The future of Epsom town centre is important for all residents of the Borough and WERS is especially keen that residents in Woodcote & Langley Vale ward make their views known on whether they support the guiding principles set out in the Masterplan for development of the town centre up to the year 2040. It includes guidelines for developers, investors and infrastructure providers about specific major development sites and suggested highways and public space improvements.
The draft Town Centre Masterplan is available for public consultation for a period of four weeks up to Friday 22 December 2023. You can respond to the consultation questions via the Councils online consultation portal by using the following link:
If you have particular views that you wish to feedback to WERS that would also be helpful in enabling WERS to submit a response on behalf of all Woodcote & Langley Vale residents.
John Mumford, Chair Woodcote (Epsom) Residents Society Committee
Posted inNews Update|Comments Off on Have Your Say on Epsom Town Centre’s Future
At the meeting of the Epsom and Walton Downs Consultative Committee last Monday we raised resident’s concerns about the need for a better balance between mowing and cutting long grass and providing space for wildflowers and nature to help biodiversity and tackle pollution.
A new habitat management plan has now been finalised and can be found here
Posted inNews Update|Comments Off on Maintenance on Epsom and Walton Downs
It has been confirmed that there is not yet a planned start date for this work. There are many pre-commencement planning conditions that have still to be submitted for approval including interim parking arrangements.
We will be keeping a careful eye on this and will be pressing for a public consultation on anything that will impact on residents.
Implications of ULEZ on visiting St Helier Hospital
St Helier Hospital is now within the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ). It operates 24 hours a day 7 days week. This means that if you choose to drive to your appointment or to visit someone in hospital, or are driven by a family member or friend, you car will need to meet the ULEZ emissions standards or you will have to pay a £12.50 daily charge.
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A plea for Government leadership on planning and housing
Planning and housing delivery across the UK is in a woeful state at the moment and this I’m afraid is mainly down to Government ineptitude. Many of you may not be surprised about this. The Government has after all hardly shown a clear sense of direction and purpose on the economy or with health and social care so why should planning or housing policy be any different?
National planning policy has been characterised by stop-start reform over recent years. None of which has been implemented. We’ve seen a bewildering number of different housing ministers every few months and a Government that doesn’t seem capable of making up its mind about what kind of local planning system it wants or how to grapple with the desperate need for better, affordable housing.
The latest hiatus has been caused by the Government capitulating to Conservative backbenchers’ concerns over the prospect of development taking place in their constituencies. Last December this resulted in further suggested planning reforms including seemingly an embargo on Green Belt development. Sensible you may think? Well perhaps, except we are still waiting some 9 months later for the Government to confirm whether this will, in fact, be new national planning policy. This delay has caused complete confusion and uncertainty among local authorities about what their local plans should be delivering on housing. Developers don’t know whether they’re coming or going either. Dozens of Councils have now paused their local plans including, as many of you probably know, Epsom and Ewell Borough Council. This is at the very time when we need policy certainty to enable the right kind of development and investment to be encouraged.
There isn’t just confusion over the Green Belt though. A key concern for Epsom and Ewell, and other Councils, is the amount of new housing the Government requires to be provided in each area, otherwise known as ‘the objectively assessed local housing need.’ Without trying to get too technical this is based on a national formula or algorithm called the Standard Method. The problem is it is still based on 2014 data. There is more up to date and reliable 2018 based data and we will shortly have actual 2021 census data rather than just using household projections. Why does any of this matter? Well; the 2014 based household projections were a high-water mark in household projections and grossly inflate the apparent housing figures required. In Epsom & Ewell’s case the 2014 based projections result in a 30% growth in households by 2040 compared to a 8% growth using the 2018 based projections.
