This may all be a consequence of the current building works and a purely temporary phenomenon. I hope it is but I worry that it might be a precursor of the delivery and collection of children from the large new primary school. This is what local residents feared all along and what their councillors since 2010 turned a deaf ear to.

I for one have been incensed at reading the lies in  Focus.
Why not state this?
We the LIBERALS on the council :
gave permission for a building of townscape merit to be demolished (contrary to policy)
gave permission for 43 trees to be destroyed, many with TPO’s (contrary to policy)
gave permission for a school to be built without enough amenity space (contrary to policy) so that it needs a rooftop play area
gave permission for a school which will only have 6 car parking spaces for teachers
gave permission for a “polyclinic” expecting 8 doctor’s surgeries to move into it before checking whether the doctor’s wanted to move
So when the traffic is at a standstill in the Oakhill area and the Ewell Road is gridlocked,
the Liberals can say WE GAVE PERMISSION FOR THAT TO HAPPEN

There have been a number of meetings of  ‘stakeholders’ in the last few weeks, a special meeting of the Health Overview Panel of RBK and a meeting of the Board of the Kingston PCT on Tuesday 11th August.

The PCT has now appointed consultants   to design a scheme and take it forward. Key to the thinking on the future development of the site will be the findings in the report produced by McKinsey’s last year. Essentially the core development will be a polyclinic arrangement housing several GP practices and other, outpatient, facilities ancillary to them. This could mean that some treatments for which Surbiton and Chessington and Hook residents now have to travel to Kingston Hospital, may be carried out at the new Surbiton facility.

Other facilities could be developed on the site in addition to the purely medical ones in what is coming to be called a ‘polysystem’ approach or ‘community hub’.

Consultation should be starting in September and we would encourage all residents to make their views on the future services they would like to see on the site by whatever means they can. We happily offer this site as one means by which people may do so.

Paul Johnston, who has attended and spoken at all the meetings on the future of the site, told the PCT Board,

‘ I very much welcome the assurance of a future for this site as a state of the art health and social facility for the people of Surbiton. It has always been our aim and we will do all we can to speed the exciting plans forward’.

The core health and ancillary faclities will not take up the whole site and a question which will have to be addressed is what else might usefully go there. One idea being canvassed is a new primary school to meet the demand for school places in parts of Surbiton. Addressing the PCT, Paul said, ‘Everyone knows that there is a need for places for more school children in Surbiton. But I have serious doubts over whether any part of the hospital site is the right place to provide a new school, given problems of access that might very well arise, using the local roads.’

The ‘school question’ is, however, an entirely different one from the matter upon which the PCT will be consulting and residents should avoid confusing the two issues. RBK will have to consult on the school question entirely separately.

Or so I was led to believe at the time!

A group of local parents have launched a petition to pressurise the Royal
Borough of Kingston into providing sufficient primary school places in
Surbiton.

Please sign the “Local Schools for Local Children” petition at the following link: http://www.epetitions.kingston.gov.uk

(and please email the petition link to your friends and neighbours as well).

We want the council to:-

1. Add places in local primary schools to ensure no Surbiton child starting school in 2009 has to travel for more than 30 minutes (on foot or by public transport) to get to school.
2. Adjust admissions policies for 2010 onwards to make schools take into account how far a child will have to travel if they don’t get offered a place at their nearest schools.
3. Add capacity in the local area for the long term to make sure that this problem doesn’t keep happening every year.

This year there are 300 more applicants than places originally available in the borough. Last year there was a shortfall of over 200.

Surbiton is the worst affected area. The problem is plainly getting worse. We need a permanent solution, not a series of last minute temporary “bulge classes”.

The Cranes Park / Cheyne Hill / North Berrylands area is no longer covered by the catchment area of any of the four local Surbiton schools.   Uuntil very recently it seemed as if RBK were hellbent on forcing children in this area to schools as far away as Knollmead, New Malden and Malden Manor.

Political pressure has hopefully persuaded RBK to provide more bulge classes in three out of the four Surbiton primary schools for this year’s intake.

But what will they do for the next four or five years when the Surbiton schools run out of space to accommodate bulge classes, and any new buildings have yet to be completed? If you have any children aged under two, there is a very real possibility that you will be forced to travel well outside Surbiton to find a school place.

He has published a ‘Focus’ leaflet in which

John Ayles explains “The Conservative candidate in this by-election was a leading opponent of the new school and backer of their own nonsensical plans. Why on earth did he want to stop a new school in his own ward, or want to kick elderly people out of a home and see a valuable community asset sold off.”

