Not content with traffic-counter cables all over the place and air quality diffusion tubes equally omni-present, today this CCTV camera was erected near the entrance to Kempton Park on Staines Road East. It is filming traffic in both directions. All courtesy of The Jockey Club’s BB Productions Unit … aka Mouchel.
KKG – Document 69a KKG – Document 70 KKG – Document 70a
Dear Neighbour
More than two weeks after the last Overview & Scrutiny Committee, the “clear and unambiguous statements” from the Leader of the Council and the Chief Executive, as to what they knew about the prospective planning application for Kempton Park have still not materialised.
Councillor Broom, Chair of the Committee, said on 10 September that she had “asked the officers as a matter of urgency to ensure that a statement by the Chief Executive is prepared and published”, and promised “we will be rectifying the minutes to reflect an accurate record of the action point agreed on Kempton Park”. (See Document 69a attached.)
Neither has happened.
We sent a reminder on 20 September, but have not received a reply. We are told that a joint statement from both the Leader and the Chief Executive has already been written. So why the delay in making it public?
Meanwhile, survey work has started at the gate to Kempton Park near the dog-walking area. Another rash of traffic counting cables has appeared on streets in Hampton and Sunbury, to add to the blue-topped air quality diffusion tubes set up by Mouchel, the transport consultants to The Jockey Club. You can see just how extensive the work is that they are doing in the attached Documents 70 and 70a.
Our fund raising effort is exceeding expectations. LOSRA (the Lower Sunbury Residents Association) have kindly offered to receive and account for donations to this campaign. LOSRA have been around for more than 40 years, and have impeccable credentials with regard to accountability and reliability.
Electronic methods for donations will be set up shortly. In the mean time, if you would like to donate by cheque, please make your cheque out to LOSRA and send it to:
20 Green Street, Sunbury, TW16 6RN
As you would expect, the identity of all donors will be kept confidential.
Visit us at http://www.keepkemptongreen.com, Like our Facebook page, and Follow us on Twitter (links to both on the website). Leave your comments at all three.
Kind regards, and thank you very much in advance for your generosity.
Keep Kempton Green
TRAFFIC MONITORING CABLES
Those Jockey Club car-counter cables are back – 23 pairs of them in and around Sunbury.
They tried doing this once before, earlier in the summer, but had to give up because it took them some time to notice that almost every street they were counting cars on had road-works and temporary traffic lights on it .
They might even get it right this time.
And while they’re counting cars, they’re still sniffing the air.
AIR QUALITY DIFFUSION TUBES
Dear Neighbour
Two days later, and the donations so generously given so far have reduced the target from £1200 to £750.
Many thanks, and keep them coming.
LOSRA (the Lower Sunbury Residents Association) have kindly offered to receive and account for donations to this campaign. LOSRA have been around for more than 40 years, and have impeccable credentials with regard to accountability and reliability.
Electronic methods for donations will be set up shortly. In the mean time, if you would like to donate by cheque, please make your cheque out to LOSRA and send it to:
20 Green Street, Sunbury, TW16 6RN
As you would expect, the identity of all donors will be kept confidential.
Yours gratefully
Keep Kempton Green
Dear Neighbour
What started off as a campaign against the development of Green Belt land at Kempton Park is now suddenly something much bigger.
If this revision of the Local Plan goes through unchecked, it will affect all parts of this Borough – permanently and for the worse – and the consequences will spill over into neighbouring Boroughs.
So far all the considerable work involved has been contributed by individuals in their spare time. But there are some things, with the best will in the world, that they simply cannot do.
Unfortunately, it has now come to the point where we will have to seek legal opinion in order to continue this effort. It really says something about the state of local democracy when residents – not for the first time – are forced into this kind of dispute with their own Council. We wish it wasn’t so. But it is, more’s the pity.
Our barrister, one of the best, has most generously offered his time at a fraction of his normal fee. The cost we face is £1800. We have already raised a third of it, so there’s £1200 still to go.
We fully appreciate that there are many calls on your generosity, but anything you can contribute, no matter how small, will be most gratefully received.
LOSRA (the Lower Sunbury Residents Association) have kindly offered to receive and account for donations to this campaign. LOSRA have been around for more than 40 years, and have impeccable credentials with regard to accountability and reliability.
Electronic methods for donations will be set up shortly. In the mean time, if you would like to donate by cheque, please make your cheque out to LOSRA and send it to:
20 Green Street, Sunbury, TW16 6RN
As you would expect, the identity of all donors will be kept confidential.
Visit us at http://www.keepkemptongreen.com, Like our Facebook page, and Follow us on Twitter (links to both on the website). Leave your comments at all three.
Kind regards, and thank you very much in advance for your generosity.
Keep Kempton Green
What started off as a campaign against 1500 dwellings at Kempton Park has now become something much bigger – a campaign against 8000 dwellings in the Borough of Spelthorne which could come about as a result of the review of our Local Plan.
If this revision of our Local Plan goes through unchecked, it will affect all parts of this Borough – permanently and for the worse.
Unfortunately, it has come to the point when we will have to engage solicitors in order to continue this fight .
So far all the considerable work involved has been contributed by individuals in their spare time. But there are some things, with the best will in the world, that they can’t do.
It really says something about the state of local democracy when residents – not for the first time – are forced into this kind of dispute with their own Council. We wish it wasn’t so. But, more’s the pity, it is.
LOSRA (the Lower Sunbury Residents Association) have kindly offered to receive and account for donations to this campaign. LOSRA have been around for more than 40 years, and have impeccable credentials with regard to accountability and reliability.
