Wednesday 18th November 7.30pm

Development Control Committee

The applications under consideration at this meeting were the North Site of the Institute of Cancer Research Campus, The Royal Marsden Hospital, 40 Coleridge Avenue, 11 Park Hill treeworks application and 2 Beggars Roost Lane.

We ran out of time to consider the Beggars Roost application so this was postponed.

Although item 5 on the agenda, a number of residents attended the meeting to hear the Coleridge Avenue application so this was taken first.

This was a back garden development which through subsequent refusals had been pared back from a proposal for seven houses and a block of garages to the current application for four three-bedroomed detached houses. In order to mitigate disturbance to neighbouring houses the developers had agreed to put up a 2.4 metre high acoustic fence as well as significant planting along the southern boundary with no. 38 Coleridge Avenue. Objections to the application were stated as loss of privacy for neighbouring houses, change to the character of the area, flooding problems and the location of the access on the corner of the road.

I asked questions about the Council’s responsibility in respect of permitting building in the vicinity of a public sewer as mentioned in the papers. I learnt that the Council had satisfied its obligations by notifying Thames Water and the matter had to be sorted out between the applicant and Thames Water. If Thames Water were not happy with the applicant’s proposals for the site in respect of the sewer then the applicant would have to revise the plans and submit a further application.

I was also concerned that the height of the planting and acoustic barrier required to ensure the privacy of the neighbours would make the access into the site more dangerous by obscuring sightlines.

Much was made of the potential flood risk by councillor representatives however the Environment Agency had no objections to the application and a condition imposed on the application ensured that all flood risk issues would need to be addressed before work could commence.

I was desperately trying to find planning grounds on which to refuse this application, but could see none. The appeal decision of the planning inspector on the previous application for four four-bedroomed houses on the site also left nothing unaddressed that we could use. I could see no grounds for refusal but I could not bring myself to vote in favour of this loss of garden land. I therefore abstained but the application was granted on a majority vote.

There were two applications from the Institute of Cancer Research, one for landscaping of the north end part of the site on Cotswold Road, and one for phased development of part of the north site and car parking spaces. The proposal was to landscape the land north of the site to minimise the impact of the development on nearby residents by providing screening. The development was to allow expansion of the Centre’s research and development facilities. I had had feedback from local residents that the Institute had talked to them about the development and had been quite good at trying to respond to their concerns. The landscaping, to be undertaken before any building works commenced, was part of that compromise. One resident spoke to the meeting to say that he was still unhappy that the height of the building meant he would be able to see it from his property and felt that the screening offered was inadequate.

I learnt from questioning that existing parking for staff was adequate and the new spaces to be provided were expected to be able to meet future demand.

There was no doubt that the expansion of the facilities on this site of medical excellence in cancer research would benefit many people all over the country. I noted that we needed to balance the benefits of this facility to the majority against the loss of amenity to the individual and voted in favour of both applications. The applications were both passed unanimously.

The Royal Marsden Hospital had submitted an application to build a translational research centre on the site of an existing staff car park. The displacement of existing staff parking space and the estimated prediction of additional parking spaces required for the new centre resulted in a net loss of 70 staff parking spaces from the Royal Marsden site. The planning officers’ recommendation to approve stated that a condition attached to the application for the applicant to make a financial contribution towards extending the existing Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ) in the residential areas surrounding the site would mitigate this loss of parking spaces.

No one on the committee had any problem with the design of the new building but there was a lot of concern about the effect of the loss of parking spaces on local residents. I asked if there were figures showing where staff currently parked: how many on site and how many used the local streets? Despite a large Transport Assessment document and a Travel Plan no one knew these crucial figures. It was explained that members of staff were allocated site parking permits if they met certain criteria which established by implication that not all staff parked on site and so must use the surrounding residential streets. Many of the members of the committee expressed similar concerns to me that the extension of the CPZ would not mitigate the loss of spaces but simply push the existing parking pressures onto residential streets further from the hospital. We learnt that there had been some discussion between the Royal Marsden and the Epsom & St Helier NHS Trust, about renting or purchasing some of the Sutton Hospital land for parking purposes, but that Epsom & St Helier had not been very forthcoming in these negotiations.

I asked whether there were any further plans for expansion on the site and if so how they would address the increased parking problems this would bring. The response was that yes they did foresee more development in the long term but they felt that as a body heavily reliant on charitable donations they could not justify spending such money on car parking spaces for staff.

Members of the committee were well aware of the existing problems with staff and patients parking in the residential streets adjacent to the site, and felt that the area and the residents just could not cope with any more pressure. The suggested extension of the CPZ would not solve any problems but just introduce parking misery to yet more local residents.

