Category Archives: Well being

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.

Help with cost of living pressures

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How your Council is helping

As winter set in, the Council set up Warm Hubs around Elmbridge. These were up and running in early November at the seven Centres for the Community, including Weybridge. These offer our residents a hot drink and somewhere warm to be as the temperatures drop. The Centres teams are also supporting with advice and signposting when requested.

On the 16th November, the Cabinet agreed to dedicate £250K to support residents with cost-of-living expenses and this was approved at December’s Council Meeting. This will go towards food vouchers for approximately 1,500 families on benefits with children aged 16 years or younger. Some local businesses have also contributed to this fund, and we thank them for their commitment to the community.

Elmbridge Borough Council has been working with partners from around the borough to support residents at this difficult time:

  • We have administered the £150 energy rebate schemes for eligible taxpayers.
  • We have used the Household Support Fund to support Elmbridge pensioners and those on benefits.
  • We are working closely with the local Citizens Advice to offer payment plans for those struggling with council tax and other charges.
  • Our cost-of-living support hub is being kept up to date with all the latest information and support available.

We will work with our charity and voluntary sector partners to ensure this new funding quickly reaches the most vulnerable.

Visit our cost-of-living hub to see the range of support on offer.

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.

Applications for Local Infrastructure Funding

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Elmbridge Borough Council will soon be accepting applications for the annual local Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) funding. The application period is Monday 21 February to Sunday 3 April 2022 at midnight,with the applications being reviewed in June and early July.

CIL allows Elmbridge Borough Council to raise funds from developments in the borough to help pay for the physical infrastructure needed to mitigate the impacts of new development.  As part of the process, EBC annually allocates a portion of CIL funds to be spent locally on smaller infrastructure schemes that are required in the communities where development took place.

Seven settlement area committees, known as ‘Local Spending Boards’, have been formed  to cover the whole of Elmbridge; these consist of Ward Councillors serving in each of the areas who meet to decide how their local CIL funds will be allocated. Successful local CIL applications have included projects such as improvements to state schools to better enable them to meet the needs of an increasing school population, improvements to community facilities, footpath works and countryside access improvements.

It is anticipated that by the time the bids come before our Local Spending Board (Oatlands & Burwood Park, Weybridge Riverside & Weybridge St George’s Hill) in June there will be around £250,000 of CIL money to be allocated.

Find out more on the Council’s Community Infrastructure Levy webpages.

What you told us

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We’ve analysed the views coming out of the survey which was dropped through Weybridge Riverside letter boxes last November:

Excluding the don’t knows, 69% thought government needed to do more to tackle climate change, with more electric vehicle charging points and a proper commitment to insulate homes the main demands.

And 58% (again excluding the don’t knows) thought that more needed to be done to enable the building of affordable homes. But people questioned whether “affordable” homes were actually affordable and had few solutions to the problem.

People like living here because of the green spaces, river, convenience for London, schools, high street and safe environment. But they were concerned about overdevelopment, insufficient parking, air pollution and the future of the walk-in centre.

Support for traffic calming measures in the High Street was very mixed. There was concern about Traffic density and/or speed on Heath Road and at the top of Monument Hill. And several “rat runs” were highlighted (Portmore Park Road, Elgin Road and York Road).

Supporting our young people’s mental health

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Elmbridge Mayor Tony Popham’s chosen charity this year provided many Weybridge sports clubs with the opportunity to show support and solidarity for young people struggling with depression and mental health problems, following the two lockdowns. 

Cllr Judy Sarsby had the idea to organise a sponsored “Row, Paddle, Run” event to raise money for the Grace Dear Charity. It was attended by Graham & Hope Dear, the father and sister who founded the charity after Grace tragically took her own life after a long struggle with mental health in 2017. Over a hundred local athletes, including members of rowing, kayaking, rugby, netball, cricket, tennis and running clubs participated in the event.

It raised over £6000 and has already enabled the running of two mental health first aid workshops to help educate coaches and welfare officers of local sports and social clubs. More are planned in 2022. These aim to aid recognition of the signs and symptoms of mental health illness, how to approach those struggling and provide them with support.

The first of these was held at Elmbridge Canoe Club and was attended by Lib Dem Councillors Judy Sarsby and Jez Langham of Long Ditton. Judy and Jez plan to run a series of these workshops to help create a web of mental health support across the Borough using sports and social clubs. “A young person struggling may not go to their parents or the school for help, but many have built relationships of trust and friendship with coaches”, says Judy who is also a club welfare officer; “We hope that by educating coaches on what to look for and how to ask the young if they are OK, we can find those who are struggling the most and offer support. We’re not health professional but do have access to a lot of support outlets. This pandemic has hit the young particularly. Many are struggling and not sure where to turn. We’re hoping these workshops will help and have already had done success .” The next workshop is planned for February. If you feel this could be beneficial to you in working with the young, to learn the signs and symptoms, please contact Judy at Jsarsby@elmbridge.gov.uk

Planting Trees of Remembrance

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On Sunday 14 November, five alders were planted in memory of individuals or groups of our local residents who died as a direct or indirect result of the Covid pandemic. One of the trees was dedicated to our late colleague, Cllr Andrew Davis.

