

Dog Fouling
There has been an increase in the amount of dog fouling around the town and in particular near to Manby Lodge School. Please ensure that if it is your dog you clear it up and put it in a public bin or take it home.

Garden Green Radnor Rd
I was pleased to be able to support a recent application to register the open space at the end of Radnor Road as a Village Green. This is with Surrey County Council for final approval which I hope will be confirmed shortly.

Cinema
Approval was recently given for a new cinema in Weybridge! The boutique operator will bring increased footfall to that end of the High Street as well as Elmbridge Borough Council providing affordable flats above.

Parking
The Weybridge Society have done a huge amount of work on the parking issues in the town centre. I will continue to work closely with them to find a long-term solution, but their excellent research provides invaluable data on the causes of congestion and ways to address it. You can find this at http://www.weybridgesociety.org.uk where you can also sign their e-petition.

Rylston Registry office
There has been much speculation about the future of the registry office and a great deal of local concern about the loss of this well liked facility. Surrey CC are still considering a range of options -including keeping it open – and I hope to provide an update at the Weybridge Society AGM on the 12th April.

Have your say
As the Cabinet member at Surrey County Council for Property and Business Services, I have been keen to engage local partners in looking at what each community wants in its locality.

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This includes looking at potentially better ways of using our community buildings for the benefit of all residents. If you have any ideas as to how we can make the best use of our public buildings, please do email me on tim.oliver@surreycc.gov.uk

Cycle scheme and roads
The cycle/pedestrian walk scheme from the town centre to the railway station and then on the Brooklands business park is now in its final design stages and ready for submission for central government funding through the local enterprise partnership. The route can be seen on the following link:- https://www.surreycc.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/155068/Brooklands-Business-Park-Accessibility-Project-Proposed-Cycling-and-Walking-Route-Map.pdf It is hoped that the resurfacing of the top end of St Georges Avenue will be included as part of the funding as the road is currently unsafe for cyclists. SCC will continue to work with Elmbridge to access public funds (CIL money from developers) particularly for repair work to Seven Hills Road. With over 3000 miles of road in Surrey to maintain and enormous pressure on funds from the increasing demand from supporting adult social care and children and adults with Special Education Needs and Disabilities there is simply not enough money at the moment to keep all the roads in the condition we would all like to see them.

Speeding and road safety
We all need to respect our community and in particular make sure it is safe to walk along our pavements and cross our roads. The road safety team will be looking particularly closely at traffic speed in the Triangle area as well as conducting an outside of school safety audit at Manby Lodge (a similar assessment was also carried out at St Georges Junior School recently.

 

Please contact me if you have any issues you would like to discuss at tim.oliver@surreycc.gov.uk or 07711 423363

 

 

Please find link: WeybridgeNews – Spring 2018

I have received many emails and phone calls regarding the future of Rylston, the Registry office on Oatlands Drive both as the County Councillor for Weybridge and as the Cabinet Member for Property and Business Services. I am also aware that a large number of people have signed a petition calling for the building to be saved.

Can I first of all reassure residents that absolutely no decision has been taken to sell the building or redevelop it.

It is true that Surrey County Council are reviewing all of their property assets to ensure that the return on its buildings is optimised. The financial position of Surrey has been well publicised and it is essential that it uses all of its assets to their maximum capability to continue to fund the exponential growth in adult social care and those with special education needs and disabilities. In some instances that may mean knocking down buildings that are no longer required for use by the services Surrey delivers  and perhaps replacing the building with residential units both affordable and social as well as privately owned. The County is obliged to obtain best value at all times in whatever it does but it also has a social obligation to help those residents that need assistance including the provision of housing.

As part of the overall programme of review of the  buildings and land that it owns (which I lead in my capacity as Cabinet member for Property and Business services) it is also reviewing the way in which services are delivered to residents .That includes encouraging greater use of the Surrey website to report issues around the County. Rylston formed part of that review as elements of the registry service can now be delivered on line but also because the demand for the building as a venue for weddings has changed over the past few years as many other attractive venues around the County have become licensed for weddings.

I have made it very clear that no decision on the future of Rylston would be taken without public discussion or indeed would any decision be taken without public support. That remains the case. What I have asked the Registry service to do is to look at the building to see if there are any other appropriate revenue generating opportunities that could sit alongside the Registry service and I will engage with residents if there are any suggestions.

The feedback I have had shows just how valued Rylston is as a building and as a venue. That helps enormously when Surrey are considering the options as after all Surrey County Council is here to serve its residents.

Ultimately the decision on the future of all of Surreys buildings rests with the Cabinet, but you have my assurance that as the Cabinet member responsible for making a recommendation to the cabinet on any property disposal,  that I am fully appreciative of the strength of local opinion and that I have committed to ensure that any decision on its future will have local public support.

Tim Oliver