Sudden hike in Council room charges threatens community groups
Letters to the Editor from Peter Prowse and Kevin Meager.
From Peter Prowse – 22nd March 2023
For the past year, Epsom and Ewell French Club has been hiring a room (The Studio) at Bourne Hall for its monthly meetings. The Council had agreed a discounted hire rate of £20 per hour, so £40 for our two hours, on the third Tuesday of each month.
Without any prior consultation and with very little notice, the Council has just announced that from April (ie in 10 days’ time) the Club will be charged a new ‘discounted’ rate of £35.36 per hour, so £70.72 for its two-hour booking, plus a new charge of £25 per session for use of the hot water urn (which has until now been provided free of charge).
That would put the cost to the club up from £40 per booking to £95.72.
The club cannot possibly afford these prices. Other community groups who use Bourne Hall will be in the same position. Unless small, local clubs and societies can continue to use Bourne Hall for something very close to the 2022 prices, many will have to close.
Epsom & Ewell French Club is a non-commercial community group, provided for the benefit of its members and anybody else who want to come to its meetings. It is closely allied to the Epsom and Ewell Town Twinning Association, which is supported by the Borough Council.
The club almost folded during the Covid pandemic and its committe worked very hard to build it back up to the point where it is now attracting enough interest and support to keep going – provided it does not have to pay these new ridiculously expensive room hire costs. Bourne Hall exists for the benefit of local residents. This latest price hike means that many of them will no longer be able to use it.
Peter Prowse.
Letter from Kevin Meager
23rd March 2023
I would like to follow up on the letter to the editor regarding the hike in hire charges at Bourne Hall. I organise weekly dance classes in the main hall on Monday evenings through my organisation, Ceroc Surrey and we’ve been hit with similar charge increases with little to no notice. If this increase remains in place, we will have to stopping running classes at Bourne Hall as the new hire charges are unaffordable. The vast majority of our dancers are local, many are of retirement age and this is either their main or only weekly social event. Apart from lockdown, we’ve been using the venue continuously for over 20 years!
Your faithfully,
Kevin Meager
This is “offensive”.
In our letters page today a Ewell resident rightly fulminates against the selfish habit of leaving dog poo bags for others to remove.
“To the person who tied a Dog Poo Bag to the fence between the NESCOT Playing Fields and the College buildings yesterday (Thursday).
You said you would return to collect it later as you didn’t want to carry it with you. You will have noticed it was not there on your return as I added it to my Litter picking bag.
Image – c. Bill Kasman – under licenceillustrates the wider problem.
Had I come along 5 minutes later, when I wouldn’t have heard your explanation, how would I have known you would collect it? How would I have known that the other (very similar) bag dropped 2 metres further on was not yours? Or the black bag on a branch in the hedge round the corner? Or another deposited in a popular dropping spot on the edge of the Rugby Grounds?
Would I have been sure that the 4 people who threw glass beer bottles into the hedge, or the cans along the roadside, or the fast food packaging etc would be collected later to be deposited in the bins on the route, or taken home to be put in their own bins? No.
Your bag probably weighed no more than 100 grams. The bag of rubbish I collected weighed about 8 kilos when I’d finished. Approximately 2,000 items (I didn’t count beyond 250); Fine potential of £200,000.
Ashtead Choral Society celebrated Surrey’s Vaughan Williams.
Andrew Storey conducts the Ashtead Choral Society with enthusiasm and vigour, presenting them at their best in this delightful programme, showing off a range of music by Ralph Vaughan Williams in the 150th anniversary year of his birth. A review of the concert held on 25th February in Epsom.
Starting the evening with Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical songs, the choir began with a warm and harmonious sound, which remained well balanced and well blended throughout the evening. Accompanied solely by Stephen Ridge on the piano, the sound filled the wonderful acoustics of St Martin’s Church in Epsom. The choir provided excellent support to the baritone soloist, Daniel Tate, who gave an especially commendable performance as a last minute stand-in, and whose tone and clarity propelled the storytelling of RVW’s Mystical Songs. The choir especially shone as the focal point in the 3rd song, demonstrating a beautiful understanding of tonality, and picked up the pace for the 5th song – the well-known ‘Let all the world’ – with an injection of energy to finish off.
The second piece of the evening was The Lark Ascending, played by The Kent Sinfonia with Christian Halstead as lead and violin soloist. As one of Vaughan Williams’ most famous pieces, and an award-winning performance behind Halstead, the audience had a lot to look forward to, and it was as outstanding as we could have imagined!
The orchestra crafted a full-bodied sound and yet took no attention away from the exquisite violin solo, which had the audience mesmerised.
