North Surrey
In Green Party terms, by North Surrey we mean the boroughs of Elmbridge, Runnymede, and Spelthorne - roughly the area bounded by Berkshire and London to the NW, by Woking to the S, and stretching E as far as Thames Ditton, Esher and Cobham. Surrey Green Party have now voted to select two prospective parliamentary candidates for this area, Jenny Gould for the Runnymede and Weybridge constituency and Nette Woods for the Spelthorne constituency.
We are currently reviewing when and where we hold our meetings, with a survey of members in the area. The first meeting of 2010 will be on 6th January at the Red Lion in Egham High Street. Official business will start at 19:00, an hour earlier than previous meetings have started, and Jenny will be around from 18:00 to meet members for informal discussions, socialising, and the pub food which is available until 19:00. Details of meetings after that are yet to be decided in light of responses to the survey, and will be posted here after the meeting. Following Jenny's campaigns in recent local elections we are keen to build up momentum through a network of active members with the long-term aim of a second target-to-win candidate in the county. It is intended that tbe synergy of two neighbouring candidates will benefit both campaigns. Both Jenny and Nette have contacts with bands who are prepared to help with fund (and awareness) raising events.
This part of Surrey boasts a proud history of radicalism, from the barons at Runnymede forcing King John to relinquish his monopoly on power to Gerard Winstanley leading the Diggers on Weybridge's St. George's Hill. We have been developing policy on local issues, and have good relations with the local Greenpeace group.
HEATHROW.
Although the airport itself is outside Surrey, its impact - including on global climate change - reaches well into the county. More flights would mean more noise over Staines and Egham, more risk of accidents and so more pressure on Ashford and St. Peter's hospitals, and more traffic on the M25 and other local roads. The loss of housing from a third runway would raise demand for housing around the airport, including on land along the Thames and its tributaries made all the more prone to flooding by increased global warming. For these reasons expansion must stop now.
A new rail link is proposed between Staines and Heathrow, with through trains to Guildford and Reading. We are calling for any new plans for rail links to Heathrow to take into account local needs as well as airport needs, as has happened to some extent at Gatwick. We are for example calling for the Guildford trains to provide a worthwhile north-south link within Surrey, as well as with the airport, and the Reading ones to be routed further north to avoid putting a strain on local level crossings.
TRUMPS FARM AND CHARLTON LANE.
For most of 2009 an incinerator was being proposed at Trumps Farm, alongside the M3 south of Virginia Water. While the location is a relatively rural one, the prevailing wind from the southwest would blow the toxic gases inherent to waste incineration over the more populated parts of Runnymede along the Thames, and beyond that into Spelthorne.
After a strong campaign by locals, including Green Party and Greenpeace activists, Surrey county council has now decided to abandon its incineration plans in favour of building up recycling resources at a site in Charlton Lane in the Sunbury-Ashford-Shepperton triangle. This will be an "eco-park" with both actual recycling facilities and a public education area. It sounds very promising, but we will be investigating the detailed planned to check that its benefits to the wider comunity outweigh any problems inherent in any new industrial development.
LOCAL COLLEGES.
A few years ago Brunel University moved out of its campus overlooking Runnymede from the top of Cooper's Hill, to concentrate resources at its main Uxbridge campus. Local borough and county council candidate Jenny Gould has led the way in raising local resistance to using the land for unsuitable development. Ideally it should remain in the academic sector as an extension of Royal Holloway, University of London, which is based on nearby Egham Hill and looking for new student accommodation.
A similar controversy has recently arisen with a different kind of college. Two technical colleges, Brooklands near Weybridge station and Spelthorne in Ashford, merged a few years ago under the umbrella of the Brooklands name, with the intention that they should continue in parallel. However the merged college now plans to sell off the Ashford campus, and students have ben asked to be flexible about their courses. Strodes College in Egham, which caters for the same age band, says that it cannot take up any overflow from the Ashford closure.
For information on Green Party activities in North Surrey contact Jenny Gould - phone: 01784 431998 or e-mail: jenny "at" gould.to .
