The Council have recently received a licensing application to sell plants and produce on the pavement from Rhubarb and Bramley, the new greengrocers in Unit C, Beacon Grove, Carshalton High Street. Local councillors have made no objection and we of course wish the greengrocers all the best for a successful trading future in our High Street
Rhubarb and Bramley Beacon Grove to the far right with: Costa Coffee’s Proposed New Premises to the left
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Local residents may have seen planting that was carried out to the landscaped area at 40-46 Coleridge Avenue, Sutton to the buffer slip and at the front of site at the end of March 2013. Local councillors Alan, Hamish and Jill asked that this be done a few months’ ago.
The council’s planning officer has revisited recently and the plants seem to have taken well and given time will provide screening.
In respect of the long narrow gap between the property of no. 38 Coleridge Avenue and the acoustic fence that the councillors’ also enquired about, unfortunately no requirement was made under the planning approval to screen this area and therefore the planning officer cannot enforce any screening.
Grosvenor Avenue Carshalton in quieter times…
The Council is conducting a consultation about traffic calming proposals in Grosvenor Avenue: all households in that road and Park Avenue are being consulted on these proposals.
Transport for London has provided Local Implementation Plan funding of £30,000 for traffic calming measures in Grosvenor Avenue. They have agreed to fund three traffic islands, two speed indicator signs and double yellow lines at the islands if these are also required. TfL do not encourage the use of road humps, cushions or any other form of vertical deflection as a method of controlling speeds. Subject to consultation it is proposed to install traffic islands outside Numbers 34, 84 and 98 Grosvenor Avenue and flashing speed signs outside Numbers 19 and 74.
A letter and plan showing details of the proposals were distributed 10 June, to all residents in Grosvenor Avenue and Park Avenue. The consultation finishes on 5 July 2013.
The results of consultation will be discussed with the Chair of the Committee, Cllr. Hamish Pollock and the other local councillors.
If residents don’t wish to have the currently-proposed traffic calming measures put in place, then all they need to do is to say so in the current consultation. There is no proposal for 20MPH or road closures or anything else on the table for Grosvenor Avenue, only the proposals being consulted on.
Carshalton & Clockhouse local committee chair Cllr. Hamish Pollock reports: “The recently-publicised road safety improvement works at the junction of Grosvenor Avenue and Park Lane have just been completed. The works followed a local consultation about safety measures at this busy junction. Councillors asked officers to improve sightlines for motorists exiting Grosvenor Avenue into Park Lane, and improve safety for drivers exiting Grosvenor Road into Park Lane also.”
Aerial Shot of St. Helier Hospital
We received a message recently from Tom Brake MP for the constituency of Carshalton & Wallington.
Dear Friend,
Yesterday it was announced that the healthcare review that recommended that A&E and maternity services should be axed at St Helier hospital has been delayed due to concerns about the financial viability of the proposals.Local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and NHS London were due to meet later this month to vote on whether the proposals to downgrade our local hospital should go to public consultation. This decision will now be taken after the summer.
I have always been clear that the review that has recommended that St Helier Hospital be downgraded is completely flawed. The review is based upon incomplete data, incorrect travel times and relies upon alternative health services that don’t even exist.
Already more than 10,000 people have signed my petition to keep open St Helier Hospital’s A&E department and maternity unit, but we need to get more signatures – so that we can demonstrate the strength of the local opposition to these proposals.
But I need your help – can you deliver a few leaflets about the Save Our St Helier campaign in your local area to encourage others to sign the petition?
If so, just click here to send me your details and someone from the Save Our St Helier team will be in touch.
Together we can fight for the future of our hospital.
Best Wishes
Tom Brake MP
Liberal Democrat for Carshalton and WallingtonPS: You can also download a hard copy of the petition by clicking here.
Local residents and councillors Alan, Jill and Hamish have been invited to a meeting with the Metropolitan Housing Trust who operate the 44-flat development at the junction of Shorts Road and Carshalton Road (Carter House, Denny House, and Jennings House).
