I spent a wet Wednesday morning trialling around Holland and Hurst Green looking a sites for new permanent bus stops. Southdown PSV have taken over from Metrobus as the local operator and have changed the service to ensure a regular half hourly service to Oxted and Redhill six days per week. According to both the operator and local taxi drivers (who have been be-moaning their loss of business) this has been a total success. I hope we managed the tricky balance of bus passengers, other road users and residents who have a bus stop outside their homes. I am sure I will hear if we didn't!
As a council we are starting to put together our budget for the next financial year. It is going to be a tough one. The Labour Government having indebted British taxpayers money on a colossal scale have no money for underfunded Councils like Tandridge and we are very aware that local residents suffering from lower incomes, the threat or reality of redundancy are not able to support a large increase in council tax. But with a large fall in our income from other sources the difficulty will be to protect the front line services which are so highly valued by those who use them.
Tandridge is a safe place, but our position near London, Kent Sussex and the M25 means that we sometimes get the odd case of serious criminality - such as the attempted armed robbery on the Londis shop and attacks on the One-Stop and two weeks ago an attempted attack on a girl in the middle of Oxted in broad daylight on a Sunday. Fortunately the girl managed to get away, but these acts demonstrate the need for a partnership between a properly funded and democratically accountable Police force and local people who keep an eye on their neighbourhood and report all criminal and anti-social acts.