The second half began the titular piece of the evening, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony. Demonstrating strong entries all round, the choir and orchestra provided a majestic sound, with especially impressive lone chorus entries standing up to the magnificent sound of the orchestra. We also had our first entry of the soprano soloist Eleanor Pennell-Briggs, who gave another sparkling performance. My own conductor often tells me that “Musicians must be actors!”, which both soloists and ACS demonstrated beautifully this evening, conveying the power and emotion of the sea.
The symphony continues with some elegant call and response passages, well executed by both choir and orchestra, and it was especially pleasing when the main melody passes around the orchestra sections. The scherzo then starts, feeling energetic and urgent, with the chromatic passages handled with great skill and empathy by the choir. The dynamic contrasts by both parties provide drama, again echoing the feelings of the sea.
The final movement begins cinematic and sweeping, with precision by the chorus when they are left exposed. There is power when the basses sing alone, with a great contrast to the delicate female voices. The orchestra and soloists have a moment to shine on their own, with both soloists again demonstrating exceptional storytelling, before the chorus returns for the start of the finale. The regal fanfare from the horns and the vivid energy from the choir draws to a close to finish up the piece.
Overall both ACS and Kent Sinfonia provided a thoroughly enjoyable evening, showcasing a range of musical talent and shining a spotlight onto Ralph Vaughan Williams.
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Transport for the South East have received approval from their Partnership Board to progress delivery of their Strategic Investment Plan which includes nearly 300 multi-modal transport interventions to be delivered across the south east over the next 27 years.
The plan sets out a vision for the region, with priorities to decarbonise the transport system, level up left behind communities and facilitate sustainable economic growth in the south east between now and 2050. Included within the ambitious list of interventions is several global policy interventions, designed to address the challenges and opportunities faced not just in the south east but across the whole of the UK. These cover issues such as decarbonisation, public transport fares, new mobility, road user charging, virtual access, and integration between all modes of transport.
The Board: Photo: (L-R) Rupert Clubb, Geoff French, Vince Lucas, Cllr Gary Hackwell, Cllr Phil Jordan, Cllr Keith Glazier, Cllr Elaine Hills, Cllr Matt Furniss, Cllr Joy Dennis, Cllr David Monk, Dan Ruiz.
This ambitious plan forecasts a total capital cost of over £45 billion over 27 years and interventions that once implemented could generate; 21,000 new jobs, an additional £4 billion growth in GVA each year by 2050, 1.4 mega tonnes less CO2 equivalent emitted, 500,000 more rail trips a day, 1.5 million more trips taken by bus, mass transit and ferry, and take roughly 4 million car trips a day off the south east’s roads.
While £45 billion is a significant sum of money, it isn’t dissimilar to the levels of historical investment in the south east over a similar time period. Not only does the plan identify the investment needed to transform the economy in the south east, it also recognises the financial constraints faced by the bodies that would traditionally fund these sorts of interventions. Delivering this plan requires significant investment and Transport for the South East welcomes ongoing discussions with government, both local and central and with the private sector as they continue to explore potential funding options.
Councillor Keith Glazier, Chair of Transport for the South East said; “This evidence based investment is a once in a generation opportunity to set out a sustainable transport network that recognises the importance of major transport corridors across the south east. Corridors that are fundamental to our economy and our communities.
“This plan is the result of five years of partnership working, it truly is a plan developed by the south east, for the south east.
“Following approval by our Partnership Board we have submitted the plan to the Secretary of State for the Department for Transport with a request for it to be considered as future investment decisions are made.
“We could not be more grateful for the insight, support and challenge shown by our partners, and the Department for Transport in the development of this plan.”
Transport for the South East’s Partnership Board brings together elected members from local transport authorities and district and borough authorities, representatives of local enterprise partnerships (LEPs), protected landscapes, National Highways, Network Rail, and more.
Throughout the development of the investment plan, Transport for the South East held regular stakeholder meetings to gather evidence and seek input. They also held a 12-week public consultation on the plan in the summer of 2022 asking for comments from anyone who lives, works or travels within the region, receiving over 600 responses.
Prior to approval at the Partnership Board, local transport authorities within the region also had the opportunity to present the investment plan to their own council members to secure sign off.
Transport for the South East’s investment plan promises to not only deliver economic benefits to the region but to also make a material contribution towards net zero carbon. It supports a reduction in the need to travel by encouraging integrated planning and a shift to more sustainable modes of travel for both passengers and freight.
It recognises the importance of accessible, affordable, integrated, reliable and attractive public transport, that is fit for purpose and have ensured it is at the core of the Strategic Investment Plan. The transport body promises to work with local authorities and operators to provide better-connected and accessible multi-modal journeys with users easily able to walk, wheel or cycle for the first and last miles of their journeys.