If you would like to donate to the cause using PayPal, please click here . This will take you straight through to the LOSRA website’s home page. Scroll down and click on the button on the right: “Donate to the Keep Kempton Green Fund“.
If you would like to donate by cheque, please make your cheque payable to LOSRA and send it to:
20 Green Street, Sunbury, TW16 6RN
Alternatively, donations can be deposited directly into the LOSRA bank account set up for this purpose:
Barclays Bank
Account name: LOSRA
Sort Code: 20-46-73
Account number: 8341 3934
As you would expect, the identity of all donors will be kept confidential.
Kind regards, and thank you very much in advance for your generosity.
Keep Kempton Green
KKG – Document 67 KKG – Document 69 KKG – Document 56a
Dear Neighbour
It’s that Overview & Scrutiny Committee. Again. (See KKG weekly updates 10 July and 4 September).
It started with the man from A2Dominion inadvertently letting the Kempton Park Cat out of the bag at the 8 July meeting. Then the minutes of that meeting simply didn’t mention the at times heated discussion about Kempton Park at all. The minutes also left out the Action Point (agreed by the Committee) to ask for “clear and unambiguous statements” from the Chief Executive and the Leader of the Council as to what they knew about the plans for the development of Green Belt land at Kempton Park. All this is very clear on the recording (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJw0sjirWok ) and on the transcript (Document 67 attached.)
So we went to the subsequent meeting of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee on 9 September, to hear whether these statements would in fact be produced (despite there being no mention on the Agenda).
It didn’t happen. The Chair of the Committee had thought that a statement from the Head of Planning (Document 56a attached) had dealt with the matter. But the Head of Planning is not the Chief Executive nor the leader of the Council, and he had answered a question different to that which was asked.
Anyway, the Chair of the Committee has now promised to amend the minutes, and to publish a statement from the Chief Executive “as a matter of urgency”. (Document 69 attached.)
As to the review of the Local Plan: The nine councillors on the Local Plan Working Party voted 7-2 to recommend to the Cabinet that a review should take place. (See last week’s KKG Weekly Update.)The next meeting of the Cabinet is on 30 September.
Visit us at http://www.keepkemptongreen.com, Like our Facebook page, and Follow us on Twitter (links to both on the website). Leave your comments at all three.
Alan Doyle
for Keep Kempton Green
KKG – Document 67 KKG – Document 68
Dear Neighbour
You may remember, in early July, we reported on the proceedings of the last Spelthorne Overview & Scrutiny Committee, where the man from A2Dominion inadvertently let the Kempton Park cat out of the bag. Well, we have obtained a recording of those exchanges, which, it turns out, went on for a lot longer than we thought.
To hear the video/audio file, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJw0sjirWok , or just search for Keep Kempton Green on youtube.com. Attached (Document 67) is the transcript of the recording. For best results, listen to the audio with the transcript at your side.
Now, you might think that more than ten minutes of discussion, particularly on a subject of such contentiousness (as is very evident from the recording), would be recorded in the Minutes. There is nothing in them at all, however. Nor is there any mention of the Action Point, discussed at the end of the audio, in the Agenda for the next meeting of the Committee on 9 September. According to the official record, the heated discussion may as well never have taken place. One wonders why.
And then there is a document they really don’t want you to see. (Document 68, attached). It was discussed last evening at the Local Plan Working Party, from which members of the public are excluded. The Working Party voted to recommend to the Cabinet and full Council that they start a total review of the Spelthorne Local Plan, which contains all the planning rules and targets and land designations in the Borough.
We would draw your attention to paragraph 2.24 on page 5, and paragraph 2.31, point 1 on page 6.
The current housing target is 166 dwellings per year. The Council propose to raise this to a minimum of 400 dwellings per year – an increase of 240%.
Over 20 years, that would result in 8000 houses being constructed. Currently, there are 39 500 dwellings in Spelthorne. So what they are preparing is an increase in the population of the Borough of more than 20%. By comparison, over the ten years to 2011, the number of households only rose by 1100, or 2.9%.
There are three ways of achieving this kind of growth:
That is what is being referred to in paragraph 2.31, point 1 on page 6:
“A judgement will need to be made about densities of development and the acceptability/sustainability of higher densities against alternative ways of providing sufficient housing land.”
The last seven words are the euphemism for selling-off our open spaces.
This confirms – in writing – what we have been saying, and the Council have been denying, for months. And it is a Borough-wide assault they are launching. Let’s say they get their way and build 1500 houses on Green Belt at Kempton Park. Where are they going to build the other 6500?
Visit us at http://www.keepkemptongreen.com, Like our Facebook page, and Follow us on Twitter (links to both on the website). Leave your comments at all three.
Alan Doyle
for Keep Kempton Green
To put it in context, here is what Spelthorne Council are proposing to do:
Current housing target = 166 dwellings p.a. = 3320 dwellings over 20 years
Proposed minimum housing target = 400 dwellings p.a. = 8000 dwellings over 20 years
Difference = an extra 234 dwellings p.a. = an extra 4680 dwellings over 20 years
Number of households (dwellings) in Spelthorne (2001 & 2011 Censuses)
38400 (2001)
39500 (2011) an extra 1100 dwellings (+2.9%) in 10 years
Growth over 20 years @ 166 dwellings p.a.
+8.4% over 20 years
Growth over 20 years @234 dwellings p.a. extra
+11.8% extra over 20 years
Where are they going to put all these people?
Where are they going to put the extra health centres?
Where are they going to put the extra schools?
How far into the local roads will the extra traffic tail back?
Keep Kempton Green 