by Paul Scully | Jun 13, 2015 | News, News |
Home Group, the owners of Victoria House recently held a public consultation event for local residents to share their new proposals. For those who couldn’t make either drop-in session I have some photos of the exhibits to give people an idea of what they are planning.
The design splits the bulk into two buildings which allows sunlight into the back windows of the flats on the Church Hill Road side. The height gradually steps up to a maximum ten-storeys.
Speaking to residents, they seem to have three main areas of concern; the height, parking and the colour of the bricks used. Whether people like the height will be somewhat subjective. Some people will look at the family houses to the north and south and want this design to be closer to that skyline, others will not mind the bold design and prefer the fact that more homes will be available.
Victoria House is well served by buses, but a considerable distance from a railway station so is not necessarily as appealing as other developments for young commuters. Parking therefore, is going to need careful consideration. The brickwork was chosen to strike a balance between the colour of the buildings on each corner and a light colour that will weather well.
Home Group have promised to consider all feedback before finalising their design and presenting it to the council for planning. Please do let me know what you think. We all want this development to go ahead as soon as possible but it needs to be the right design for decades to come.
by Paul Scully | Mar 26, 2015 | News, News |
I wrote a few weeks ago about the absolute necessity to protect healthcare services at St Helier. Before the latest real threat to services at St Helier hospital, our local MPs have shown Ed Miliband how to weaponise the NHS by scaring residents into thinking their hospital was under perpetual notice of closure over the last two decades. The net result of this was to move most services away from Sutton Hospital to St Helier. The Sutton Hospital plot will soon be empty. I have also written before about the problems of building a school on the site.
Sutton Council, despite massive public opposition, gave planning permission for a Medical Centre and houses to be built on the old Henderson Hospital site in Belmont. To date, NHS England has not approved the business plan and our Lib Dem MP told the Belmont and South Cheam Residents Association Meeting, on 3rd February, that the project would not go ahead because it wasn’t viable without a commercial pharmacy.
Ever since the development was first proposed, residents have highlighted the shortcomings of the original plans, particularly the distance from public transport. That will particularly affect patients at the Grove Road Practice which will be relocated 1.7 miles away from its present location. The council were urged to reject the application and to work towards getting the Medical Centre on to the Sutton Hospital site. Unfortunately they took no notice.
Sutton Council seems to be prepared to spend millions of pounds on a sizeable plot of land on the Sutton Hospital site for a school and with no intention of using any part of it to build a Medical Centre. Despite this purchase there is still more redundant land on the Sutton Hospital site. The Council says it is working to provide a proper infrastructure for the residents of the Borough. Now it is time for it to respond to the wishes of local people and accomplish something positive for Belmont and South Sutton, as well as catering for the needs of patients around Grove Road.
Will it ever happen? Only if local politicians feel the weight of public opinion. That’s why I’m asking local residents to join me, local councillors and many other Belmont residents in supporting my campaign to see a new medical centre on the Sutton Hospital site akin to the Jubilee Centre in Wallington where people can go for blood tests and minor procedures, thus taking some pressure of St Helier. In doing this, the Royal Marsden and the Institute of Cancer Research will still have enough space to expand according to their current plans. We’re lucky to have two world class cancer centres on our doorstep and we should support them whenever possible. I hope that you will sign my petition here and if elected, I will continue to push for a medical campus on this site.
by Paul Scully | Mar 23, 2015 | News, News |
I have been in contact with the owners of Victoria House in North Cheam asking them for details of their plans for the eyesore building. They have sent me a copy of the presentation that some residents saw at the council’s recent Local Committee. The building is a very different design from the one that received planning permission a while back. Split into two, the new proposed building is designed to allow sunlight to enter the rear windows of the homes that face Church Hill Road. The intention is to allow the buildings to step up to a peak rather than one monolithic block sitting between lower buildings.
A public consultation will be held in May where residents will be invited to make comments before a planning application is submitted shortly afterwards. It is difficult to make a decision on the aesthetics of the building from these drawings. However it would seem that we are not going to get the landmark building that befits this important site. We all want Victoria House sorted as soon as possible, but not at any cost. Have a look and do let me know what you think.
by Paul Scully | Mar 16, 2015 | News, News |
Residents in Gander Green Lane have complained for years about HGVs on their residential road, shaking the foundations of their house at all hours. When the Kimpton Road Industrial Estate was built, plans for a link road were mooted but quickly shelved. That left HGVs looking at small, inappropriate roads to travel between the A217 and the A24. If the road had been put in at the time, traffic in the surrounding areas would run much smoother. Unfortunately subsequent development has meant that getting a link road will be incredibly difficult even if the money was there. That doesn’t mean we should not stop looking for a solution to this long-running issue.
I’ve been running a petition alongside the residents in Gander Green Lane to demonstrate support for action. In doing so, I aim to get Transport for London and the London Boroughs of Sutton and Merton to put it back on their agenda. The first thing to do is the simple quick-hits: making sure the weight restriction signs are absolutely clear at both ends of Gander Green Lane and Hamilton Avenue and get the satnav companies to redesign their routing software to avoid these roads.
As annoying as this is for residents, it affects a small proportion of constituents, but is but one example of a problem that seems intractable and so gets ignored by local decision makers. Central Road in Worcester Park is another place on which politicians seem to have given up. The perpetual traffic jams which affect Lynwood Road, Hampton Road, Green Lane, Browning Avenue among many more are caused primarily by the fact that there is only one road going under the railway line for about half mile in either direction. If there is a problem on the A3, the traffic will quickly back-up. I’m told that the traffic lights at South Lane/Malden Road junction cause tailbacks and are worth reviewing. I’ll investigate this further and see if this bears fruit.
For those travelling to Carshalton or Croydon from Sutton by road, the A232 has got considerably worse over the last few years and the council have missed a couple of chances to ease congestion here. The B&Q and BP garage on Carshalton Road were both given planning permission without thought to remodelling the junctions that they sit on. Both junctions are the cause of frustration to motorists travelling along that road.
We really need to push to ensure that planners take in a long term view of the area and likely increases in traffic if we’re going to keep Sutton moving. So many quality of life issues are determined locally rather than in Westminster. Therefore if elected, I won’t just go out and camp in the House of Commons, caught in the trappings of office. Sutton is my home too and I want it to be the best place possible in which to live and work.
by Paul Scully | Mar 10, 2015 | News, News |
Nicky Morgan and David Cameron gave Sutton a boost yesterday by naming Greenshaw Learning Trust as one of the 49 sponsors granted permission to build a Free School. Greenshaw Learning Trust is the name of the academy group formed by Greenshaw High School which now also includes Edenham High School in Croydon. They applied for funding for a new secondary school from the Department for Education.
I’m pleased that the Department for Education has recognised the need for a new secondary school in Sutton. Greenshaw are well placed to provide great education for even more Sutton children. Now we need to get on and build the school where it is needed most. That’s why I’ve been looking at Rosehill to the north of Sutton town centre. The council’s own figures show that we need a new secondary school by 2017 and another by 2020 with the greatest increase in numbers around the centre and northern end of Sutton.
The location for the school is subject to a separate procedure and will be determined by the council. I know some residents near Rosehill are worried about having a school built on Metropolitan Open Land. That’s perfectly understandable, brownfield sites are so much better to build on and some people will not want to live next to a school. However, the delay in getting on with building has meant that the council lost out on more suitable sites as they were snaffled up by private property developers.
I’ve written elsewhere about my views on Rosehill. The council were due to complete their feasibility study on their two shortlisted sites by the end of January. Hopefully this announcement will help spur them into action and we can get cracking.
