Sutton Council has agreed a vision for the future of Sutton Town Centre and a 15-year Masterplan to help make the vision a reality that includes redeveloping the Civic Centre area and transforming the gyratory system around the High Street.

The Masterplan will ensure that in these economically uncertain times the Town Centre continues to attract new business to invest in the centre and to provide shopping, services and local employment opportunities.

The Town Centre Masterplan follows an extensive eight-week consultation earlier this year that resulted in nearly 800 comments from local residents and businesses.

The vision will ensure that by 2031 Sutton Town Centre will  be celebrated for its range of independent retailers, a vibrant and bustling range of arts, cultural and entertainment activities for people of all generations, diverse food and dining, and will stand out because of its strong local heritage.

In order to deliver this vision the Masterplan makes a commitment that Sutton Council will:

• Explore the redevelopment of the Civic Centre area to create new spaces for arts, culture and entertainment activities in the town centre as well as providing much-needed new homes.
• Work with the owners of the St Nicholas Shopping Centre to create new activity along St Nicholas Way, with shops, leisure and dining venues near the existing cinema;
• Work to help deliver new employment development at or above Sutton railway station to strengthen the existing focus for employment in Sutton, support existing local employers and boost the number of jobs in the town centre;
• Transform the gyratory road around the town centre on St Nicholas Way and Throwley Way into an urban boulevard lined with street trees and ensure that all new development facing onto it is of exceptionally high quality;
• Work with grant funders to secure a range of High Street projects to strengthen the centre of Sutton and improve the image of the town centre; and
• Work with Historic England and landowners on a plan to enhance the historic core of the Town Centre.

Mary Morrissey, Strategic Director of Environment, Housing and Regeneration at Sutton Council, said:

“Sutton Town Centre is the lifeblood of our borough. We must support it to grow and provide more jobs and opportunities for our residents through major plans including the redevelopment of the Civic Centre area and the transformation of the gyratory into an urban boulevard. These will help us to create a distinctive Sutton and I want to thank everyone who took part in the consultation as they have helped to create the future of Sutton Town Centre.”

The Sutton Town Centre Masterplan covers the town centre area and complements the council’s Local Plan, which sets out a Vision for the whole of the borough. The Local Plan is currently being reviewed as part of Sutton Council’s wider vision for the whole of the borough in 2031-32 and is being prepared in the context of Sutton being a One Planet Borough with a proud identity as a green and environmentally-sustainable borough.

The Local Plan, which has detailed planning policies to help judge planning applications for new developments including those in the town centre, will be subject to a follow-up consultation in the autumn.

Bilfinger GVA (BGVA), one of the largest planning, development and regeneration advisers in the UK and Ireland, led the consortium that created the ambitious masterplan, which included Architecture 00, Urban Engineering Studio, and Allies and Morrison.

Jerry Freeman, Senior Director of Development at BGVA, said:

“The Sutton Town Centre Masterplan sets a strong, deliverable vision for the future of the Town Centre, with a clear direction for development and investment going forward to 2031. This provides the evidence and guidance to strengthen the competitive position of Sutton Town Centre as a key metropolitan centre in outer London. The Masterplan supports the council’s requirements and aspirations for the Town Centre. The council is now investigating ways to facilitate the Masterplan proposals through the use of its assets and its wider influence on development.”

The Town Centre Masterplan follows on from the Greater London Authority’s granting of Housing Zone status for Sutton Council’s Sutton One Housing Zone, which has identified 12 key sites for residential development in Sutton Town Centre and Hackbridge. The council has also set up a development company and investment vehicle to encourage businesses to invest in the borough.

Sutton Council is warning borough residents to be careful and not to become the victim of mail scams.

The warning was made by Trading Standards officers from Kingston and Sutton Shared Environment Service after the National Trading Standards Scams Team (NTS Scams Team) prevented almost 750,000 pieces of scam mail from entering the UK postal system in the last three months.