It was therefore decided at the Chair’s suggestion that consideration of the application should be deferred until the February meeting of the committee to enable further discussions to take place with Epsom & St Helier, with the strong warning that the application was unlikely to be approved without reasonable plans to provide adequate parking for staff. This was unanimously agreed.

The final application of the night was from a resident in Park Hill who wanted to fell two yew trees in his rear garden. The householder explained that the trees were breaking the boundary wall between his property and his neighbour and cast deep shade over his garden and even more so over his neighbour’s making them very gloomy. The trees had a Tree Preservation Order on them which is why the resident had to obtain approval to fell or do any works to the trees. The resident had originally applied to fell the trees in 2002 and the tree preservation officer at the time had not objected to this and permission had been granted. Due to lack of money the householder had not had the trees felled within the time limits of the permission and so had to reapply to have the trees felled. The current tree preservation officer this time objected to the work and placed a Tree Preservation Order on the trees. The recommendation was to refuse permission to fell the trees because of their contribution to the overall look of the area. A couple of councillors spoke of the merits of yew trees and their longevity outliving both ourselves and probably the surrounding buildings and felt that they should be preserved at all costs.

I had visited the site and noted that the resident had very many trees in his garden in addition to the two yew trees, including an enormous tree in his front garden which overhung the road almost to the other side. There were also six or seven mature street trees alongside the property boundary in Wales Road. It was difficult to pick out the yew trees from Wales Avenue with only part of the crown being visible, and it would not be seen at all from the front of the property.

I stated that whilst I fully appreciate both the beauty and environmental benefits of trees, as a Liberal Democrat I feel uncomfortable telling people what plants they can and can’t have in the garden of their own private property. This was not a development, the tree wasn’t a particularly attractive example of a yew, and there were sufficient existing trees on the site & nearby to preserve the character of the area. I felt that the removal of the tree at the front of the property would have a much greater impact on the character of the area but there was no Tree Preservation Order on that one. I also noted that there had been no Preservation Order on the Trees when the resident purchased the property, and the previous Officer had not felt that the trees were of sufficient merit to have one. It was therefore a matter of the current Tree Preservation Officer’s opinion overriding this resident’s, and his neighbour’s, enjoyment of their house and garden. I therefore voted against the recommendation, but every other member of the committee voted to allow the tree to be pruned but not felled.

Sunday 8th November 10.30am

Remembrance Service and Civic Act of Remembrance

I attended the Civic Remembrance Day service at Holy Trinity Church in Wallington led by the Reverend Stephen Coe. Members of the Boys Brigade and representatives from the Carshalton and Wallington Branch of the Royal British Legion made contributions to the service and all accompanied the civic procession down Manor Road to the war memorial at Wallington Green.

 The work of the local police teams was commendable as they halted the traffic at this busy junction to allow us to observe the silence during the ceremony.

Saturday 7th November 9.30am

Wallington Act of Remembrance

As usual I attended the Remembrance Service in front of Wallington Old Town Hall together with the Deputy Mayor Cllr. Leach, representatives of the Royal British Legion, councillor colleagues, and my children.

Tuesday 3rd November 7pm

Beddington & Wallington Local Committee

The main items on the agenda for this meeting were the Beddington and The Grange Parks Draft Management Plan, an update on Public Realm projects and a report for decision on Footway Parking in Cul-de-sacs.

In Questions from the Public one of our community reps requested a more detailed breakdown of the expenditure on public realm projects to date. It was agreed that Mr Barker would prepare this for the next meeting.

In response to a question asked by Ms Hyatt at the previous meeting asking the Council to look into introducing a by-law preventing the illegal parking of caravans we were advised that in fact the legal department were already investigating this very issue with a view to implementing a suitable by-law.

Under Feedback from Previous Meetings the summary response from The Executive to our request to lock the gates at St Mary’s Field playground was tabled and read out. The committee was very disappointed that the Executive had requested that the Safer Sutton Partnership produce more evidence before the request to lock the gates was granted. It was felt that sufficient evidence had been presented to the Beddington & Wallington Local Committee for us to decide it was necessary, and that had been at the request of the local Safer Neighbourhoods Team. The committee tasked me as chair to make the committee’s views on the matter known to the Executive.

The Committee was being asked to agree the implementation of the Beddington and The Grange Parks Draft Management Plan. Bill Wyatt, Assistant Parks Manager explained how the document had been prepared and what consultation had taken place with local residents and the Friends of the Park. He explained that the Plan included all the work that they would like to have done in the Park as and when funds became available. Mr Wyatt was clear that there was insufficient money currently available to do everything in the Plan. The Plan also contained details of the day to day maintenance requirements of the Park.

