All three of us put up a good case for extensive repairs to both Lovelace Gardens and St. Matthew’s Avenue at last night’s Neighbourhood Committee meeting.

Funds may not suffice to replace the pavements in their entirety, but the point that they had suffered from neglect for years was well made. Replying to a suggestion that the Committee should spread its resources more widely over cheaper schemes than Lovelace Gardens, Janet Bowen-Hitchings said, “ it was thinking of that sort that has got the pavements into such an expensive mess in the first place.” Her argument won the day.

The Liberal Democrats are delivering a ‘newspaper’ in the ward, whose front page repeats the story about Kingston Hospital services, which has been refuted by NHS SW London and Kingston Hospital. This ‘newspaper’ must have taken several weeks to prepare and write, yet the Health Overview Panel was told on Wednesday that the matter had become urgent only over the last weekend. The urgency seems to have stemmed from the imminent arrival of this ‘newspaper’ from the printers.

I know Mr. Davey sent emails to many of you asking for your support for his petition. This is a matter of grave community concern, not something to play party politics with, so I am at a loss to understand why he did not seek our support. He knows the email addresses of all of us councillors well enough.

I urge readers to see the letter from NHS SW London on the Health and Hospitals page before signing the petition form on the back of the ‘newspaper’.

If you do sign the form, think carefully before filling in your email address. The object of the exercise is to build up a database of private email addresses for future use. It says this in very small print which is very hard to read without a powerful glass, just conforming with the letter of the Data Protection Act.

Finally, the headline of the article says Labour has a plan to close the services. The logic of this statement is that the right thing to do is to vote Labour out of office nationally. You will not achieve that by voting Lib Dem at the next election, any more than it was achieved by voting Lib Dem in 1997, 2001 or 2005.

Please remember to recycle the paper.

Extracts of letters from NHS SW London and from Helen Whately:-

Local Liberal Democrats Edward Davey MP and Susan Kramer MP have made claims that NHS organisations in south west London are considering an option to close the maternity and A&E at Kingston Hospital.

Healthcare for South West London strongly refutes any claims that there are secret plans to close A&E or maternity units at Kingston Hospital or any hospital.

The hospital’s management and the NHS in South West London have refuted the Lib Dem claim stating that “there are no secret plans to close A&E or maternity units at Kingston Hospital”. I attended the hospital’s board meeting on Wednesday 27^th January, and heard the Chief Executive and Chairman both criticise this campaign, describing it as ‘irresponsible’. They are concerned that it is being stirred up for political purposes, without thinking of the impact on staff, recruitment (just when the hospital needs more midwives) and patients.

It is vital that hospital staff are able to continue delivering the best possible care for local people without the turmoil of a campaign to save the hospital if this is not a real threat. What the hospital needs at this time is an end to rumours, a focus on the facts, and support from the local community. I had my son George there 18 months ago, and I will be supporting the hospital, whatever happens.

Read the full text of the letter from NHS SW London and Helen’s letter on this issue on our new HEALTH AND HOSPITALS page.

Click on the link at the head of this page.

This has just been received from RBK Highways. I realise that the closure may well affect other ward residents besides those in the affected road, given its proximity to the station.

Due to the recent winter weather, a section of Glenbuck Road, at the Surbiton Station end, has suffered construction failure and requires some urgent attention. Glenbuck is one of the two roads that provide access to the rear of the Station and its car park; the other one being South Bank.

The extent and location of the failure is such that the road will need to be closed whilst the carriageway is re-constructed to its full depth. A diversion, via South Bank, will therefore be required. The initial assessment and preparations for the works are being made by RJ Dance and will be programmed to give as much notice as possible to the affected residents, the Station and travelling public. We are looking to start the works at the end of next week or early the following week.

The contractors are sending the following to residents:-

Glenbuck Road (Essential Carriageway Repairs)

I am writing to inform you that the Council’s service partner (R J Dance) will be repairing the damaged areas of Glenbuck road.The road will be closed from Wellington court to Glenbuck Court.

