Why should Epsom be the odd one out?

What do all the following places have in common?

Arundel, Ashford, Barnet, Basingstoke & Dean, Belfast, Brighton & Hove, Bournemouth, Canterbury, Chichester, Crowborough, Eastbourne, Eastleigh, Folkestone, Guildford, Jersey, Kingston, Hastings, Lewes, Maidstone, Portsmouth, Ramsgate, Reigate & Banstead, Romsey, Rushmore, Southampton, Test Valley, Tonbridge & Malling, Winchester and Worthing.

All have granted their "Freedoms" to the Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment. No quibbles at any of these about our local regiment not being local enough.

Why are residents of Epsom & Ewell going to be the odd ones odd in marking the service of our troops?

Petition to honour our troops

Hundreds of signatures were collected in Epsom yesterday in support of granting our local regiment the Freedom of our Borough. There was very real anger at the council for snubbing our troops by saying they are not "local" enough to receive this honour and to allow them to march through our town centre.

We will continue to collect signatures on the streets of the Borough over the weeks to come before the final decision is made at the Special Council meeting on 15th December. However you can also show your support online: click here to support our troops.

Support our Troops!

On Tuesday, the day before Armistice Day, the council's Strategy & Resources committee met to consider my motion to grant the Freedom of our Borough to our local regiment, the Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment.

Frankly it is something the Borough should have done years ago and I very much hoped the motion could be agreed unanimously particularly as our troops are giving such brave and valued service at present.

Maybe I was naive, but I was shocked to discover that the committee was against me. Both Residents' Association and Liberal Democrat councillors opposed the motion saying that the Regiment is not "local" enough. Forget that they are our local regiment and that the Regiment is an almagamation of historic regiments including the East Surrey Regiment. Forget that they recruit from our area.

Anyway this petty, small-minded nonsense from these councillors means Epsom & Ewell is denying our troops the right to march through our town centre on their return from service overseas. Guildford so honours them, as does Reigate & Banstead but Epsom & Ewell seems intent to snub them.

The committee vote now goes to a Special Council meeting on 15th December. We will be campaigning hard to win that vote, and overturn this shameful decision in the weeks to come.

Let there be light

Good news for residents of Leighton Way and Avenue Road. The street lamp on the junction of those two roads is now blazing bright after over a year of being out of action.

The fixing of broken lamps is the responsibilty of the County Council and therefore in Woodcote of our Residents' Association County Council. As a mere Borough Councillor I have no influence over such matters, but I was contacted by a local resident who had been let down by the Residents' Association Councillor who said nothing could be done about the light.

This turned out not to be true. A numner of calls to County later, including sorting out a confusion about whether repsonsibility lay with EDF or County and the engineers were out to mend the light. In the end it took a number of visits, but the light got fixed. So why were the Residents' Associations telling people it could not be fixed? The best advice I can give is if anyone has a similar problem in future just get straight in touch with the Conservatives.

Conservatives Gain Residents' Association seat

Ruxley residents have rejected the Residents' Associations and returned William Keen as their Conservative Councillor. The seat had previously been held by the Residents' Associations.

The result was as follows:

William Keen 564 (51.3%, +13)

Residents' Association 363 (33%, -11.7)

Labour 73 (6.6%, -2.6)

Lib Dem 60 (5.5%, -2.2)

UKIP 40 (3.6, +3.6)

Swing from Residents' Association to Conservative of 12.4%.

This is a fantastic result which the Residents' Associations simply did not see coming. Prior to the by-election Ruxley had two RA councillors and one Conservative. It is a testament to Cllr. Stephen Pontin's hard work that we secured over half of all the votes cast, gaining the Conservatives first ever by-election victory in the Borough. All this bodes well for Ruxley going completely blue at the next Borough elections.

So in the space of a few months our Conservative group on the council has doubled in size. With a swing like the one in Ruxley there are a number of Residents' Association councillors who will be looking at their majorities in a most concerned fashion.

Congratulations to William Keen. William was the only Ruxley resident to stand in the election (despite the Residents' Associations trying to suggest otherwise). He will be a great councillor and indeed has already been doing sterling work for the Royal British Legion. I am very proud to have him as a member of our group.

Is the future of Epsom Hospital now secure?

Yesterday evening I attended the public meeting held at Epsom Town Hall concerning the future of Epsom Hospital. We were not told what the future of the hospital was, instead we were told that there are two reviews going on. The first is a review of exactly what the local health trust wants to do with the site and what services it sees itself offering, this will take six months. The second is considering whether the local health trust should demerge (split St Helier and Epsom), divest (get other providers to run certain services) or maintain the status quo. This should be decided by the end of April.

Goodness knows why they don't already know these things after years of prevaricating, but at least the work is being done. Although I distrust what any health manager tells us about the future of Epsom Hospital there were some reassuring comments made.

Representatives of the Surrey NHS Trust indicated that they will require Epsom to provide a Consultant led maternity service and proper children's provision, including A&E.

Antony Tiernan, Director of Communications at Epsom & St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust made the following points:

1. Epsom Hospital will not close
2. It will continue to offer the services it offers now
3. It will be a local hospital supplying the services local residents expect, including A&E.
4. The Denbies Trust proposal will be looked at, but only as a general tender process once the plan for the hospital has been finalised. There will be no sell off of land and private/charitable assistance will only be taken up if it offers something more than the NHS is capable of offering.

Mr. Tiernan made a big point of stating he himself is a local resident and repeated the above assurances a number of times. I will do my best to hold him and his colleagues to these. Let's hope that in six months time we will see the future of our hospital secured for the future.

Public meeting: the future of Epsom Hospital

Epsom & Ewell Borough Council is hosting a public meeting on the future of Epsom Hospital given the forthcoming release of proposals from local health trusts.

Date: Wednesday, 4th March 2009

Venue: Council Chamber, Epsom Town Hall, The Parade, Epsom

Time: 7:30pm