The Committee approved the Plan.

Under Public Realm Mr Barker, Lead Locality Officer, provided an update of projects implemented to date and those still outstanding. In particular he brought the Committee’s attention to the issue of repairing or replacing the lights at Roundshaw recreation ground. It was reported that repairs could cost anything up to £10,000 and whether repaired or replaced the Parks Department did not have sufficient budget to manage the additional maintenance. Members of the public wanted to know exactly how much the maintenance was expected to cost, talking in terms of ‘changing a few light bulbs’. Mr Wyatt was unable to provide estimates but was adamant that Parks had no spare capacity to take on additional maintenance responsibilities. The committee requested that Mr Wyatt brought back more detail about the cost of maintaining the lights to a future meeting.

The ongoing work to try to improve Elms Pond was discussed in detail. The Parks department had received a report from specially contracted consultants that the expected cost to maintain the fountain using a special filter and associated works could cost up to £100,000. This far exceeded the amount of £30,000 set aside for the project. It was suggested by Mr Wyatt that they go back to the advice from earlier consultants and try to do the best they could with the existing facility up to the amount of £30,000. They felt that they would probably need additional funds probably around £10,000 to be able to do the work. It was also noted that the consultants had noted a crack in the concrete base of the pond which would need investigation and repair before any further work could be carried out.

It was agreed that the committee did not want to spend £100,000 on the pond and a suggestion was made by Community Rep Mr Sammons to put in a water feature much of the kind found at any good garden centre. It would be much smaller than the existing fountain, and as the size of the current fountain was felt to be causing some of the problems with the filter, it would still be in keeping with the intention of the pond. There was a lot of support for this idea and Mr Wyatt agreed to go and investigate this possibility in more detail.

Finally we had a report for decision about Footway Parking in Cul-de-sacs. The issue concerned whether Penalty Charge Notices should be issued to cars parked with their wheels on the pavement or to those parked in front of dropped kerbs. A number of cul-de-sacs in the local committee area had been consulted and the proposal was to enforce, or not enforce against either type of footway parking in each road according to the wishes of the residents as shown by the results to the surveys.

The first concern of committee members was that they had been unaware that footway parking was not currently being enforced in cul-de-sacs. It transpired that the decision had been made in 2005 by council officers not to enforce. Members were not happy that councillors had not been involved in this decision. Members also raised concerns about cul-de-sacs not included on the list of streets surveyed. Donna Ashby, the officer presenting the paper, responded that only those cul-de-sacs from which they had received a number of complaints about footway parking had been reviewed. Councillors responded that they had themselves received sufficient complaints about parking in roads not on the list and felt that this was a failure of the exercise.

Then problems were highlighted about there being eleven roads in the area not only having different enforcement conditions from the majority of roads in the borough, but also each having different conditions. A member of the public wondered how a motorist was to know when it was ok to park across a dropped kerb & when it wasn’t. It was all too confusing. It was felt that it may also prove too complicated for consistent enforcement by parking officers. The committee felt that any decision about the enforcement of footway parking in cul-de-sacs, or any other roads, should be consistent throughout an area and so rejected the paper. It was felt that the topic deserved wider discussion at a future meeting.

Shotfield Health Centre Update

The GP practices at Shotfield plan to move into Mint House during November to allow work on the redevelopment of Shotfield Health Centre to begin.

Access ramp is temporary

You cannot fail to have noticed the new access ramp that has been built in Jubilee Gardens to help patients get into Mint House. Although of practical benefit the ramp is a bit of an eyesore. Colin, Richard & I have obtained assurances that the ramp is temporary. If a ramp is still required following the rebuilding of Shotfield it will be incorporated within the redesign of Jubilee Gardens, which was a condition of the original application.

Modifications to original plans

The practices are considering making some amendments to the submitted plans for the Shotfield rebuild. Colin, Richard & I have been closely following progress and will be reviewing any proposed changes.

Monday 19th October 2009 7pm

Full Council

Four motions were presented for debate at this full meeting of the Council: Value for Money; 10:10 Climate Change; Council Housing and Concessionary Fares Scheme.

 The First motion to be debated was Value for Money which had been proposed by the Conservative Opposition Group. I was surprised that the opposition persist with their accusations that this Council does not offer value for money which flies in the face of all the evidence to the contrary. As was listed by Councillor John Drage, Executive Member for Resources in his amendment to the motion, this Liberal Democrat run Council has been awarded by the independent body the Audit Commission the highest possible rating of four stars improving strongly for the last two years running and the international accountancy firm PriceWaterhouse Coopers rated Sutton as the best performing borough in London.

