The FOCUS team did a walkabout around the ward with senior officers of Sutton Council last week to look at environmental matters.

Jill and Alan with Council Officers at Shorts Road having inspected the repairs to the railway bridge

We discussed and looked at local matters such as the Westcroft Leisure Centre redevelopment (as reported previously), a visit to The Grove Park (where some trees may need to be inspected by council officers if they’re decaying/dead along the northern boundary), the recent painting of one-way arrows to the roads of the Carshalton Railway Station Approaches (in the wrong direction), the footpath between West Street and Shorts Road (where there have been problems with dog fouling of the footpath), the issues relating to traffic diversions etc. for the repairs to the railway bridge at Shorts Road and the imminent repairs to the railway bridge in Carshalton Road (near Harrow Road) as well as issues concerning the development of the 44 new flats at 229-245 Carshalton Road.

The FOCUS team visited the on-going building work at the Westcroft Leisure Centre and New Carshalton Library last week and here are some progress photos.

Cllr. Alan Salter and Cllr. Jill Whitehead on the site of the new gymnasium area to be

 The framework of the Carshalton Library wing of the building was inspected.

Steel framework for the new Library

Ruskin Road junction with Park Lane

The traffic is shown on a typical morning in early April queuing up in Ruskin Road at the busy junction with Park Lane.  Over the years Hamish and other previous Lib Dem councillors for the Carshalton Central ward have fought for various safety improvements in Ruskin Road and surrounding area: these included the island refuges down Ruskin Road itself at various strategic points (in the early 1990s), and indeed a pedestrian crossing by the Methodist Church a few years ago.

Jill, Alan and Hamish previously took up local concerns regarding the difficulty in crossing the road at this very busy junction being close to All Saints’ School, Rotherfield Road, Carshalton which is shortly to be expanded considerably as previously advised on the web site and on our FOCUS leaflets. 

We have been informed by Council officers that funds will shortly be made available for a feasibility study at the above junction. The study will commence in April 2012 and will consider the proposal of introducing a pedestrian phase. Should the scheme be progressed to implementation, the proposals could be introduced during the early part of the 2013/14 financial year. 

We will keep you posted!

“Many of the criticisms relate to a perceived lack of fairness in the way people have been treated. Labour’s legislative assault on our civil liberties has been disastrous for the reputation of the police who enforced it.

“It is essential that we clear up Labour’s legacy and end people’s feeling that they are both over-policed and under-protected. This (government) paper demonstrates how the Liberal Democrats would do the right thing to restore public confidence.”

The (government) paper proposes a number of changes to police forces in England around three key areas, which will make the police:

1. More trusted – listening to local people and making policing much more responsive to communities’ priorities.
2. More professional – setting up the new police professional body with a key responsibility to recommend detailed national minimum recruitment standards for the police.
3. More effective – making evidence based policing the defining feature of 21st century policing by establishing the world’s first Institute for Policing Excellence.

Through this report, Tom hopes to improve the relationship between the public and the police, as well as make his constituency and the country as a whole a safer and more habitable place.

The proposed reforms including measures to:

• Make Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) more accountable to the public between elections
• Create safeguards against the expansion of the role of PCCs
• Create an Institute for Policing Excellence
• Create a Police First development scheme based on the success of Teach First
• Encourage Police and Crime Panels to veto plans to cut police numbers unless all measures to cut bureaucracy have been exhausted.

Tom Brake MP for Carshalton & Wallington

Recently Tom Brake, local MP for Carshalton and Wallington and also Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Policy Committee on ‘Home Affairs, Justice and Equalities’, published ‘Trusted, Professional and Effective: British policing at its best’.

Jill, Alan and Hamish received the following letter from the Council highways officers recently:-

Dear Councillors,

In order to facilitate highway kerbing works on the railway bridge in Carshalton Road, Sutton (A232), and because of the likelihood of danger to the public arising from the said works, a Temporary Traffic Management Order will be made.

Further information on the temporary restrictions / prohibitions which will come into operation on Monday 30th April 2012 can be obtained from David Waugh (tel. 020 8770 6431). It is anticipated that the works will take ten nights to complete.

The Order will come into effect on Monday 30 April 2012 with works taking place at night between the hours of 8.30 p.m. and 5.30 a.m. Mondays to Fridays and are expected to take 10 nights to complete. However, the Order will remain in force for 18 months to be re-introduced should further works be required.

When the works are taking place and the appropriate traffic signs are displayed the Order will temporarily close:-

(a) Harrow Road at its junction with Carshalton Road; and

(b) the southern footway in Carshalton Road between its junction with Harrow Road and the eastern property boundary of Weihurst Court, Carshalton Road.

Whilst the Order is in force, an alternative route for through vehicular traffic will be suitably signed.

The building works continue. Nine rather smart looking “executive style” homes are being erected.

Rotherfield Road & Lakin Close Development

As the south-east of England prepares for another drought, Sutton Council has stepped in to save fish from floundering in drying ponds.

Dozens of fish in the Stock Pond in Beddington Park are particularly vulnerable, as the pond can dry out in a very short amount of time. To make sure that the fish survive, the council plans to move them to a fishery outside London where they can survive the dry summer happily.

Fish from Lakeside Pond have already been moved to the nearby Grange Lake to make sure that they don’t get trapped as water levels drop further. To ensure the future of the pond, which also supports amphibians, insects and birds, parks officers are planning to pump water from nearby ponds to make sure that the clay base does not crack, which would mean that the pond would not be able to bounce back from the drought.

Sutton and East Surrey Water, which supplies the borough, is one of seven water companies in the south east to impose a hosepipe ban. At this stage the ban, which came into effect on Thursday, 5th April, does not cover businesses or local councils, so Sutton Council is free to continue using hosepipes in public parks and gardens.

However, parks bosses have decided that it would be unfair to keep using water at the same rate when residents face restrictions, so will restrict watering to the minimum needed to keep plants alive and make sure that they will not be faced with huge bills to replant parks once the drought is over.

Cllr. Colin Hall, Executive Member for Environment and Climate Change on Sutton Council, said: “We were warned that this hosepipe ban was coming, so the council has been working with the Environment Agency and Sutton and East Surrey Water to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to help wildlife survive the drought.

“I urge all residents to think carefully about the water that they use. There are lots of changes you can make which, when added together, will have a real impact. We all think about water as an unlimited resource but, as the climate continues to change, water will become more precious, and we will need to make sure that we cut out unnecessary use.”

For information about the drought, how it will affect you and what you can do to save water, visit www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/drought

A very Happy Easter to everyone from the FOCUS team!

The FOCUS team says: “Long-awaited improvements to the entrance have been completed at Carshalton Station located between West Street and North Street.  The century-old station also looks very smart. A big thank you to those who were involved.”

Carshalton Station Entrance Improvements