Nearly 750,000 (749,500) pieces of scam mail, including fake prize draws and clairvoyant scams, have been stopped from reaching the letterboxes of households around the country in the past three months*.

Although criminals behind the scams continually redesign their products to try to avoid raising suspicions, Sutton residents should look out for signs such as:

• A foreign return address
• An offer of a big pay out in return for a small purchase or administration fee
• Requests for personal details in order to claim a prize
• A letter claiming you have won a lottery that you did not enter
• Letters from a psychic or clairvoyant offering their services for a fee
• An offer that seems too good to be true.

Sutton Council Trading Standards recently came across a 90-year-old woman in the borough who had been conned out of £60,000 by unscrupulous people over the past decade. The pensioner received and responded to thousands of unsolicited letters and phone calls from the UK, France, The Netherlands, Canada and Australia.

Kingston and Sutton Shared Environment Service is urging people to look out for their neighbours, relatives and friends and to contact the Citizens Advice consumer helpline if they suspect that someone they know may be responding to scam mail.

Jan Gransden, Group Manager of Enforcement at Kingston & Sutton Shared Environment Service, said:

“We are asking Sutton residents to be vigilant if they receive unsolicited letters with an offer that sounds too good to be true – as this will in fact be the case. We helped a pensioner who ordered some make-up advertised in a mail-order catalogue, and a decade and thousands of letters later had spent £60,000 on worthless goods and lottery scams promising riches. The key message about any such letters is do not respond! We ask friends, neighbours and relatives to look out for scam mail in their parents’, children’s or friends’ houses and for banks to be on the lookout for suspicious transactions and uncharacteristic behaviour.”

Lord Toby Harris, Chair, National Trading Standards, said:

“National Trading Standards and our partners are working hard to stop scam mail reaching the hands of vulnerable people in our communities. However these new figures show that we are facing an uphill struggle.

“I would urge anyone who receives potentially fraudulent mail or who knows someone who might be receiving it to report it to the Citizens Advice consumer helpline on 03454 04 05 06.”

If you think you know someone who has been a scam victim or perhaps you believe you are a scam victim yourself, contact the Citizens Advice consumer helpline on 08454 04 05 0608454 04 05 06. The helpline will provide you with advice and pass the details onto Trading Standards.

How to spot scams and stop scams

• If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
• If you have not bought a ticket – you cannot win it.
• You should not have to pay anything to get a prize.
• If in doubt do not reply. Bin it delete it or hang up.
• Persuasive sales patter? Just say ‘No thank you’.
• Contacted out of the blue – be suspicious.
• Never give out you bank details unless you are certain you can trust the person contacting you.
• Take your time – resist pressure to make a decision straight away.
• Never send money to someone you do not know.
• Walk away from job ads that ask for money in advance.
• Your bank will never attend your home.
• The bank and the Police will never collect your bank card.
• Your bank and the Police will never ask for your PIN.
• Computer firms do not make unsolicited phone calls to help fix your computer.
• Do not suffer in silence – tell other  about scams.

Sutton Council has approved plans to outsource waste collection and street cleaning services from next year that will see borough households have a new weekly food waste collection service and almost double the amount of recycling capacity.

The plans to outsource services have been developed by the four boroughs in the South London Waste Partnership – Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton.

The maintenance of parks, cemeteries and ground maintenance in Sutton and Merton will be under another contractor.

On 1 August 2016, Sutton Council endorsed:

• Veolia as the recommended preferred bidder for a contract to provide a waste collection, street cleaning and winter gritting service across the four boroughs. Subject to approval from the other boroughs, the new service will start in Sutton in April 2017.

• The Landscape Group as the recommended preferred bidder for a contract to provide maintenance of parks, cemeteries and ground maintenance services to Sutton and Merton. Subject to approval from the other boroughs, the new service will begin in February 2017.

Sutton Council’s Environment and Neighbourhood Committee approved the preferred bidders at a meeting on 27 June 2016.

