Boris 4 Mayor - Official

It has been announced that Boris Johnson has been elected as Conservative Candidate to be Mayor of London by an overwhelming majority. Boris got 75% of the 20,019 votes cast.

In my view this is great news for Londoners as they now have the chance to vote for a credible talented and enthusiastic candidate to replace Ken Livingstone.

Well Done Boris.

Brown's Speech/Autumn Election

The thing that struck me about Brown's speech is that he thinks he can continue to get away with re-heating previous spending committments(or announcing new unfunded ones) time after time. I am sure that he realises very well that when his 'Brown Bounce' finally wears off (as it will - even not this year) that British voters will twig that this is a continuation of the spin seen in the Blair-Brown years. Given this - what is he playing at?

Perhaps the public finance figures, also published yesterday, provide the answer. These show a worsening in the public sector deficit, worse that projected in the last Budget which was already forcing Brown as Chancellor to reign in on spending. This therefore is not good news for the Government.

It would therefore not be unreasonable for Brown to seek his own mandate from the country while people are feeling wealthy and are still willing to belive his promises rather than examining his record.

If I were him thats exactly what I would do - the polls suggest he would score a clear victory, Labour activists are buoyed and would campaign with enthusiasm. However, Brown is a cautious politician and he won't want to throw away the job he has wanted for so long.

The press today say he will wait until after the Conservative Conference before making a decision, but in my view the odds are now in favour of a General Election this year.

Police Raid Londis on Hurst Green Road

For the record, readers may be interested in the following Surrey Mirror article by Ben Anderson:

POLICE arrested five people after raiding a village shop they suspect is the hub of a credit card scam.

Ten officers stormed the Londis store, in Hurst Green Road, at 9am last Friday, seizing equipment from the shop before arresting three men aged 18, 24, and 37, and a 32-year-old woman from Oxted.

They also arrested a 23-year-old man from London and questioned all five in connection with fraud during the weekend before releasing them on bail while the investigation continues.

Officers spent Friday scouring the shop for evidence,turning away puzzled villagers approaching the store for groceries, and a group of refuse collectors who came to clear the rubbish.

For the full article see:

http://icsurreyonline.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200surreyheadlines/tm_headline=police-raid-corner-shop-in-credit-card-scam-operation&method=full&objectid=19815132&siteid=50101-name_page.html

Weekly Recycling in Oxted South from October

I wrote last month that weekly doorstep recycling, including for plastic bottles would soon be coming to Oxted and Hurst Green.

Well I can now confirm that on Tuesday 2 October, Tandridge District Council, in partnership with Biffa Waste Services, will roll out a weekly recycling service to 5,500 households in Hurst Green and Oxted. Recycling will be picked up on the usual collection day, but every week instead of fortnightly and includes the collection of plastic bottles.

In parts of Lingfield, Warlingham, Caterham Valley, Dormansland and Whyteleafe who have had the service since last summer weekly collections have increased the number of households taking part in recycling and the overall recycling rate to over 26%. By extending the service, the Council hopes even more households will recycle and reduce the amount of household waste sent to landfill.

Oxted in the News

For readers who would like to know when Oxted comes into the news Google operate a News Alerts service (for free) and will email you whenever it picks up a story with Oxted in the title.

To set-up an alert follow this link

Thanks to Roger Adcock for pointing this out to me.

Reassuring words

I refer not to anything that might be coming from 11 Downing Street but to Michael Bond, the creator of Paddington Bear.

After wild rumours that Paddington has stopped eating Marmalade in favour of Marmite, Mr Bond has had to deliver a reassuring statement promising that Paddington has not deserted the orange sandwich filling. According to the BBC website he stated "It would require a good deal more than the combined current withdrawals from Northern Rock to wean him off marmalade".

I can now sleep soundly again.

I am on holiday for the next couple of days so apologies if there is a gap until the next entry.

Village Life

In contrast to this morning's cold start, Saturday was sunny and warm - absolutely perfect for the Hurst Green Village Fair. It was great to see the event so well supported with stalls publicising and raising money for a variety of local causes and organisations. Among the many there included the Rotary & Inner Wheel, Hurst green Scouts - running a very satisfying crockery smashing stall -, three of the Churches (St John's, Pains Hill Chapel and the Evangelical Church), Oxted One World Group, a couple of the play groups, the Hurst Green Society and many more all to the backdrop of music from the Oxted Band and refreshments served by the Aggies on the Green group.

It was great to bump into so many people from the local area (literally in some cases as it was so busy). And to top it all I managed to win a prize on the tombola! An enjoyable way to pass the last Saturday of the Summer.