Why on earth is the Government still requiring local plans and housing needs to be based on out-of-date data that grossly exaggerate the local housing need? A cynical view, shared by many professionals in the field, is that it is all predicated on the Government’s manifesto commitment to build 300,000 dwellings per annum: a political target, not having any current demographic basis. The more recent data sets give lower numbers, with the sum total of all Council’s housing need figures way below the Government’s 300,000 target. Any method must surely be based on the latest data – to do otherwise undermines the methodology. Is it any wonder that Councils such as Epsom & Ewell are delaying their local plans if they are based on excessive housing targets arising out of political ideology? To make matters worse the inevitable consequence of the Green Belt uncertainty is that these huge housing targets (in Epsom’s case 10,268 dwellings for the period 2022-2040) are now seemingly expected to be built only within the existing urban areas. We must surely resist the worst excesses of high-density, high-rise development. But this seems to be what the Government, either by design or incompetence, is trying to foist onto Epsom.
I sincerely hope that common sense prevails. The Government needs to pull its finger out and provide clear and up to date policy guidance. The development of brownfield sites should certainly be prioritised and incentivised, and the Green Belt should be protected except for where it does not fulfil its strategic role of preventing urban sprawl. Regrettably, the Government’s planning reforms in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill currently going through parliament seem unlikely to achieve what is so desperately required, including fixing the housing affordability crisis.
So please don’t blame Epsom and Ewell Borough Council for pausing its Local Plan. Blame Government incompetence. Hopefully, Epsom and Ewell’s Draft Local Plan can be restarted once we know what is expected of us.
Derby day, downs maintenance, road verges, school safety, village hall, more ……
Residents gather for Woodcote(Epsom) Residents Society meeting
Derby Day – Thank You to Residents
John Mumford, Chair WERS and Simon Durrant
Tuesday was an important milestone. It was the first face-to-face Committee meeting since before the pandemic and it was great to have so many local residents give up their evening to come and talk to us. We were delighted to be joined by Simon Durrant. He was responsible for ensuring the Derby could take place safely and without disruption.
Simon opened by saying how pleased he was to have the opportunity to talk to residents about the Derby. He apologized that it had not been possible to let residents know in advance about the different arrangements the racecourse had to put in place to deliver a safe race and avoid it being disrupted.
Challenges
He thanked us for our understanding and took on board comments about simple changes that would have made a difference for residents. Simon gave us a fascinating insight into the challenges they faced this year and the actions they took to mitigate the risks as they arose in the lead-up to race day. Among them was a discussion with Animal Rising to try to stop them disrupting the world-famous race. He also confirmed the cost of all the additional security had been met by the Jockey Club.
We then had a very lively debate reflecting the national discussion about whether disrupting events and people’s everyday lives was the only way to get attention for urgent changes to the way we live.
Simon also explained changes to entertainments on race days in recent years. The cost and availability of bands post-Brexit and the pandemic meant it was no longer viable to host live bands.
Residents thanked Simon for attending the meeting and for his excellent and really informative presentation. They welcomed, in particular, the Jockey Club’s commitment to working in partnership with local communities.
Management of Downs and Verges
The meeting moved on to discuss management of the Downs and roadside verges. There was agreement on the need to balance mowing and cutting long grass with providing space for wildflowers and nature to help biodiversity and tackle pollution.
In response Cllr Steve McCormick acknowledged that Surrey County Council hadn’t got that balance right this year and would be making changes for the future. As Chair of the Epsom and Walton Downs Conservators he also committed to discuss the feedback about the maintenance of the Downs at their next meeting.
Council Business
There were then short updates from Cllr Bernice Froud and Cllr McCormick.
They thanked residents for their support in getting them re-elected as Councillors for a further term. They could often get quicker answers or solutions to residents’ problems with Council matters. They wanted residents to keep in touch about concerns and contact them about issues they couldn’t resolve.
Cllr Froud highlighted the huge number of initiatives being led by the Community and Wellbeing Committee to reduce the high levels of homelessness in the area. Private rented accommodation is at a premium and temporary accommodation for families is among the biggest threats to a sustainable Council Budget. She also said the borough currently has the highest suicide rate in Surrey and the committee was focused on ways to reduce this.