This statement is untrue and defamatory. Further Mr. Ayles is now implicated with him as the author of this untrue and defamatory statement.

Nick Kilby has never been opposed to a new school in this area.  In fact he was one of the local representatives who at the time led demands that the Liberal Democrat Council recognise the need for primary school places across the Borough, and provide a new school in this area.  He has consistently been in favour of this provision.  He has also never articulated his support in word or print for any proposal to sell off any community asset or old people’s home, and to assert that he was willing to “kick elderly people out of their home” is a blatant lie. What is more Nick was at great pains to point this out the first time Mr. Ayles uttered this statement.

This is not, as the Comet has it, ‘a spat’. It is a serious matter, as our further advice tells us

‘the issues that you have raised may require investigation by the Police because the making of false statements, and a failure to display the required details on an election publication, are both election related criminal offences under the Representation of the People Act, 1983.’ 

The other issue by the way is the widespread issue of another ‘Focus’ leaflet in the ward during the election campaign, which does not bear the identifying marks which election law requires. Mr. Hayes is responsible in law for the conduct of his candidate’s campaign.

The Liberal Democrats of all people should be aware of how seriously the Law now takes the uttering of false statements about rival candidates. It was on their petition that Phil Woolas (Lab. Oldham East and Saddleworth) was recently deprived of his parliamentary seat for just such an offence as that allegedly committed by Mr. Ayles and his agent.

The electors of Surbiton Hill should be aware of this. If you vote Liberal Democrat, this is the kind of thing you’re voting for.

Hi

I thought you might be interested to know that the Police Station on the Ewell Road near me is going to be turned into a Study Centre open 10-6 for 80 students (50% from overseas) with 17 car spaces (How many are being allocated to the hospital site for teachers?) It goes to committee on 7th Sep with a recommendation for approval. No doubt Kingston would have said that the site was too small for a school!! It started life as a school before being a police station and they must  have known it was being sold before they settled on the hospital site. As the site is of Townscape merit it will not be altered just added to.

Hope you are all well

Bridget Walker

Relevant documents on the RBK website can be accessed here.

Re: Meeting at Dysart School, 14 June 2011 – two bids for running the new school

Points from the meeting;

• Construction of the school and health centre will start in August
• There will be provision for 24 special needs children – not 16 as previously indicated
• The Surbiton Health education Trust existence was new to me. I suspect that this was a driver for making the development a joint application
• This trust is bidding on the basis of providing a school which has NHS input to support the curriculum in diet and nutrition, health and well being, PE and sport with NHS advisers also working in the health centre.
• Both bidders, in a response to a question from me regarding annual funding and prioritising the funding of teaching resources, stated that the annual funding will be state provided and that the appointed head and senior staff would be responsible for the deployment of resources. No indication as to how much of the state funding would be used to pay a trust, which is a profit making concern, its fees for running the school.
• I was more in tune with the Surbiton Trust as they talked about how the school would be managed. Lilac were more concerned about stating their experience nationwide.
• The Surbiton trust talked about the school being self sustaining, with solar panels ( was this on the planning application does anyone know?) and forming the habit of walking or cycling to school as part of an eco-drive.
• The school would be a full community location to be used for sport and activities 7 days a week (yes – including Sundays) and every evening outside school teaching times. (So much for a noise assessment claiming there to be no impact on the local community).
• I still fail to see why there is a need to pay money to hand over the management of the school to a trust instead of it being LA led.

I attach some documents relating to the two bids. I also found the ‘response booklet’ pdf file on the RBK website. It invites people to come to the meeting on 14 June.

Our house did not have this leaflet delivered to us. Did anyone else receive it?

Maybe readers should enquire as to whether these have been distributed or is this ‘consultation’ again relying on people finding it by accident online or if they happen to go to the library?

The closing date for comments is 15 July.

There is a public meeting tonight (7 p.m.) at Dysart School. At this meeting the 2 bidders for running the new school will be presenting their plans and it would be good if we had some of us going to it to represent the local community.

One bidder is Surbiton Education health trust (SEHT). This is made up of Kingston Council, NHS Kingston, SW London Health Partnerships and Your Health Care – i.e NHS would be part responsible for the school? Not what we were told during so called consultation.

1. There’s a Planning meeting on Wednesday at which matters relating to the CNM sites will be raised.
2. The Oakhill school issue is still definitely not dead; and
3. The ward is still represented on the Council by a resident and taxpayer in Elmbridge!