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by Paul Scully | Nov 24, 2009 | News |
Yesterday morning, Eric and I spoke to senior Council officers about issues around Carshalton in our annual ward visit. This is an opportunity to catch up on concerns that have not been picked up in the normal way or are still in progress.
As we met in Grazie Mille on the High Street, we spent a good amount of time looking at how businesses are being affected in the village centre. Cars were illegally parking in loading bays when there were spaces available in the short-term bays because of a lack of understanding of the difference. The stores on the High Street receive their deliveries on the whole early in the morning, so the loading bays are not required for the majority of the day. Why not have them as mixed use so those cars can park legally and drop into the baker, the supermarket and the newsagent or any of the shops on the High Street that tend to be the type that rely on quick turnover. Similarly parking spaces in the Square are priced as to penalise ‘stop and shop’ residents and benefit all-day commuters.
The downpour highlighted this blocked drain in Seymour Road. The proximity of the tree suggests that this might be a big job to tackle with the roots being, well, at the root of the problem.
I’ll summarise the updates of work in progress in a future post.
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by Paul Scully | Nov 18, 2009 | News |
I’m not sure that I have been so appalled at a decision taken at Development Control Committee as tonight. After the fourth time of asking a planning application to demolish a perfectly good family house to build four houses in the back garden was approved after all bar one Liberal Democrat voted it through.
There were so many reasons why I feel disillusioned by the people that have run our borough for so long tonight after they demonstrated their total inadequacy tonight.
1. Two ward councillors from both political parties, both who know the area very well, spoke robustly against the application.
2. The person who has to live next to the site complained about having to live next to a 66 metre long, 8 foot high fence and four houses.
3. The back garden currently floods. This water will now be in someone’s front room.
4. If No. 38 decided to put up a fence, the sightlines from the new 4 houses would be totally obscured making the road a real hazard.
5. The houses are an over-intensification of the site. Planners refused to make the Poet’s Estate an Area of Special Local Character (ASLC). This is the result.
But there are three more reasons which makes my blood boil and should cause those who supported the application and let their own experienced political colleague down to hang their head in shame:
6. In May the same committee refused to take a decision on a similar application on the same site because they did not have full details of the levels of the sloping site, the flood risk, an ecological habitat survey, landscaping to the south, security, and maintenance of the drive. Today officers stated that they still did not have enough details on four of these six issues, yet the committee decided that they no longer cared enough about investigating these.
7. Both Conservatives and LibDems have made a lot of noise about opposing back garden development. The Conservatives in opposing the application showed that they meant what they say. The LibDems in surrendering to the application in an area that they have written off politically showed that they are more interested in collecting personal data in a petition rather than believing in the very issue that they are petitioning on.
8. Probably the most ridiculous comment of the night was from Councillor Simon Wales who represents Sutton West. After declaring that the flooding issue had been dealt with to his satisfaction, he stated that he would support the application because “we have seen what happens when we go against officers’ recommendation” referring to the about-turn that the council made which will ensure a tarmac recycling plant gets sited close to houses around Beddington Lane. We have some excellent planning officers who do a difficult job, often caught in the cleft stick that is our planning framework. However this comment signalled a simple derogation of duty.
Cllr Wales, you are elected to make decisions. If officers are left to decide what our borough looks like, then you are no longer required. Give your £10,000pa allowance back to the taxpayer and go and do something more worthwhile. If you decided that this application should be granted having considered the arguments then fine but simply to rubber stamp decisions which have been taken without giving you all the facts makes you redundant as an elected representative.
I have been to many planning meetings over the last 3 years where residents have left disappointed. As a member of the committee on many occasions, I know that tough decision have to be taken on occasion, this was not one of them. We just wanted an approach that was consistent with that of the committee just six months before. Tonight I saw residents leave whose area will be changed forever by the spineless, ill-informed approach of a few.