Following approval Transport for the South East’s attention now turns to delivery. They will continue to work with partners from across the region to develop a delivery action plan, setting out the current position of each of the nearly 300 proposed multi-modal schemes within the investment plan. The action plan will focus on the next three years, 2023-2026, and detail what the next steps are and confirm the roles and responsibilities of Transport for the South East and its delivery partners required to make this plan a reality.
You can read the plan in full at www.transportforthesoutheast.org.uk
Transport for the South East (TfSE) is a new body created to improve the transport network and grow the economy of the whole South East area.
It brings together representatives of 16 transport authorities and five local enterprise partnerships covering an area stretching from the English Channel to the border of London, and from the Kent coast to Berkshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Not only does this area include major airports, ports, roads and rail routes, it is also a powerful economic motor for the whole of the UK – adding £200 billion a year to the national economy.
The aim of TfSE is to support and grow this economy, improve quality of life and protect the environment by choosing the right strategic transport priorities for investment. A thirty-year transport strategy was published in July 2020 with a strategic investment plan to follow by 2022.
Press release from Transport from the South-East
Final Call to public meeting on Draft Local Plan
Monday 13th March at 7pm at Wallace Fields Junior School Dorling Drive, Ewell, Epsom KT17 3BH, Epsom and Ewell Times will chair a public meeting on the Draft Local Plan. The meeting will feature a panel of experts. Tim Murphy CPRE, Margaret Hollings Epsom Civic Society and Chair Licensing Planning and Policy Committee Cllr Steven McCormick (Council officers invited). Questions and view points from the public attending will be allowed. We will confirm if the meeting can be followed online in the next few days.
Registration to attend is not required but it would be helpful to us if you did inform us of your intention to attend. This will help some planning. Also it would help the chair of the meeting if you submitted questions in advance.
You can tell us if you are attending the Epsom and Ewell Times Local Plan Public Meeting and suggest a question by filling in:
Dorking-based pie-expert, Fine Piehouse has triumphed at this year’s British Pie Awards, taking home the prize for best Chicken Pie. The pie-maker beat off 31 other mouth-watering entries in this category to take home the prize.
The pie-oneering awards, now in its 15th year, celebrate the nation’s most delicious pies – from the traditionally British to the tantalisingly innovative and totally whacky.
Fine Piehouse won over the esteemed judges this year with its Normandy Chicken with Apple Brandy pie.
Matthew O’Callaghan, Chairman of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association and host of the British Pie Awards, said: “We are always highly encouraged to see the nation’s love of pies at these annual awards, and this year there has been a huge level of excitement and creativity.
On Wednesday we had the pleasure of enjoying some spectacular pies, and Fine Piehouse has overcome exceptionally stiff competition for best Chicken Pie. These awards celebrate the skill of British piemakers across the nation, so I’d like to say a particular congratulations to them for this success.”
The contest comprises 23 different classes or types of pie including traditional favourites and newcomers such as Vegan and Gluten Free Pies. This year in a surprise twist, meat-based pie entries dominated the top four classes for the first time since 2019, with Beef & Any Flavour topping the entry rankings.
Other memorable entries in the contest included a Marmite and Cheese concoction and Fusion Pies such as Balti Pies, Vindaloo Pies, Kebab Pies, and even Baldy’s ‘Nearly As Good As Mama Joan’s Lasagne Pie’.
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Public meeting on Local Plan
On Monday 13th March at 7pm at Wallace Fields Junior School Dorling Drive, Ewell, Epsom KT17 3BH, Epsom and Ewell Times will chair a public meeting on the Draft Local Plan. The meeting will feature a panel of experts. Tim Murphy CPRE, Margaret Hollings Epsom Civic Society and Chair Licensing Planning and Policy Committee Cllr Steven McCormick (Council officers invited). Questions and view points from the public attending will be allowed. We will confirm if the meeting can be followed online in the next few days.
Registration to attend is not required but it would be helpful to us if you did inform us of your intention to attend. This will help some planning. Also it would help the chair of the meeting if you submitted questions in advance.
The Epsom and Ewell Borough Council is holding an extraordinary meeting on 22nd March at 7.30pm at The Town Hall, The Parade, Epsom to discuss a motion about the Draft Local Plan. Only 11 councillors approved the Draft Local Plan going forward at a meeting of the Licensing Planning and Policy Committee of 30th January. The Full Council meeting of the 22nd March will be the first public opportunity for all Councillors to speak on the Local Plan.
You can tell us if you are attending the Epsom and Ewell Times Local Plan Public Meeting and suggest a question by filling in:
