Category Archives: Environment

15 years more of sewage discharges into our rivers!

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Our MP, Ben Spencer, and many other Conservative MPs have just voted to pass a target which will allow water companies to dump harmful substances into rivers until 2038.

The Environment Act, which was voted on in Parliament last week, set a target of an 80% reduction in phosphates in rivers by 2038. Phosphates are naturally occurring minerals deriving from human waste and too much phosphate can cause a dramatic growth in algae and deplete oxygen levels when they are dumped in rivers. This new regulation would allow sewage to continue to be dumped in rivers for another 15 years.

Recent analysis has already shown the lack of care from the Conservative government when it comes to our rivers. Data from the River Trust shows that in 2021 The River Mole at Cobham and Esher has been pumped with sewage 100 times for a total of over 1000 hours. Meanwhile, for the whole of the River Mole’s catchment area, sewage was discharged over 800 times for a total of 9,120 hours.

Since 2010, the Environment Agency (EA) has been on the end of dramatic cuts to its budget from the Government, this has been reduced by nearly two-thirds from £120 million to just £48 million. This new target can only result in these figures getting worse as the EA struggle to inspect, monitor and enforce regulation.

At Elmbridge Borough Council, the Overview & Scrutiny Committee recently invited the EA to answer questions on their performance, including why they are continuing to fail at tackling the problem of illegally moored boats on the Thames. For the second time in a year they failed to attend. This lack of accountability by a public body is very disappointing and does nothing to help explore ways to resolve matters.

Water safety in Elmbridge

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Elmbridge Borough Council agrees £30k of additional water safety measures

Being situated within close proximity to rivers and open water has many advantages for Elmbridge but of course it brings responsibilities and consequences. While many of our residents and visitors safely enjoy the river both in terms of hospitality and water activities, the dangers of open water should never be underestimated; cold water shock, currents, and the risk of being caught in submerged debris is ever present.

In the absence of a single body responsible for water safety in Elmbridge, and in recognition for the important role that the rivers and other water courses have in the borough, Elmbridge Borough Council is leading the way in Surrey with a ‘Respect the Water: Drowning Prevention Plan’, which was agreed by Elmbridge Cabinet on 11 January.

The plan sets out to reduce the number of water incidents in the borough through training and improved awareness and commits £30k for 2023-2024 to deliver additional drowning prevention projects including:

  1. Free swimming lessons for 12- 18-year-old non swimmers during the summer delivered by Places Leisure at the Xcel Leisure Centre.
  2. Subsidising lifeguard courses run by the internationally recognised Royal Life Saving Society.
  3. Additional throw line boards: Six throw line boards have already been installed at Hurst Park Open Space, Thamesmead Recreation Ground, Waterside Drive, Albany Reach x 2 and Cowey Sale. Additional throw lines will be installed at other high-risk areas, including Desborough Island.

Leading community safety

The Elmbridge Community Safety Partnership has been leading the way in Surrey for a number of years with its multi-agency Drowning Prevention Strategy. Working with our partners at Surrey Fire and Rescue, Surrey Police, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA), the Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), the partnership educates and informs about the dangers of open water and acts to keep the open water safe in the borough.

The Partnership also consults with ROSPA about safety equipment such as throw lines.

Educating and informing

This education takes the shape of regular sites visits to our more popular river locations, schools’ promotion, the annual Junior Citizen programme, where in 2022 over 1,550 year 6s from around Elmbridge participated in an interactive session on water safety run by RNLI.

Surrey Fire and Rescue Service, working with Elmbridge and other partners, have also held a number of water safety events in recent months, demonstrating throw line use and highlighting the dangers open water.

Cllr Tilling promotes recycling and waste reduction

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Esher Church School has been awarded a prize for winning a competition as part of a waste reduction schemeAs Cabinet member for the Environment, just before Christmas it was lovely to be able to award Esher Church School a prize of over £419 for winning a competition as part of a waste reduction scheme in Elmbridge. The school will use the prize money on a project that will lead to more recycling in the school, this includes enhancing its recycling area in front of the school and installing a cover with a wildflower green roof. The school’s aim is to have all its pupils confident in what they can and can’t recycle.

The competition was part of Rethink Waste, a trial scheme that I have been promoting for the last year which aims to reduce the amount of waste produced in Elmbridge. Residents who sign up carry out activities, watch video clips and make pledges to help them reduce waste and win points for doing so. The competition saw schools in Elmbridge compete for points to be donated to them.

Residents who subscribe to the Rethink Waste scheme donated over 90,000 points as part of the competition, 37,745 of which were donated to Esher Church School. Five schools (Esher Church School, Bell Farm Primary School, Cleves School, St James CofE Primary School and St Matthews Infant School) took part in the latest round of the competition and received a share of the £1,000 funding based on the number of points they received. Other projects that will be funded using prize money include ones to improve compost and food waste recycling facilities, buy gardening equipment for children to work on a school allotment and help forest school areas flourish.