Sutton Council has agreed to the shared service approach with its neighbours due to the unprecedented Government cuts to the council’s budget, along with the opportunities to increase recycling rates. Currently Sutton has to save £31m from its annual budget due to Government cuts. The council’s annual budget is £148.4m.

The new contracts will enable Sutton Council to save £10.3m over the first eight years. It is estimated that Sutton’s recycling rate will increase from 37 per cent (2014/15) to 42 per cent by the end of the first year of the contract.

What it will mean for Sutton

Once the appointment of the approved contractors has been approved by all four boroughs, the process will enter a fine-tuning stage. Subject to this, the new services are likely to include:

Contract One (Veolia) – refuse, recycling, street cleaning and winter gritting

The changes will include:

• A new weekly food waste collection. Food waste currently accounts for 40 per cent of residual waste in Sutton. This will mean less waste to go to landfill, which is good for the environment.

• Increasing the amount of monthly recycling capacity per household from 480 litres to 810 litres. This includes a new smaller food waste bin collected weekly and an alternate-weekly collection of other recycling, with paper and card collected one week and tins, plastic and glass the next. The existing green recycling wheelie bin will be used to store paper and card, and a new recycling box will be provided for plastics, tin and glass bottles.

• Residual waste (brown wheelie bin) will be collected fortnightly rather than weekly. At present around 40 per cent of brown-bin waste is food waste, so the additional recycling capacity will mean residents will be able to reduce significantly the amount of waste in their brown bins.

• Garden waste collections for paying residents will be extended from nine months a year to all year round. This will be collected in the same green and brown wheelie bin.
• Street cleaning operations will be extended to 10pm from the current 6.30am start.

Contract Two (The Landscape Group) – maintenance of parks, cemeteries and ground maintenance

The Landscape Group will be responsible for the maintenance of parks, cemeteries and ground maintenance. Sutton Council will continue to own and manage borough parks and open spaces, while:

• Local Committees will continue to make decisions about replacing or adding equipment to parks, such as play and gym equipment and benches.
• Friends of Parks will continue to be involved, and will also monitor the standard of maintenance of our parks, alongside the council.

Cllr Jill Whitehead, Chair of the Environment and Neighbourhood Committee at Sutton Council, said:

“We are trying our best to manage the unprecedented Government cuts to our budgets, while also maintaining excellent services for our residents. The partnership with our neighbouring boroughs is an innovative approach to enable us to do that through weekly food collections and more opportunities to recycle. The new services will mean Sutton saves more than £10m by 2025, as well as increasing our recycling rate from 37 per cent (2014/15) to 42 per cent by the end of the first year. We will do this by almost doubling the amount of recycling available to households in Sutton, including the new weekly food waste collection, which will help us go towards meeting the One Planet Sutton targets.”

Notes

• Veolia is a UK leader in environmental solutions and The Landscape Group is a multi-award-winning horticultural, landscaping and grounds maintenance specialist.
• The contracts would be for an initial eight years. If, after eight years, the contracts are performing well, there are options to extend them for two further periods each of eight years by mutual consent.

• The procurement objectives are to reduce spend, increase income opportunities, and maintain high-quality services and customer satisfaction through environmentally-sustainable, carbon-effect, innovative solutions.
• One Planet Sutton is a vision for the borough where people lead happy, healthy lives with a fair share of the Earth’s resources. Sutton Council has committed to becoming a One Planet Borough by 2025. The council is working in partnership with a wide range of local voluntary and community groups to deliver this vision under the themes of cutting carbon emissions, cutting waste, valuing our natural environment, supporting healthy communities and supporting the local economy. Find out more about the One Planet Sutton initiative here.
• The South London Waste Partnership was formed in 2003 and has a proven record of providing cost-effective waste management services through the procurement of waste disposal, recycling and Household Refuse and Recycling Centre contracts.

Sutton’s proposed new waste collection service:

Current waste collection services provided by partner boroughs:

Croydon

Merton

Kingston