Liberal Democrats on Surrey County Council have revealed almost £67m of public money has been spent on buying six properties outside the county, using a council-owned property company called Halsey Garton Property Limited, over the last year.

The properties purchased were mainly warehouses situated in locations such as Wiltshire, Bristol, Worksop and Salford. The most expensive acquisition was an office in Bristol, at the cost of just under £20million.

The Conservatives have justified the purchases on the basis that they were acquiring assets for investment purposes. But with property prices for commercial buildings close to all-time highs the decision to purchase these properties looks flawed … just as the County Council’s investments in Islandic Banks proved to be a few years ago.

The Liberal Democrats believe that the £67million would have been better invested in Surrey. Some of our town centres need investment to help regenerate the local economy and boost economic growth, our roads and footways are in urgent need of improvement, and we need investment in key worker housing.

Also, the County Council will soon be able to retain 100% of its locally raised business rates so it would make more sense for the County Council to invest in Surrey’s infrastructure and economy so that it can reap the future financial benefit.

When investment returns are high, there is increased risk that the investment will be lost. The Conservatives at County Hall do not seem to understand this. The Liberal Democrats believe that residents deserve better with money carefully invested where it is needed in the county; not frittered away on “too good to be true investments” outside Surrey.

Liberal Democrat County Councillors have strongly criticised Surrey County Council for hiking adult social care charges for disabled and vulnerable residents.

The new charges are due to take effect from 3rd October 2016 despite a consultation which showed strong opposition to the plans by residents and disability groups. Up till now, Surrey residents in receipt of Personal Independence Payments, Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance had the first £27.20 of their benefit disregarded when the Council was calculating their income. From October, the full amount of their benefit will be taken into account.

The effect of altering the way this calculation is made is that Surrey County Council will be billing 700 of Surrey’s most vulnerable residents for an extra £1million for services provided to them.

This price increase comes just months after Surrey County Council increased the Council Tax by an extra 2% to fund social services and despite:

* the County Council’s Social Care Services Board hearing evidence from the Surrey Coalition of Disabled People and Action for Carers, who both strongly opposed the changes; and

* the County Council’s Cabinet being presented with the results from the consultation on the proiposals which showed that 61% of respondents “disagreed or disagreed strongly” with the proposal.

The Social Care Services Board went so far as to criticise the proposals noting that there was “strong resistance to the proposed changes, and concerns about the detrimental impact on disabled people, their carers and families given the reduction in disposable income”.

Surrey’s Liberal Democrats believe that one of the most important aspects of our role as County Councillors is to protect vulnerable and disabled residents, and help improve the quality of their lives. As such, these proposals are anathema to us and it is appalling that these plans have been given implemented by the administration at County Hall. The members of the Cabinet should hang their heads in shame.

The County Council’s introduction of charges from 1 September 2016 for using the Community Recycling Centres, coupled with the reduction in their opening hours from 1 April 2016, is likely to lead to even bigger increases in fly-tipping across Surrey.

This warning was given following the recent publication of figures which showed that fly-tipping across the county has already doubled in the last two years: from 2093 tonnes in 2013/14 to 4441 tonnes in 2015/16.

The reduced opening hours and the introduction of the new charges have attracted heavy criticism from both Liberal Democrat councillors and local residents, all of whom have all pointed out that these proposals make it harder for residents to do the right thing when it comes to disposing of waste.

The full effect of the changes are:

* the Dorking and Cranleigh tips closing a half hour earlier each day and for one day a week, and having the types of waste they can accept limited;

* households being limited to one free bag of certain garden or building waste a day, with further bags costing £4 each (but green waste remains free);

* charging for loose waste – £50 per car load; and

* a £5 fee for disposing of tyres.

It was clear from the consultation and petitions presented to the County Council last year that Surrey residents valued and wanted to retain this service with no charges at the tip. Instead of listening to residents’ views, the opening hours have been cut and new charges introduced – both of which will result in damage to our beautiful countryside as fly-tipping increases.

Surrey County Council has responded to the Liberal Democrat campaign to improve superfast broadband coverage in Surrey and is seeking to fill in the “holes” in the current superfast broadband coverage in the county.