The competition follows the success of an earlier one as part of Rethink Waste that saw Grovelands Primary School in Walton-on-Thames win £846.88. Using the money, the school has prepared its outdoor area and ordered new classroom planters in preparation to grow fruit and vegetables. Councillor Tilling, Portfolio Holder for Environmental Services at Elmbridge Borough Council said: “This scheme is once more a huge success in the local community, encouraging children and parents to reduce waste. It’s great to see results in helping the the environment as well as supporting local schools with eco projects.”

Rethink Waste is being delivered by Greenredeem, funded by the Surrey Environment Partnership and supported by Elmbridge Borough Council. Rethink Waste is open to all residents in Elmbridge and is free to join. To find out more, head to Greenredeem.

Too much development?

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Your local councillors are concerned at the cumulative impact on traffic and infrastructure (doctors, schools, nurseries) of the number of developments that are being submitted in and around the town, mostly in the Brooklands area. We recently attended a meeting with the Weybridge Society and our Weybridge SCC councillor to review the potential impact.

Some of these started as permitted development (PD) applications whereby an unused office block can be converted to flats without going through the full planning process. An example of this is the refurbishment of Clive House on Queen’s Road. But developers seem to always want more and they then put forward plans to build on adjoining land or to demolish and rebuild properties to maximise income from the sites. At the moment there are the following potential developments:

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  1. JTI building, Members Hill (photo right): 57 under PD, now 205 flats with two large, new blocks.
  2. St George’s Gardens, offices on both sides of Locke King Road: South side 213 or more (photo above); North side 58 PD, maybe up to 100 if re-developed.
  3. 6, The Heights: 21 PD, up to 40 if re-developed.
  4. Abbey House: 48 PD, 106 on re-development.
  5. Brooklands College: a proposal for 87 houses and up to 263 flats.

The total number of dwellings involved is nearly 1,000; potentially adding some 2,500 residents and 1,500 vehicles and creating an unsustainable additional demand on already saturated local medical facilities, roads, and schools.

The meeting was unanimous in agreeing that such developments were unsustainable within the current Weybridge infrastructure and inconsistent with the local demand and environment.

Sustainable Elmbridge – our green ambitions

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A sustainable Elmbridge is at the very heart of our decision-making

Climate change impacts us all. Whether that is a heat wave in August forcing us indoors and causing drought warnings or more wet and stormy winters leading to floods and energy blackouts. Our borough is not immune from climate change, which is why in 2019 we declared a climate emergency and pledged to become a carbon neutral council by 2030. Since then, we have been actively working to reduce our own carbon emissions and to encourage our community to do so too.

As the Cabinet member for the Environment, I was pleased that we were able to put sustainability at the heart of the Council’s decision-making. We set out a ten-year action plan to reduce carbon emissions and plan how we will become carbon neutral by 2030 and in last year’s capital spending plan the Cabinet agreed to spend close to £1 million on some key projects. These included solar panel installations and a shift to a fully electric council fleet of vehicles. Projects already completed are:

  • Installing electric vehicle (EV) charging points in our main town centre car parks. Cobham, Esher and recently Churchfields in Weybridge all now have EV chargers and Walton is shortly to follow this year.
  • The solar panel installation on the roof of the Xcel Leisure Complex in Walton-on-Thames was made operational in December 2022; these 973 panels are projected to reduce electrical consumption by 40% and will lead to an estimated CO2 saving of over 75 tonnes per year, based on an estimated annual generation of 304 MWh.
  • Solar panels have been installed at our Centres for the Community in Walton, Cobham, Claygate, Hersham and Molesey, as well as at the Village Hall in Hersham.

Our recent car park survey highlighted that 27% of respondents either owned or planned to buy a ‘plug-in’ electric vehicle in the next year, with 24% expressing that they would use EV charge points in car parks.

A sustainable Elmbridge is fundamental to our draft Local Plan which sets out how we can connect communities through active travel methods such as walking and cycling, as well as how we can build more energy efficient homes in Elmbridge. Energy efficient home design is an active element in the creation of the Elmbridge Design Code which is currently underway in conjunction with our residents.

Cllr Ashley Tilling

Outdoor play

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The RA/LibDem administration want to ensure a sustainable and thriving Elmbridge will always provide opportunities for outdoor play in our hundreds of parks, recreation grounds and open spaces we provide and maintain across the borough.

Among the sandpits, natural play equipment, the swings, slides, zip wires and skateparks we have two paddling pools, both in Weybridge and built in the 1950s, one in Churchfields park and one in Oatlands park. However, they are costly both financially and environmentally: they need filling with fresh water and emptying every day which requires someone on site for up to eleven hours. The third wet-play facility in the Borough is the Hersham splash-pad which was converted from a similar paddling pool; it reduces the need for lengthy filling and emptying and is therefore opened for a much longer period over the summer than the paddling pools.