Housing in Tandridge Good News/Bad News

As local residents might have noticed in the press Government Inspectors have said that Tandridge will need to make provision for 2,500 new houses over the next 20 years. In one way we are very fortunate. The 125 dwellings per annum we have been told we need is the joint second lowest in the whole of the south east and is substantially below the current rate of building in the district.

However this doesn't tell the whole story.

* This is a minimum, not a target. The Council has been told it cannot ration planning permissions.

* At current rates of building, the district would meet this target on 'windfall' sites alone - a windfall site is one not identified in the Local Development Framework (currently known as the local plan) and usually these are redevelopments of existing residential and industrial sites (including the notorious back garden developments). The Labour Government have told us that we have to ignore this and provide new sites for building anyway.

*As I have mentioned before the vast majority of Tandridge is Green Belt. New building will have to take place within the urban areas Caterham/Warlingham/Whyleafe, Woldingham and Oxted/Hurst Green. This will have to be achieved by 1) more back garden development, 2) The loss of green space or commercial sites in the towns 3) Loss of Green Belt. Either way these areas are going to get more built up.

Oh, and of course Hazel Blears, the Secretary of State and Yvette Cooper the Housing Ministers, could ignore all of this and make us build far more anyway

No More Smoke Filled Rooms

At last night's planning and environment committee we agreed to allow council officers to issue fixed penalty notices for those persistently flouting the smoking bans.

We did so after hearing from the officers that by and large the ban has enforced itself with very few reported transgressions and in most of these cases an informal warning was all that was needed. Granting the power to issue notices will allow the Tandridge to deal with the very small number who refuse to play ball without going through the courts..

More on Brown

I try to set the right balance between coverage of local issues and national politics. So apologies if this is too much like the last post in nature.

In this morning's Times Peter Riddell says the following 'As often with Mr. Brown, the doubt is not over the analysis, but over the myriad initiatives. He seems to believe that the appearance of activity is an answer.'

This I believe sets out a key difference in philosophy between this Brown Government and Cameron's Conservatives. While Conservatives believe in enabling society to develop a framework in which people can live their own lives, Labour believes in using the power of the state to regulate, cajole and control. But as we see time after time (e.g. Tax Credits, Sure Start Scheme, the dozens of unimplemented Criminal Justice Acts)these are often just expensive failures. A new approach is needed.

Taxing Times

I was amused (but not surprised) to see that the most authoritative annual guide to UK Taxes - Tolley's Tax Guide - has had to reduce the typeface size used in printing, to keep it from spilling over 10,000 pages. In 2001 it was less than 6,000 pages.

On a serious point, the added complexity of the tax system has been caused by PM Brown, when as Chancellor he raised taxes by stealth to avoid big number increases in income tax and VAT. The result is that we have a very confusing and bureaucratic system which hits our international competitiveness and is often unfairest on the poorest in society.

Whatever the level of taxation we have, it would be an unambiguously good thing too have a simpler more straight forward system

Gordon's latest Gimmick - Citizens Juries

The Prime Minister says that the days of making policy in Whitehall are over and that Citizens Juries are the way forward.

Unfortunately I don't think it is possible to take that statement at face value - Who are these citizens, who do they represent, how will they come up with decisions and how will these be implemented? In short I believe that these 'Juries' are no more than grandiosely titled focus groups, which will come up with a few ideas which will then go into the normal civil service policy making process.

It looks like Mr Brown is carrying on with the same old Labour Spin.

What we need are real powers being transferred back from central government and unelected quangos to local people to make decisions that affect their parish, their district and their county, not gimmicks designed to win headlines for a couple of days.

Tandridge Leisure pool re-open

I am a bit slow off the mark on this one...

But it is great to report that the Swimming Pool at Tandridge Leisure Centre reopened yesterday. Permanent repair work will take place over the next few months, but Tandridge Leisure are hopeful that this will not prove too disruptive.

Bring it on Gordon

Last night the Executive of the East Surrey Conservative Association re-adopted Peter Ainsworth as our candidate for Parliament at the next General Election. As a local party we are now ready for an election at any time the Prime Minister would like to call one.

Today however it looks less likely that one will be called, in the near future at least, as the polls are showing that the Brown bounce has started to subside and we are now running neck and neck with Labour in terms of popular support (albeit that unfortunately that applied to the House of Commons the result would still be a small majority for Labour in seats given the mechanics of our electoral system).

Given the Prime Minister has waited so long to get his hands on the levers of power, he would be a brave man to go the country at this stage, and given Mr Brown's cautious nature my feeling is that we still have some time to wait.