Epsom Hospital in top national league for car park charges
1 September 2026
Epsom and St Helier parking among UK’s most expensive, study claims
Patients and visitors parking for more than eight hours at Epsom or St Helier Hospital face a £20 charge, placing the NHS trust among the most expensive in the country, according to newly published research.
The analysis by short-term lender Fast Loan UK compared the maximum daily parking charges advertised by NHS trusts on their websites.
It placed Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust joint seventh in its table, alongside Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Devon Partnership NHS Trust.
St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in Tooting was found to have the highest daily charge, at £30. Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust was second at £29, followed by University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust at £26.50.
The ten highest charges identified by the research were:
St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – £30
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust – £29
University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust – £26.50
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust – £26
York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – £22.50
The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust – £22
Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust – £20
Devon Partnership NHS Trust – £20
Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust – £20
Parking is free for the first 20 minutes. Charges then rise from £3.50 for up to one hour to £6 for two hours, £8 for three hours, £10.50 for four hours and £18 for seven hours. A fixed daily rate of £20 applies to stays exceeding eight hours.
The trust says parking spaces are limited and encourages patients and visitors to use public transport or active travel where possible. Epsom Hospital has 252 spaces, including 32 disabled bays and six drop-off and pick-up spaces.
Several bus services stop at Epsom Hospital itself:
Free hospital parking is available to Blue Badge holders. Outpatients attending hospital three or more times in the same week and parents staying overnight on paediatric wards also qualify for free parking.
Other concessions include a £3.50 ticket for outpatients whose appointment overruns by more than an hour and weekly tickets for dialysis and oncology patients and the immediate relatives of people receiving intensive, high-dependency, coronary, neonatal or end-of-life care.
The trust says all money raised from parking goes towards managing and maintaining its car parks, security, environmental and travel initiatives and its shuttle bus. Any remaining income is directed towards clinical services.
Fast Loan UK said its figures were collected from NHS trust websites in June 2026. Where a trust operated several sites with different tariffs, the comparison used its highest published charge for a standard 24-hour stay.
The research also reported that 33 NHS trusts in England offered free parking and that hospital parking was free in Scotland.
Olympic star helps launch children’s gymnastics and ninja club in Epsom
1 September 2026
Children in Epsom will have a new opportunity to try gymnastics, parkour and free running when a community sports club opens at Blenheim High School in September.
Gymfinity Kids is launching gymnastics and “ninja” classes for children aged from two to 14, with an introductory opening weekend taking place from Friday 4 to Sunday 6 September.
Olympic medallist and former Commonwealth Games champion Beth Tweddle MBE, who designed the organisation’s gymnastics programme, will support the launch by visiting schools in the Epsom area.
The new club will run one-hour sessions intended to help children develop physical skills, confidence and an enjoyment of exercise, regardless of their previous sporting experience.
Its ninja classes combine elements of parkour and free running, while the gymnastics programme introduces children to the core skills of the sport. Sessions will be led by trained coaches.
Inspiring children to get moving
Beth Tweddle said: “I’m really excited to be bringing Gymfinity Kids’ gymnastics and ninja classes to Epsom and creating more opportunities for children in the area to get active and try something new.
“Whether they’re discovering gymnastics for the first time, giving ninja a go, or simply finding a new way to move and have fun, I want every child to feel welcome and encouraged to explore what they’re capable of.
“Community clubs like this are a fantastic way to make activity more accessible to children and families, while giving children the opportunity to build confidence, learn new skills and find something they really enjoy.
“I’m looking forward to visiting schools in the area and helping inspire the next generation to get moving.”
Tweddle won bronze on the uneven bars at the London 2012 Olympic Games and was a three-time world champion. Her career also included Commonwealth Games gold medals for England.
Five community clubs in the area
The opening will bring the number of Gymfinity Kids community clubs in the wider area to five. The company also operates purpose-built centres in Bracknell and Walton-on-Thames.
Paul Kirwin, chief executive of Gymfinity Kids, said: “We’re passionate about making it easier for children to get active and discover a sport that they enjoy, which is exactly what our community clubs are designed to do.
“Our new Epsom Community Club will give children the opportunity to try something new, develop physical skills and build confidence in a fun and supportive environment.
“Whether they discover a passion for gymnastics or ninja, or simply find a new way to enjoy being active, we want every child to feel that sport is for them.”
The club will be based at Blenheim High School, Longmead Road, Epsom, KT19 9BH.