This work is due to start Monday 8^th February 2010 and should be finished in about  5 days. The work will be carried out between 8.00am and 4.00pm, Monday to Friday. If there is a change to the starting date, or the duration of the work, you will be informed by signs placed along the road. Vehicle access to properties, within the area of the works, will be disrupted during the works. I apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, but would request your patience for this short time. Access for emergency vehicles will not be affected. If you have any special access arrangement, during this period, please contact RJ Dance on 020 8288 1840 so that we can do our best to assist you.

I hope this letter is clear but if you have any queries or require any further information please telephone our Customer Contact Centre on 020 8547 5929.

R.J. Dance (Contractors) Ltd

I asked this question of Cllr. Steed,  Liberal Democrat Executive member for Environment, Sustainability and Climate Change. The relevant parts of his answer are reproduced here. The highlighting is mine.

Question

‘As incidents of heavy snow seem to be becoming more frequent, what explanation can the Executive Member give for the failure to grit many heavily populated and parked roads during the severe bout of heavy snow and what guarantees can he give that roads and footpaths will be gritted in any future outbreaks?’

Reply

The severe weather experienced in recent weeks is the worst in twenty nine years. The snow last February was the worst in twelve years. Whether these incidents are becoming more frequent is debatable; but I am pleased that on both occasions the Council’s comprehensive Winter Maintenance Plan has proven to be highly effective. The Plan has kept our priority routes safe and useable. The Council’s policy of gritting major routes in advance of freezing conditions, wherever possible, has ensured that when snow has fallen or freezing conditions been experienced we have continued to provide safe access across all key routes for emergency services, public transport and other road users; that will always be our first priority.

There has been no failure to grit many heavily populated and parked roads as the question suggests. Rather we have accurately managed the service to meet our priorities.  Our Winter Maintenance Plan makes clear that minor routes are gritted after major routes have been completed and when time and resources allow.

Members should be under no illusion that meeting our priorities and successfully delivering the Winter Maintenance Plan has presented a daunting challenge that has stretched resources for the Council over recent weeks. Where in a normal winter we could reasonably have been expected to have gritted roads on perhaps six or so occasions, since 1 December last year we have gritted roads on over forty occasions to date.  Roads have been gritted on at least two in every three nights since 1 December.

Put simply, this is no longer a case of spreading salt more thinly across our existing routes but of visiting less roads in order to apply salt at levels that remain effective. It is probable that should any further severe weather be experienced we will only be gritting bus routes in the Royal Borough.

Residents in Cotterill, Ellerton, Bond, Douglas and adjacent roads may be interested to learn that there was no failure to grit. Likewise people in Ashcombe Avenue, Southborough Close and many roads in Oakhill. When I inspected all the roads mentioned, on the worst day of snow, there had been no gritting – hence my initial complaint and my question in Council.

The next Surgery will be on Saturday 23rd January at the Community Centre in School Lane from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Please note different start time!

It is very alarming to see that Kingston Hospital is again in the news on such an issue as this.

When a man with learning difficulties starved to death a few years ago, the RBK Health Overview Panel was assured that procedures had been tightened up so as to make a recurrence of such an incident impossible. I shall be asking questions about this latest incident at the next Panel meeting.

You can see the New Year edition of Surbiton Hill’s ‘In Touch’ leaflet on line. Click on ‘In Touch’ at the head of this page, than on the link on the ‘In Touch’ page which is then revealed.

Sent to us by a reader. Provenance unknown, but no comment from us is needed.

An extract from Mr. Rob Dickson’s reply to my email of yesterday:

The winter maintenance plan works on a clear set of priorities utilising resources as they are available on each order of priority. Residential roads and pavements are the lowest priority group and we will only get to these as resources become free from other higher priority activities. In that light conditions as you describe them in your email are broadly what I would expect.

On some specifics you raise:

• I’ll get Bond Road checked as I know it was an issue in December – I had thought it was on our additional “ad hoc” route which should have been treated last night.
• I’ll ask that roads and pavements around Surbiton Station and Oakhill Health Centre are checked (including South Bank).

The forecast is for the snow to stop this evening but for temperatures to drop overnight. Given that scenario we will again be treating all priority routes in the early hours of the morning and then move onto the next set of priorities. That will be tomorrow’s refuse collection rounds and as yet untreated areas as resources become available.

I hope this is helpful, thanks again for providing this information.