Alison Roche tending the tree planted in memory of her husband, Cllr Andrew Davis.

Funding for these trees came from public donations collected by local community activist, Liani Mannifield, in the aftermath of the chainsaw felling of a number of trees along the Thames and elsewhere in Weybridge over the summer.

Elmbridge Borough Council Greenspaces team helped with selection and planting of the trees and the Mayor of Elmbridge and local councillors attended the event. Our thanks go to Liani, James East of Weybridge Litter Pickers and your local Lib Dem Councillor Judy Sarsby, who organised the event. Weybridge church leaders gave their support and helped identify families of those lost, while Weybridge Male Voice Choir sung as each of the families and groups planted the five trees. One of the alders was dedicated to the seven choir members from around Surrey and another by local care home workers in memory of those they nursed but who sadly died.

Protect our Rivers from Raw Sewage

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Our protest against dumping raw sewage

Last week the government rejected a Lords’ amendment to place a legal duty on water companies to reduce raw sewage discharges into rivers. Yet every river in England is polluted beyond legal limits. In England last year, water companies released untreated human waste directly into our waterways over 400,000 times for a total of 3.1 million hours.

Thames Water sewage data show hundreds of illegal spills:
https://on.ft.com/2ZEdJVZ

Can the water companies afford to improve their sewage systems to prevent discharges? This article suggests that they have spent billions on share dividends that could have been used to tackle this problem: cutting sewage spills 

Many people in Weybridge use the Thames to improve their well-being through sport and recreation. Our local MP, Dr Ben Spencer, voted with the government to reject the amendment to clean up our rivers. You can contact him by email to challenge him on his position: ben.spencer.mp@parliament.uk

 

Weybridge and Oatlands Paddling Pools

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The paddling pools at Oatlands and Churchfields Recreation Grounds are usually open for the school summer holidays. Your local councillors were rather surprised to be informed on the 21st May that the paddling pools in Churchfields and Oatlands Recreation Grounds would not be opening this summer as a result of the covid situation. This was due to an operational decision taken by our officers (the Borough’s civil servants) at the Civic Centre in the middle of the second lockdown when they thought it unlikely that government restrictions would allow sufficient relaxation of social distancing rules to allow the pools to be opened safely. At the request of councillors, a meeting with officers took place on Friday 28th May to review the position. Your councillors explained that the well-being of children was particularly important after more than a year of unusual and difficult circumstances for many families. It was therefore agreed that the position would be reviewed and that a schedule and cost for the necessary maintenance and water testing should be put in place to allow for the pools to open as usual.  

New Mayor launches his Charity Appeal

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Following his election as Mayor of Elmbridge at the Annual Meeting of the Council on Wednesday 19 May, Councillor Tony Popham held his charity launch via Zoom on Thursday 20 May. Councillor Tony Popham has chosen to support The Grace Dear Trust for his Mayoral term of office.

Judy Sarsby writes:

In a year like no other, when so many are struggling to stay positive, it was encouraging to hear that the new Mayor has chosen a charity that reflects the needs of the young people of the borough struggling with mental health. The Grace Dear Trust is a powerful and active mental health charity set up in the memory of a sister and daughter, Grace, lost to suicide in February 2017 aged just 27. Grace had been suffering with depression and anxiety from the age of 13. The aim of Grace’s father, Graham, and sister, Hope, is to help save the lives of other young people suffering with mental health issues. Mental health is still seriously underfunded and requires more effective approaches to prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

Their slogan “it’s ok not to be ok” communicates the message that we can all have feelings of depression, but that we can reach out so that we do not have to suffer alone as there is help available. Many young people struggle to understand their own feelings and don’t know how to talk about them; this can lead to them suffering in silence without seeking the help they need. The charity supported by the Mayor, who lives in Hersham and has a teenage daughter, raises money to deliver presentations to schools and organisations on the importance of good mental health. The charity partners with local schools and clubs, providing mental health training courses and sets up strategies to support club members and pupils. They have embraced the pairing of sport with good mental health and also set up a young persons’ theatre project where they talk about their feelings through creative and performing arts. The Grace Dear Trust is certainly an appropriate cause in a year when showing empathy, listening and community spirit are of optimum importance to the young.

https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/mental-health/find-an-urgent-mental-health-helpline