Paul Johnston

Very successful street surgery - or rather sugeries - last evening in Ellerton Road, Cotterill Road and Malvern Road and Close.

Major issues appear to be the Council's lettings policy re privately leased properties in the area, which is giving rise to concerns about anti-social behaviour. Apart from talking to councillors about it, residents should contact the new Safer Neighbourhood team for Surbiton Hill (aka the Met. Police). One resident told me of two arrests at the weekend of people scaling the scaffolding on a local house under repair. I was very pleased to note that the scheme seems to be working.

We had a team of 15 volunteers helping Nick Kilby and myself spend some quality time with local residents.

See earlier entries on this topic from February onward.

At the last Neighbourhood Committee we had a video presentation by local residents who want the bus gate closed. It showed all kinds of horrific breaches of the  regulations controlling the operation of the 'gate' - it's really just a gap as my February photos showed.

The upshot of this was that the whole committee agreed to petition Transport for London to close this dangerous gap. TfL have now written back to us noting, inter alia, that 'on Sunday 21st. May between 16.00 and 19.00 approximately 51 illegal vehicles passed through the gate which coincided with a major incident on the northbound A3'. Nonetheless, in spite of the evidence in front of his eyes and the considered views of local councillors of both parties and the Lib Dem MP and Conservative GLA member, Mr. Edser of TfL seems determined that the 'gate' is safe and he wants to keep it open. He cires local support for the retention of the bus stop which is currently accessed by buses from the A3 through the gate as being support for the gate itself. Perhaps he'd be better advised to consider whether the bus in question needs to use the A3 at all at this point and whether it might arrive at the stop in question by other roads avoiding using the 6-lane dual carriageway altogether. But of course Mr. Edser doesn't live locally and is responsible ultimately to the Mayor, who evinces very little interest in Kingston's concerns, and his long-term side-kick Dave Wetzel.

I note that the format of things has changed somewhat since I last wrote in this blog. I also se that Madam Mayor is chiding me somewhat for not having written in it. This will never do........

Having taken on the job of agent for all 48 of our candidates at the Kingston Borough election I inevitably found myself with a pretty full time job for a month getting their election expense returns completed, signed and returned. At the same time I have been working to update my knowledge of matters environmental to fit my new role as shadow to the Executive member for Environment and Sustainability. This means, among other things, listening to the people she doesn't listen to as well as the ones she does. We are to start a major scrutny of the waste management programme next month, so quite a bit of August will be taken up with getting that up and running.

The big political issue has raged around the Kingston Theatre. The Lib Dems having scarcely mentioned the topic in their election material only three months ago, decided that the deal whereby GMH ( owned by local resident Mr. Auchi) was to put up the remaining £3.4 million to fit out the theatre was no go. Mr. A's advisers were trying to impose over-onerous conditions. When exactly the Administration members knew this was going to be the case remains a matter of some doubt, but what emerged a very short time after the election was that they had decided that the Council would find the necessary funds itself from wherever. Our Scrutiny Panel, now Conservative dominated, called in the Executive's decision and found that it had not fulfilled its fiduciary duty to the CT payers in taking on a new commitment with budgetary implications which was risky and for which there was no electoral mandate. The decision was referred back to them, they having already decided on a reference to full Council. The full Council debate showed in a recorded vote a united front in favour of the spending proposal by all the Lib Dem councillors and against it by all the Conservative and Labour ones.

I hope that the theatre will now produce the revenues which will enable it to fund its own running costs and to meet the other financial obligations which have been taken on. I am sincere in hoping this, but I am also sincere in having some doubts about the prospect of this and fears that the theatre will find itself looking to the CT payers to bail it out of financial difficulties in the future ad infinitum. I just can't help recalling that we were told in 1998 that we could have this theatre without any financial commitment of public funds by the Council and that this proved an all-too-forlorn hope. Supporters point to a newspaper article last year which said that the theatre would bring £11million a year into the Borough. I read the article and looked in vain for convincing evidence in support of this assertion.

We shall see what we shall see.