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Waverley Local Committee: Decisions

Details of Surrey County Council’s Local Committe for Waverley, with agenda, minutes and decisions, can be found here.

The Highways Update (Item 74) is particularly interesting where the budget has been cut by 90%

Onstreet Parking fines have generated a ‘surplus’ of £63,637 which is delegated to the Local Committee to spend. There was much parochial lobbying for this money, particularly from the Farnham Councillors, from where most of these fines were generated. The officers recommendation was not to spend it on roads at all, but a vegetation gang to keep highways clear of overhanging foliage. After much debate this was eventually agreed,

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Government Rates U-Turn impacts Surrey

Surrey County Council set to overspend by £24 MILLION – see Lib Dem news here.
“The new government has also dropped plans to allow councils to retain their business rates next year, which the Conservative administration anticipated as a potential lifeline for the county council when the budget was set in February.” This is incredibly significant for the Council going forward. The Local Government Finance Bill never made it to the Queen’s Speech.

George Osbourne promised Councils in 2015 that they could keep the £26billion raised in Business Rates in lieu of the Block Grant. He billed it as “embarking on the biggest transfer of power to our local government in living memory.”

Now there is not only no power, there is no money either.

A link to the Council’s budget monitoring report can be found here:

https://mycouncil.surreycc.gov.uk/documents/b17440/Budget%20monitoring%20report%20Tuesday%2027-Jun-2017%2014.00%20Cabinet.pdf?T=9

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Cranleigh Tip proposed closure

Surrey County Council has just launched a consultation on ‘Shaping Surrey’s Community Recycling Centres -2017‘. Please submit your views at this online survey here.

The main changes are:

1. Ending the free daily allowance of non-household waste

2. Closing CRCs on two weekdays so all sites are open for five days a week

3. Ensuring CRCs in Camberley and Farnham are only used by Surrey residents

4. Permanent closure of four smaller CRCs – Bagshot, Cranleigh, Warlingham and Dorking

5. Restricting users of vans, trailers and pick-ups to larger CRCs only

There is no doubt that the increased traffic to the Witley Recycling Centre will impact on Godalming users (not to mention the daft increase in pollution), with longer queues in and out of the site and more traffic on back roads and A281.  With at least 1500 new homes planned for Cranleigh at the moment (without Dunsfold Park’s 1800+) it seems there is no lack of demand for the facility in Cranleigh!

The Lib Dems on Surrey have issued this press release, rightly highlighting the environmental issues. Cllr Stephen Cooksey said: “These proposals are a green light for flytipping in Surrey. The Conservatives at County Hall are making it harder and harder for people to do the right thing and dispose of their waste responsibly. The environmental consequence of discouraging the use of Recycling Centres would be very significant. Furthermore, these plans are being pushed by the Conservatives because of the financial crisis at County Hall caused by their failure to persuade their Conservative central government to provide a better funding settlement.”