Tandridge Lesiure

Going back to last week, I along with a number of Councillors was given a tour of the various facilities operated by Tandridge Leisure Limited (TLL) in the district. TLL was formed back in 2000 from the Leisure Directorate of TDC, when the government's funding arrangements made it more sensible to set up a community trust to operate the two leisure centres than for the Council to continue to operate them.

Unfortunately the two swimming pools are starting to show their age and will require substantial investment over coming years. However both are very well equipped - the gyms would put most private health clubs to shame - and very well patronised.

And even more impressive was 'The Arc', a new facility opened on the Caterham Barracks site, which provides a soft play centre and a variety of spaces that can be used from anything to art classes for the disabled to hosting teenage band nights. This is a wonderful space and one TLL are using to the benefit of the community.

TLL also gave us a presentation on the wide range of activities they put on in the community every week, the majority aimed at young people, including the Surrey Youth Games, but many more that are not. They reach 1800 young people per week. I for one was largely unaware of these activities, but having seen just a couple of highlights was convinced that they are doing a great job catering for this unprovided for age group.

I left feeling that Tandridge is much the better for having TLL

Policing Update

The bi-monthly Police Panel took place on Tuesday night. After a very quiet last meeting there was much more to report.

A group of children , some of whom maybe as young as 8 are creating trouble in the Greenway/Boulthurst Way/Red Lane/Holland Lane areas. They appear to delight in throwing gravel, smashing windows and otherwise menacing local residents. It seems one of the ring leaders may well be known to the Police and they will be looking to put a stop to this as soon as possible.

Other anti social behaviour has been taking place in the sheltered housing at the top of Coldshott and in the flats off the Greenway where fire extinguishers have been set off.

Also at Coldshott a couple of cars have been burnt out and two JCBs on the old Ajax site have also been set alight causing £150,000 of damage.

Oxted South and Hurst Green on the whole is a quiet, pleasant and friendly place to live.I trust this is all just a temporary intrusion and things will be back to normal as soon as possible.

Southern Railway - Corporate Lies

I am a little disturbed by the behaviour of Southern Railway. To be fair to them I think Southern is a well run franchise and we are fortunate locally to have such new trains. It would be better if they were more frequent, but that is down to Government and to Network Rail not the local operator.

However they have a nasty habit of telling lies when they have to run 'short trains' out of London Bridge to East Grinstead or Uckfield in the evening rush hour. Every so often when there is a problem with rolling stock (the fact they have no spare stock is also poor) they have to run six, four or even two carriage trains rather than eight. On those occasions the guards have started to repeatedly announce while boarding is taking place that the train will not stop at East Croydon, only as soon as the train has departed to reinstate the stop.

Clearly what they are doing is trying to encourage those who require East Croydon to use another train, of which admittedly there is plenty of choice to free up space for those off to Oxted and beyond. I can see that they think they are doing it for the best of reasons. But even so for a company to deliberately set out to deceive on this minor of matters does not instill confidence that they would tell the truth about more major ones.

Resources Committee

A packed agenda last night, important issues, but not ones that necessarily excite: Pensions, the Council's Medium Term Financial Strategy and the distribution of papers to Councillors.

The most important issue on the agenda, although not the most controversial was the Council"s objectives for the comming municipal year. Rather than a whole list of deliverables I was pleased to see we were focussing on three big issues - Recycling, implementing our new Planning Core Strategy and meeting residents' housing needs.

A clear focus on key deliverables while running and efficent operation will ensure that we deliver our aims to provide high quality services while keeping council tax at the lowest level possible despite our very very low (and very unfair) government grant.

Social Injustice

One of the highlights from my brief time at Conference was a presentation given by Iain Duncan Smith on Social breakdown. it powerfully highlighted the problems faced by children and young people today and he made the point that when the state intervenes to put children in care things tend to get worse. Only 12% of children in care get 5 GCSEs at Grade C or above and nearly half all under 21s in the criminal justice system were in care. And much of the serious crime that occurs on our streets is caused by young people, especially those in gangs, He made clear that the major cause of this is the impact of neglect, with outcomes often being determined in our earliest years. He showed evidence comparing the human brain of a normal 3 year old to one who had been seriously neglected. The latter child's development had been stunted with different parts of the brain unable to make connection

Truly shocking stuff. IDS's Centre for Social Justice is doing sterling work highlighting this issue and proposing solutions - they have 237 proposed polices in the wings. I recommend taking a look at his presentation for more information:http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/client/downloads/20080930ConservativePartyConferenceMainstage.ppt

Weekly Recycling to Go District Wide

I returned yesterday from a rather shorter trip than I had originally intended to Conservative Party conference, the current extreme financial market conditions requiring me to be at work instead.

However I was able to hear Eric Pickles, the Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government announce a commitment to allow councils that have dropped weekly refuse collections restore them under a Conservative Government. In Tandridge we have resisted the financial pressures to leave rubbish festering for a fortnight and what's more we have done this while extending the weekly curbside recycling scheme.

And in the same week therefore it is great that the Council have announced that our weekly recycling service, which includes the collection of plastic bottles, will be rolled out across the whole of Tandridge district from 2 February 2009. That means an additional 18,000 homes in Tandridge will be able to take part and have recycling collected every week. And on the same day as the bins are emptied. This means all rubbish - black bags for landfill and reusable waste for recycling can be easily disposed of on the same day.