In a specific Use of Resources Assessment by an external auditor Sutton achieved the highest possible overall score of 4 with individual assessments for ‘achievement of value for money’ and ‘managing and improving value for money’ both attaining 4s. In 2009 under a tougher assessment arrangement Sutton still achieved a 3 ‘performing well’ assessment both for value for money and overall use of resources.

And that is not all; in its April 2009 review of financial management in local government the Audit Commission uses Sutton as its best practice case study on understanding costs and achieving efficiencies.

I can only suppose that the Opposition believe that if they repeat their mantra often enough people will come to believe it.

I found it amusing that whilst the Tories claimed the credit for our announcement of a council tax freeze for 2010/11 they didn’t appear to be the slightest bit pleased about it. Personally I felt that they only called for a freeze last year because they know the difficulties the council faces eking out its central government grant allocation and felt they could safely assume it would be impossible for the Liberal Democrat administration to achieve it. Fortunately our long term savings plans and determination to minimise the impact of the recession on our residents managed to come to fruition and enable us to maintain the council tax level for the next year. A bonus in the form of a grant refund had also allowed the Liberal Democrat administration to make it possible.

I took a one minute intervention to highlight the ludicracy of the Conservatives’ inclusion in their motion to apply a zero based budget review across the entire council. I quoted from my Chartered Accountancy Exam Revision Guide to set out the inappropriateness and excessive cost of applying zero-based budgeting to an entire organisation, never mind one as complex as a local authority.

The amended motion was passed by a majority vote.

The second motion debated was for the Council to sign up to the 10:10 climate change campaign to cut Britain’s carbon emissions by 10% by the end of 2010. An amendment had been submitted by Councillor Scully, leader of the Conservative opposition basically making some punctuation amendments and removing the reference to the Council’s One Planet Living strategy. Councillor Hall as Executive Member for the Environment had proposed the original motion but in the interests of reaching accord he agreed to support the amendment on the basis that whilst the Council was very much committed to achieving One Planet Living, he accepted that it was unlikely it would be attained by 2010.

The debate consisted of members from both sides talking about the importance of taking measures to reduce our emissions and making practical suggestions. As all the Liberal Democrat members had pledged their commitment as a group some of our members spoke of the personal measures they would be taking to reduce their impact on the planet. Conservative Councillor Graham Witham made a bold speech about how the most important way to reduce our depletion of the Earth’s resources was to tackle population growth. This point was acknowledged, but I noted that it was probably too late for most members of the Council to make any personal pledges on this particular issue, myself included!

The next motion on Council Housing was much more of the usual verbal fisticuffs. Conservative Councillor Barry Russell proposed the motion with much posturing and foaming at the mouth and ended the debate in much the same mode, only redder. The Tories’ righteous indignation at the state of Sutton’s council housing was a strange pantomime and Lib Dem councillors took pains to highlight the lack of any real commitment to the cause shown by the Opposition. The absence of any Conservative representation on the Housing Panel was excused confusingly by the preferred member being ill and on honeymoon, and the lack of any suitably qualified substitute. I presume by that they meant the lack of any Conservative member with experience of living in council housing.

Apparently the absence of Tory support for the tenants at the recent town centre petitioning event was because they were doing their own petitioning elsewhere. And Philippa Strouds’ brief appearance for a photograph with the tenants only to disappear immediately was acceptable to the Tories who then accused us of hijacking the event as a photo opportunity.

London Mayor Boris Johnson was held up as a hero by the Conservatives for promising to unlock the funds previously pledged to Sutton by the Government for investment in Decent Homes only to have my colleagues point out that Boris had no authority over these funding arrangements and so was not in a position to promise anything.

The Lib Dems countered the accusation from the Tories about lack of investment in council housing by pointing out the millions spent on regenerating Roundshaw and Durand Close. They also pointed out how council housing stock had been depleted under the Thatcher implemented right-to-buy policy.

The Council agreed the amendment proposed by Councillor Stears with a majority vote.

There was insufficient time to debate the motion on the Concessionary Fares Scheme but earlier in the meeting we had the hilarious spectacle of every member of the Council being asked to declare whether they could be considered to have a personal interest in this particular item. As the yes replies cut a swathe through the room some of our more modest lady members conceded only a ‘possibly’ to some amusement. Less amusing is the potential effect the proposed changes to funding the concessionary scheme will have on council finances.

