KKG – Document 84         Letter to John Brooks 25 November 2014

(The letter below was sent to all the Spelthorne Borough Councillors today. The letter to Mr John Brooks, Head of Planning, is attached. The full correspondence since 8 October between Mr Brooks and KKG is in Document 84, attached.)

Dear Councillor
 
Attached please find a letter sent today to Mr John Brooks, Head of Planning, and copied to the Spelthorne Residents Associations and your fellow Borough Councillors.
 
Various obligations to provide information and to work with local communities on the ongoing Review of our Local Plan are set out in The Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012, and the Practical Planning Guidance from the Department of Communities and Local Government (Paragraph: 007 Reference ID: 2a-007-20140306).
 
The phrase used in the Guidance is “work with’. In this planning context, that phrase means a closer involvement than is meant by the word ‘consult’. It is clear that preparatory work on this Review has already been going on for some time. Local communities should have been involved with this process already, but have not been.
 
You will be very aware how this kind of exclusion, and failure to comply with what is required by law, planning guidance, and what is also simply good practice in terms of democratic accountability, merely fosters the widespread belief in this Borough that things are being hidden from residents for unacceptable purposes.
 
You will therefore no doubt agree that the inclusion of local communities in the preparation of the evidence base and any further work on our Local Plan should be put in place as soon as possible.
 
Yours
 

Alan Doyle
for Keep Kempton Green

Donations to the Keep Kempton Green fund can now be made through PayPal.

LOSRA (the Lower Sunbury Residents Association) have kindly made this facility available.

Please click here .

This will take you straight through to the LOSRA website’s home page. Scroll down a little and then click on the button marked “Donate to the Keep Kempton Green Fund“.

Or go to https://keepkemptongreen.com/fighting-fund/ and follow the links.

Kind regards

Alan Doyle

for Keep Kempton Green

24 hours after they first appeared, all of the 64 CCTV monitors spread from Halliford to Hampton Court Bridge  disappeared on Thursday night.

                      CCTV camera sites

However, the pairs of traffic cables laid on 21 September over the same area remain …

                          Traffic cable sites

… as do the air quality diffusion tubes which have been there for months.

             Air quality diffusion tube sites

Recent additions have been spray paint markings on the pavements at the Hampton “Triangle” and at the easternmost entrance to the Kempton Park estate. The markings at Hampton were put there for the purposes of a cable/utility survey at the behest of Redrow Homes (who won the bidding competition for the right of first refusal on 70 acres of land on the Kempton Park estate).

Mouchel were also counting cars at Hampton on Thursday.

The Jockey Club have confirmed through their PR consultants that the cameras, cables, air quality diffusion tubes and car counts are all part of the transport survey work being conducted by Mouchel, the transport consultants to The Jockey Club, for the proposed Kempton Park development of 1500+ houses plus 10 commercial units.

We await confirmation as to who is responsible for the above pavement markings and others at Kempton Park.

A quick drive around the Sunbury/Hampton areas at lunch time and the count is 64 CCTV cameras, plus another half-dozen at Hampton Court Bridge.  The company whose cameras these are were phoned, but refused to say who they were working for. Who are these Nosy Parkers? The Nosy Kempton Parkers?

Yet another one from the Peeping Toms at The Jockey Club on the Lower Sunbury Road near the Cricket Club.

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.

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

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