To action this, the County Council finally undertook the long awaited consultation on the next stage of the superfast broadband Infrastructure rollout in the county during May. The purpose of the public consultation was to confirm the areas which do not have Next Generation Access (“NGA”) broadband infrastructure delivering a service of at least 30Mbps.

For this consultation, the County Council developed its modelling to ensure that the mistakes made in the 2012 modelling process, which have left villages close to our market towns without superfast broadband coverage, were not repeated. This has been achieved as the models have used the lowest level postcode areas for the assessment of superfast broadband speeds as opposed to the wider area served by a particular BT box. It has also identified areas where state intervention to provide superfast broadband infrastructure would be permissible as those areas with superfast broadband speeds below 30Mbps as opposed to below 24Mbps.

In parallel to this public consultation, the County Council also sought an explanation and evidence from service providers explaining any changes to their commercial deployment plans and identifying areas that will be included in the commercial roll-out over the next three years as state intervention to enhance the infrastructure roll-out is not permitted in such areas.

After the consultation was concluded, the County Council completed its analysis of the results and submitted its final proposals for the areas which could receive state aid to support the next deployment of superfast broadband infrastructure to Broadband Delivery UK’s (“BDUK”) National Competence Centre for clearance. This is now expected in the Autumn.

But this will not answer all our superfast broadband issues. Even if areas are cleared by BDUK as areas where the state aid can be provided to subsidise the infrastructure roll-out, any decision as to whether any particular area will areas will benefit from any publicly funded infrastructure deployment will not be made until towards the end of the year when BT’s deployment modelling has been assessed and the opportunity and extent of value for money deployment that can be fully funded by Superfast Surrey has been determined.

In addition, superfast broadband will still not achieve particularly superfast speeds in many areas. Despite identifying all areas that do not receive a service of at least 30Mbps, the County Council is only looking to help build new superfast broadband infrastructure where there is the greatest need for improvement … those areas where existing broadband speeds are less than 15Mbps …. which is hardly a superfast broadband service.

The revised Gatwick flightpath for westerly takeoffs was finally implemented at the end of May – giving some respite from the worst aircraft noise to residents in the Coldharbour and Leith Hill area.

The aircraft taking off in a westerly direction and then turning east to pass to the north of the airport now make a tighter half circle turn and complete the manoeuvre over the Beare Green area.

There has, however, been no change to the flightpath when aircraft take off in an easterly direction and then turn to the west, passing to the north of the airport. This has resulted in areas which previously only had intermittent issues with aircraft noise from this flightpath suffering from more significant noise pollution when this flightpath is used as aircraft follow a more concentrated flight pattern.

Equally, there has been no change to the flightpath when aircraft take of in a westerly direction and continue to the west and no change to the flightpath used by affect aircraft landing from the west – both of which cause significant noise pollution over the Walliswood area. More consideration needs to be given to alleviate noise pollution in this area.

The aircraft in the Ockham Stack – waiting to land at Heathrow – also fly over our area, particularly Westcott and Wotton, and we continue to pass complaints over excessive aircraft noise in this area to the authorities at Heathrow.

Surrey County Council has responded to the Liberal Democrat campaign which calls on the County Council to invest in repairing footways across the county.

Project “Pavement Horizon” is a 6-year programme that will see over £20m invested in Surrey’s most heavily used pavements. This investment consists of funding £6m of works in this year (2016/17), and £3m in each of the subsequent years (2017/18 – 2021/2022). This is a significant increase from the £1.5m per year that was previously spent on pavements.

The programme will comprise:

• (1) Reconstruction schemes (which will make up approximately 60% of the total budget) targeted at pavements around schools, shopping areas, health centres, hospitals and village and town centres.
• (2) Reconditioning schemes (approximately 40% of the total budget, but only costing about 10% of the unit cost of reconstruction schemes), prioritised as for reconstruction schemes but also intended to ensure our entire network is kept in a reasonable condition.

The poor state of the pavement on the south side of Ashcombe Road between Station Road and The Ashcombe where children walking to school often have to walk in the road to avoid puddles of water and on the north side of Church Street between Station Road and Myrtle Road where elderly residents are unable to walk along the pavement as the camber is 1 in 8 (it should be no more than 1 in 30) are both scheduled for repair / remedial work in the current financial year.