This motion was unanimously agreed.

Thursday 15th October 2009 7.30pm

Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee

This agenda continued the scrutiny of mental health services in the borough and in particular looked at the results of the Health and Social Care Advisory Service (HASCAS) safety review of inpatient services at the Sutton site and the recent closure of Chiltern Wing following the Legionella outbreak there.

The meeting began with an update on the transportation of residents detained under s136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. This issue had been raised by Police representatives at an earlier meeting who advised that with the closure of the s136 unit at Sutton the longer journey to Tadworth was proving to be a problem tying up police officers excessively and was inappropriate for residents suspected to be suffering from mental health problems to be transported in the secure police vans.

Scrutiny had uncovered that recommended practice was to have such residents transported by ambulance and the committee had recommended that representatives from the police, ambulance and mental health services meet to establish a way forward.

The committee received a report stating that such meetings had taken place and a protocol for the transportation of residents detained under s136 had been agreed. The protocols were established for low, medium and high risk cases and lines of communication established to ensure good management of facilities.

Questions from members established that a training programme to help police officers identify when a resident was likely to be suffering from mental health issues was being set up by the Mental Health Trust.

The HASCAS Review flagged up a number of significant concerns about the provision of inpatient mental health acute services at the Sutton Hospital site. The review found that the desire to have a small local site had led to compromises over the standards of care that should be available to mental health inpatients. Of 89 standards used in the review proforma the Sutton site met only 25. The review stated that whilst no major incidents had occurred at the hospital there was high potential for such an incident to happen.

The report also addressed specific aspects of each of the wards citing some of the wards as offering little in the form of a therapeutic environment or activities. The site itself was also seen to present security issues.

The review recommended a number of specific actions that should be taken to improve the site and patients’ experiences including liaising with police over site security and drafting contingency plans.

During questions I noted that the report mentioned the underinvestment in mental health services and I asked whether this had contributed to the lack of adequate service provision at the site. The response from Bill Gillespie, Chief Executive of the Sutton and Merton PCT was that the report should not be treated like a bible with individual items picked out for particular interpretation.

The report on the closure of the Chiltern Wing due to the discovery of high levels of Legionella during routine testing put a slightly different slant on the HASCAS review. Questions from members were concerned with whether it was the intention of the Trust to make the closure permanent with the chair of the committee stating that he felt the discovery of Legionella following the HASCAS review to be rather convenient.

The committee also received a paper on the changes to commissioning policy for In Vitro Fertilisation Treatment (IVF). The committee agreed that the changes were a matter of offering treatment more effectively and so felt that it was not a significant variation in service requiring consultation.

The committee expressed dissatisfaction with the paper given explaining the recent recall of a number of patients for re-screening under the National Screening Programme for diabetic retinopathy. I sought more information about what actually had gone wrong and received fairly general information about communication issues between services.

Wednesday 14th October 2.30pm

Green Paper Care and Support Consultation

This was an exercise organised by the Sutton Adult Social Services department to gather feedback on the Government’s proposals for changes to the social care system.

Professor Ray Jones of Kingston University set out the case for reform: we are living longer and we have higher expectations of what public services will provide for us.  There are more older people, more disabled people and more people with mental health conditions requiring support and many of them will need care for longer.  As a result, the current care and support system will face increasing costs.

The Green Paper contains options for dealing with the rising demand for social care services and as tables we were asked to discuss and then vote on them. The options on paying for these services included a compulsory insurance scheme; raising taxes; and self-payment.

Discussions around our table, which included Paul Burstow MP, local care providers, Sutton officers and care commissioners, were thoughtful. There was a lot of agreement around the need for services to be preventative and for a single assessment process. However views varied about how to make both the service and funding fair and equal.

What did come out of our discussions was the feeling that none of the funding options presented a satisfactory solution to the problem.

The views expressed during the event will be fed into the Government’s ‘Big Care Debate’.

Tuesday 13th October 10am

Tender opening

I visited the legal department at Civic Offices to witness a tender opening for applications to repair and maintain the highways under Local Authority control.

Public Exhibitions on Local Safety Scheme Proposals

Two exhibitions are being held to enable residents to view and discuss proposals for new safety schemes in the Stanley Park Road and STEPS Zones 20 & 21 areas.

 The dates are:

 Wednesday 4th November 2009 – Wallington United Reformed Church (4pm – 8pm)

 Monday 9th November 2009 – Good Shepherd Church (4pm – 8pm)

The proposals were drafted to address issues raised by residents who responded to the informal consultation and known problem areas. The final plans will be subject to your responses to the formal consultation.