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by Paul Scully | Nov 11, 2009 | News |
This morning I joined the Mayor, councillors and Philippa Stroud at the Millennium Gardens in Sutton High Street for a short Remembrance Service on Armistice Day. It was well attended as has been the case over the last few years.
This follows the Civic Service in Wallington which I wrote about earlier. At that service, the vicar asked the congregation to have a brief chat with the person next to us about what Remembrance Sunday meant to them. Beyond singing an uplifting hymn, I don’t really like my church services too interactive, so I raised a sceptical eyebrow. However, my friend and colleague Cllr Cliff Carter told me how he had lost two brothers in the Second World War, both served in the Navy and were missing presumed dead off the coast of Portugal. The sense of loss was clear to see; raw after nearly 70 years. Cliff would have only been a child then.
I heard stories about the war, second or third hand from family members unaware of any loss. One grandfather had been a fireman in Nottingham, extinguishing bomb damage. The other worked in the port in Rangoon. It was his duty to destroy his entire working environment so that the Japanese could not use it as a base to launch attacks. My grandmother had taken my two aunts into India. They did not know whether they would see each other again, eventually meeting some months later in India. I remember the story of the family that proudly invited my gran to shelter in their strong brick house in case of an air raid. My gran preferred to take her chances in her own home. Having dusted herself down after a bombing raid, she left her house to see the rubble of the newly-built brick house. Everyone had died.
This afternoon, my uncle shared news of members of our family that did lose their lives in that terrible time. My gran lost two brothers within a couple of weeks of each other. Her parents lost two sons. I remember when my father died twenty years ago, my personal grief was forgotten for a short time when I saw the devastation that happens when nature turns on its head and a mother realises that she will outlive her child. There were villages and towns throughout this country and the world where everyone knew someone that this happened to. Still now, this happens as can be seen from the regular processions through Wootton Bassett.
Tonight as I write this before putting away my poppy for another year, I’ll spend a few moments reflecting on the short lives of my great uncles, Lieutenant Terence Callaghan who died aged 36 on the 20th June 1942 whilst serving in the Army in Burma, Reserve of Officers and Private Patrick Callaghan 7525020, who fell less than two weeks before on the 8th June 1942 aged 24, whilst serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps. They are remembered in the Rangoon Memorial (pictured above right) at the Taukkyan War Cemetery, some 35km north of Rangoon alongside 26,855 brave members of the Commonwealth Land Forces who have no grave but are commemorated in perpetuity by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
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by Paul Scully | Nov 8, 2009 | News |
This morning, I joined politicians, council officers, policemen and service men at the Civic Remembrance Sunday service at the Holy Trinity Church in Wallington. This concluded with a parade along the main road to the War Memorial on Wallington Green.
There was a particular poignancy about services up and down the country with the horrific numbers of casualties in Afghanistan. It is vital that we both remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, as well as fully supporting our troops still in active service. Next Saturday, my friend and colleague Ahzaz Chowdhury is setting off to trek across the Sahara in order to raise money for Help for Heroes. This phenomenal charity has spent more than £13m supporting wounded servicemen and women in the 2 years that it has been in existence.
Az will be walking 100km in 45 degree heat and roughing it, camping in temperatures dipping to -3. If the worthwhile aim of the charity is not enough for you to part with a little of your hard-earned cash, I hope that Az’s supreme effort will push you into doing that little bit extra from the comfort of your office chair. Donating is easy via his website at Just Giving.
Go on, please make the effort and help him reach his sponsorship target. Sometimes a minute’s silence just isn’t enough. Click here to donate.
by Paul Scully | Nov 6, 2009 | News |
A few days ago, I posted a video which showed Volkswagen’s brilliant way of encouraging people to use the stairs instead of an escalator. They have been at it again with ‘The world’s deepest bin’, encouraging people to throw their litter away. The results speak for themselves.
Yesterday morning, Eric and I spoke to senior Council officers about issues around Carshalton in our annual ward visit. This is an opportunity to catch up on concerns that have not been picked up in the normal way or are still in progress.