The footpath along the A25 from Abinger Hammer through Wotton to Westcott is also on the provisional list for reconstruction during the remaining years of the project.

A number of potential issues that could cause floods are emerging in the Norbury Park area on the River Mole and have been discussed at the local Catchment Board of the Environment Agency.

Some work to remove blockages to the river flow is now being carried out and more work to remove fallen trees from the river is being planned.

The various agencies involved are also looking at working together to remove the silt build up by the Burford Bridge and they expect to engage the Environment Agency’s Hydro-Geomorphologist to seek his advice on what may then be done to ensure that the silting does not recur.

In a close advisory poll on 5 May, Dorking residents declined to set up a town council by 1,971 votes to 1,912.

The two main factors in the poll were whether Dorking would benefit from an elected Town Council that solely represented the town and, if so, whether residents felt it appropriate for an additional levy to be added to the Council Tax.

The District Council will now complete its Community Governance Review and will make a final decision on whether or not to set up a town council, taking residents’ views into account when making the decision.

The Liberal Democrat District Councillor team have launched a new Agenda for Mole Valley: Building A Caring Community.

Caring for our Towns and Villages

Reduce traffic congestion and improve traffic flow in our town centres.

ŸSupport town centres and improve the retail mix by active town management.

ŸImprove the environment of town and village centres by upgrading pavements and ensuring effective litter collection.

ŸRe-introduce tourist information centres to encourage visitor awareness of the attractions of Mole Valley’s market towns and countryside.

ŸIntroduce a 30 minutes free parking period in all District Council operated car parks in Mole Valley.

Caring for our Environment

ŸProtect the green belt from development pressures and oppose destructive national polices; only consider development where land no longer serves green belt purposes and any development has the support of local residents.

ŸAim for a carbon-neutral District Council through energy conservation and solar energy programmes.

ŸPromote ‘green’ alternatives in District Council planning policies.

ŸTake pro-active measures to deter fly tipping through extending the Tips opening hours and using CCTV in rural environments.

ŸSeek to prevent localised flooding by better street cleaning, including clearing drainage channels and culverts.

Better Housing for a Caring Community

ŸUse Local and Neighbourhood Plans to initiate local development opportunities.

ŸPrioritise housing to meet local need, including social housing and housing for rent.

ŸPut planning emphasis on development of small units for sale or rent at prices within the range of local people.

ŸEnsure that the homeless are housed in accommodation that meets the decent homes standard.

Building Better Community Life

ŸGive all necessary support to organisations and services such as the Citizens Advice Bureau and Dial-a-Ride which provide services for local people and communities.

ŸMaintain and improve sports facilities such as playing fields and playgrounds and develop new facilities including at the Meadowbank football ground.

ŸProvide support for cultural and arts organisations, continue to improve the Dorking Halls and help to secure the future of the Leatherhead Theatre.

ŸPromote the policies in the Mole Valley Cycling Plan which aims to balance the rights of residents to enjoy living in the area with the rights of cyclists to visit the area safely.

I would like to thank everyone who reported blocked drains and culverts across the Dorking Hills following the article in the Winter 2015 Focus. All those reported to us have been reported to the County Council.

As a result of the information provided to the County Council and further investigation, it has been revealed that 65 roads in Mole Valley were completely missing from the County Council’s drainage asset register and that a further 17 roads were partially omitted.This means that the drains in these roads were never cleared as part of the County Council’s cyclical drainage clearance programme.

As well as these drains not appearing on the asset register and thus cleared regularly, there has been a lack of street cleaning and leaf clearance by Mole Valley District Council which has resulted in an increasing number of drains becoming blocked. This lack of appropriate street cleaning has been taken up with the District Council who have been asked to address the issue.

This exercise in identifying blocked drains and gullies across the area has revealed a significant failure by both the County and District Councils to look after our area and has resulted in localised flooding. This is now being addressed, but it should not have taken a significant number of residents complaints to identify the widespread failure that has occurred in maintaining our drains and culverts and ensuring that localised flooding does not occur.