The first step to reviewing how the pools fit into Elmbridge’s sustainable future will be a public consultation over the next few weeks to understand what residents feel is their preferred way forward for play provision across the Borough.

River Thames Scheme edging closer

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The scheme to build a second flood-relief channel to help prevent the flooding of residential areas, called the River Thames Scheme, has been a long time coming. Plans were first presented to the public by the Environment Agency over ten years ago but were then put on hold by the government due to cost. The floods in 2014 provided impetus to revive the idea of a Thames supplementary channel from Staines to Shepperton as well as work on the downstream weirs at Sunbury and Molesey to allow for the additional flow.

This large scheme is treated as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) which requires a Development Consent Order (DCO). This removes the need for separate planning permissions in each local authority and is a quicker process. The application for the DCO is now (September) being presented to the government’s Planning Inspectorate after which parties with an interest in the scheme will be able to comment.

More information is at: www.riverthamesscheme.org.uk

 

A planning concern from Runnymede Council

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Weybridge Business Park

All offices on the main Business Park on Hamm Moor Lane have been emptied and the site owner has applied to Runnymede Council, application RU.22/0776, for permission to build three warehouse units. The largest of these, with 10 loading bays and 12 waiting bays, is believed to be earmarked as an Amazon distribution centre.

It has been pointed out in letter of representation that the impact on local roads of the estimated 99 HGVs per day, as well as numerous delivery vans and commuter transport (of up to 450 employees), would be significant and would almost certainly affect traffic in Weybridge High Street, Heath Road and Portmore Park Road. Indeed, National Highways has asked for a 56 day delay in any decision so that a further review of the methods used to calculate the trip generation in the Transport Assessment can be reviewed. However, the consultant acting for the applicant has responded by providing data that shows a reduction in the number of vehicle movements from the level of previous occupancy of the site.

Cllr Ashley Tilling writes that EBC were consulted and responded in June but as traffic impact is a matter for SCC as our Highways Authority they understandably could not find any planning grounds on which they could raise an objection (EBC 2022/1662). To voice your concerns you should contact your County Councillor or local MP, Dr Ben Spencer.



Council grants awarded to local organisations

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Your local councillors participated in one of the more pleasurable parts of the job in June and July, that of deciding how to allocate money to organisations that had applied for ‘CIL’ money. Every new development is liable to pay a small proportion of the costs as a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) to the council to mitigate the effects of the development on local infrastructure. The sums totalled over a year are allocated only to the local area, in our case Weybridge Riverside, St George’s Hill and Oatlands and Burwood Park wards via the Local Spending Board made up of all the ward councillors.

Councillors were pleased to be able to support the following projects in Weybridge:

  1. St James’ Church ‘Access to All’ to finish installing a ramp, an automated new ramp and kitchenette;
  2. Elmbridge Canoe Club for a balcony extension to provide an outdoor land-based training space;
  3. Manby Lodge to refurbish and extend a garage on site to provide an additional activity space;
  4. St James’ School to improve an under-used outdoor space as the first phase of a mindfulness garden;
  5. Weybridge Town Business Group for installing three totems in key spots along the High Street;
  6. Weybridge Vandals rugby, cricket and netball club to provide two female changing facilities.

The EBC Environment portfolio

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Elmbridge is to slash the carbon footprint of big CO2 emitter Xcel Leisure Centre as part of its commitment to fight climate change. 

In July 2019 the Lib Dems on Elmbridge Borough Council initiated a local focus on the Climate emergency which was approved by full council and, following an audit, the council adopted its first Carbon Management and Reduction Plan in 2020.

In May last year I had the privilege of taking on responsibility for the Environment Portfolio and was keen to make speedier progress on implementing proposals in this plan. Working closely with officers and with the cross-party Climate Change Panel, we have secured sufficient money within the council budget to take forward a number of exciting carbon reduction measures. With nearly a million pounds allocated in the February budget, we are now in a position to move forward with projects including: installing solar panels on the Civic Centre and Community Centres; additional insulation at Community Centres and installing electric vehicle charging points at these locations. EV charging points will also be installed at Churchfields car park, Weybridge, over the next few weeks and later this year at Drewitts Court, Walton.

Significantly, we will be installing solar panels on the roof of the Xcel Leisure Centre – the Council’s biggest carbon emitter. We expect this will give an annual saving of around £50,000 and 77 tonnes of CO2 and expect to recoup the cost of the installation within six years. I have also been promoting the installation of a trial solar carport at the Civic Centre car park which will be a solar PV canopy over ten parking spaces and generate 26,000 kWh/yr to offset the building’s electricity consumption and save some £4,000 and 7 tonnes of CO2 per year.

With fuel prices going up, I am reassured that the Council has made sound decisions for both climate reduction and future cost savings.

Cllr Ashley Tilling