Carter House viewed from the east in Carshalton Road
Chair of the Council’s Environment & Neighbourhoods Committee, Cllr. Jill Whitehead reports: “We have recently asked Sutton Council officers that the lumps of concrete and asbestos roofing dumped on the roadway in a location in Wales Avenue, Carshalton be removed, which was done. This is however a recurrent problem. If any residents have any information on the person or persons dumping the building material, or the registration number of the vehicle from which the waste material/rubbish came we would be pleased to hear from them.”
Residents in the vicinity of the football club off Colston Avenue, Carshalton will receive from Jill, Alan and Hamish in the next day or two a Special FOCUS leaflet. Please see link to the leaflet at the bottom of this posting.
We will be delivering the leaflet to all households in nearby roads in the Poets’ Estate (northern, eastern and middle sections as far as Kingsley Avenue) and also eastern end of Westmead Road, and all of Highfield Road and Rossdale. The leaflet contains the following text:-
Cllr. Jill Whitehead, Chair of the Council’s Environment & Neighbourhoods Committee, says: “Your ward councillors and three local resident representatives recently met the Carshalton Athletic Football Club Chairman (CAFC) and his team to discuss their plans for a new all-weather football pitch, to replace the current earth pitch. They intend to apply for substantial funds from the Football Association and submit a planning application to Sutton Council in the autumn, with building starting in summer 2014. They plan to replace current training activity in Wrythe Recreation Ground with activity on the all-weather pitch in the ground, thus reducing traffic and parking stress along Brookfield Avenue.
Cllr. Alan Salter adds: “In order to reduce other parking and traffic stress in the Colston Avenue area, the club plans to seek double yellow lines and road signage for its entrance in Colston Avenue, and also direct visitors to park in a largely unused alternative car park at the rear of the ground next to the Woodland Trust nature reserve, which can accommodate significant numbers of cars. We have asked the club to look at ways the new pitch (if it is agreed) could be shielded from residents in Mead Crescent to reduce noise and light problems e.g. by planting trees or erecting a noise barrier. CAFC is currently going door- to- door in local roads to seek local residents’ views on their proposals, and will report back shortly on their consultation exercise.
Cllr. Hamish Pollock, Chair of the Council’s Carshalton & Clockhouse Local Committee added: “We have also just been alerted to plans by Carshalton High School for Girls to build a new sports hall, on the adjacent site next to Carshalton Athletic Football Club. This could put extra parking pressure on residents in Brookfield Avenue, who have already commented to us about parental parking, and in other roads on the Poets Estate, as well as problems of lighting and noise currently referred to by local residents.”
More in a future posting.
FOCUS Special June 2013 Carshalton Athletic
Cllrs. Jill Whitehead, Alan Salter and Hamish Pollock reported recently the rash of graffiti on the fence opposite the footbridge over the River Wandle by Paper Mill Close.
We are pleased to learn that the team have started graffiti-removal work should be completed this week.
Please let us know if there is some other graffiti that needs removing.
Jill, Alan and Hamish have been advised that the local Post Office would seem to have plans to close down the branch in the St Nicholas Centre, Sutton sometime next year. Cllr. Ruth Dombey, leader of Sutton Council has already spoken to the staff and they are understandably very concerned.
Cllr. Ruth Dombey has been asked to speak at a public meeting at the Salvation Army Hall in Benhill Avenue, Sutton this Friday, 14th June 6-8pm. She haven’t been involved in the organisation or the publicity for the meeting but as we are concerned that not many people know about it so we thought we would post the details.
We think it would be a huge mistake for this post office to close. There are already long queues at both our main post offices and this would just make it worse. It is quite a long uphill walk from the bottom of the High Street to Grove Road and the idea that this would be the only post office for central Sutton is just crazy.
Please feel free to attend the meeting. It is being organised by the Post Office staff union (CWU) and is open to the public.