Cllr McCormick talked briefly about his Borough and Council remits and his roles in relation to licensing and planning and in particular the local plan.
Residents’ questions
The meeting then turned to residents’ questions. They were many and various including:
problems with brown bin collections
potholes
getting football pitch lines painted at the recreation ground
useful green and energy efficiency advice on the Epsom Citizens Advice website
getting planning restrictions on listed buildings reduced to allow sustainability measures such as PV panels.
work in hand to improve road safety in the village and particularly around the school
grants available for improvements to community buildings; and
fears about losing the Village Hall following a decision by the Vale Primary School to set up a nursery from September.
Residents also urged the Society to prioritise ways to engage and support young people living in the ward.
Posted inNews Update|Comments Off on July News Update: Open Meeting Report
Post Election Council News Update from Cllr Liz Frost on her Council roles including Environment Committee, Allotments Working Group, Health Liaison Panel and more.
Surrey County Council and four outer London Boroughs have been successful in obtaining a Judicial Review on some aspects of the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone by the Mayor of London.
More information is in the link below as reported by Leatherhead Living.
Thank you to those who responded to the Council’s consultation on the draft Local Plan, which has now closed. As I said in my previous update, you were being consulted on a draft, based on the evidence of a comprehensive library of evidence looking at the borough’s situation, resources, and the requirements of the Central Government. Without complying with their unrealistic housing targets – or at least showing robust evidence as to why we were not – the Government would find the Plan ‘unsound’ and not approve it. Not having an up-to-date Local Plan makes us vulnerable to having the Council’s refusal of planning applications overturned, as happened with the Langley Bottom Farm proposal. It is for this reason that we need to press on with the Local Plan process.
Feelings have been running high amongst residents about the contents of the draft, and last night a special Full Council meeting was held on a motion that, apart from the work on analysing the results of the consultation, the Plan process is paused. The reasons included to undertake further work on the brownfield sites and consider further options that do not include using any green belt land. This was supported by the majority of Councillors.
Council officers will assess the responses, which would have formed further evidence for the next stage of compiling the Plan (regulation 19). However, this cannot progress at the moment as the draft Local Plan is now paused. It is a long and complex process.
Enforcement actions.
The Borough Council’s teams have been acting on anti-social behaviour and environmental matters. This includes asking drivers to turn off engines when waiting, e.g. outside schools, and making more frequent visits to ‘hot-spots’ for litter and other ASB.
Queen’s Green Canopy.
Last week we held a brief ‘tree planting’ ceremony on the Downs as part of the late Queen’s Green Canopy events – which King Charles extended till the end of this month. It was a very windy day, but our new English Oak tree was duly ‘planted’ by the Mayor and we hope will flourish.
Covid bench.
Today marks 3 years since the first pandemic lockdown here in the UK. The borough has installed Covid memorial benches in each ward to enable people to have a quiet place to sit and reflect on the events that had such a lasting impact on our lives. In this Ward, the benches are on the Woodcote Millennium Green (behind Epsom Hospital) and by the Top Car Park on the Downs. This morning we laid flowers on the benches in an act of remembrance.
Annual membership costs just £5 per household from 1 January each year. A larger donation would of course be very welcome and would go towards improving our communications with residents.
Paying your subscription is very simple to arrange. You can either pay:
-by bank transfer
Account Name: Woodcote (Epsom) Residents' Society
Account Details: Sort Code 23-05-80 Account Number 18192567
Reference – Your postcode and house number
Then email us on info@woodcoteresidentssociety.org with your email so we can send you a receipt/add you to our email list.
-by setting up a standing order or direct debit
-by cash or cheque to one of our Councillors or Committee Members. We can collect payments from you if you email us on info@woodcoteepsomresidentssociety.org.
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