Epsom & Ewell Council refuses to explain complaints disparity
1 September 2026
Epsom and Ewell Borough Council has refused to answer detailed questions about the apparent disparity between its vigorous pursuit of a complaint made by Cllr Neil Dallen (RA Town) and its handling of complaints made against him.
Epsom and Ewell Times asked a series of specific questions concerning the Council’s decision to send a complaint against Labour councillor Chris Ames (Labour Court) to a formal hearing, the involvement of Monitoring Officer Piero Ionta, the composition and powers of the proposed Hearing Panel and the progress of complaints against Cllr Dallen.
The Council responded within 45 minutes with a single paragraph.
A Council spokesperson said:
“As a matter of principle, the Council does not comment on allegations or complaints concerning individual elected members. Any such matters are considered in accordance with the Council’s standards procedures and applicable confidentiality requirements.”
That response did not answer any of EET’s questions.
Many did not seek comment on the truth of allegations against individual councillors. They concerned the Council’s procedures, constitutional powers, management of possible conflicts and the legal basis for conducting an entire hearing in private.
The refusal leaves unanswered who referred the complaint against Cllr Ames to a hearing, whether that person had authority to do so, whether the Council’s Independent Person was consulted and why councillors involved in the original dispute have been selected to judge it.
It also leaves the Council unable or unwilling to demonstrate that complaints against Cllr Dallen are being treated with the same urgency as the complaint he made against an opposition Labour councillor.
The Dallen complaint against Ames
Cllr Dallen complained about Cllr Ames following the Strategy and Resources Committee meeting of 27 January.
Cllr Ames repeatedly questioned the secrecy surrounding an urgent decision making up to £500,000 available for work at the Rainbow Leisure Centre. The decision had been taken by officers in consultation with Cllr Dallen, who supported keeping it confidential and then chaired the meeting at which it was questioned.
Cllr Ames asked who had decided that the public interest in withholding the document outweighed the public interest in its publication.
Cllr Dallen and the Monitoring Officer repeatedly referred instead to the separate procedure for excluding the press and public if confidential information needed to be discussed during the meeting.
Cllr Ames was not asking to discuss the confidential information. His question was why the document had already been withheld and whether the required public-interest assessment had been undertaken.
The failure to identify and answer that distinction drove the confrontation.
What was really a point of order
The sequence in which the exchange deteriorated is important.
Cllr Ames first questioned Cllr Dallen’s understanding of the procedures and attempted to continue asking who had made the confidentiality decision.
Cllr Dallen then brought the discussion to an end, saying:
“It does say in the Constitution that this is the chairman’s meeting, and the Chairman has decided there’s going to be no further discussion.”
Only after that assertion did Cllr Ames call him arrogant:
“I’ve never known such an arrogant man in all my life, you’re completely out of your depth, you are completely out of your depth.”
Cllr Dallen then said:
“Councillor Ames, it is my meeting, I am Chairman of this meeting.”
Cllr Ames responded by accusing him of “more cover-up and more cover-up”.
The sequence does not excuse Cllr Ames’s descent into personal criticism. But it contradicts any simplified account in which an unprovoked insult caused the chair to assert his authority. Cllr Dallen had already described the committee as “the chairman’s meeting” and announced that questioning would cease.
Underneath the anger was an obvious procedural issue.
Cllr Dallen had participated in approving the urgent decision, supported its confidential treatment and was then chairing the committee while members questioned those actions. The appropriate issue was whether his involvement meant that he should relinquish the chair to the vice-chair for that item, allowing the questions to be considered by someone not personally connected with the decision.
Neither protagonist handled that issue properly.
Cllr Ames should have stopped, expressly raised a point of order and asked the Monitoring Officer for a ruling on whether Cllr Dallen should relinquish the chair. Instead, he personalised the dispute by attacking Cllr Dallen’s competence and character.
Cllr Dallen should have recognised that his own involvement was the subject of the questioning. Instead of characterising the committee as his meeting and using his authority to end scrutiny of his own conduct, he should have referred the point to the Monitoring Officer and invited the vice-chair to preside while it was resolved.
The Monitoring Officer should also have recognised the conflict-management question and advised on it. He did not.
The confrontation was therefore not simply a case of one councillor disrespecting a blameless chairman. It resulted from the failure of Cllr Ames, Cllr Dallen and the Council’s legal adviser to identify and deal appropriately with the procedural issue sitting in plain sight.
Only one of them is now facing a formal standards hearing.
Ames acknowledges his mistake
Cllr Ames subsequently told EET that he regretted calling Cllr Dallen arrogant. He said he should instead have raised a formal point of order challenging Cllr Dallen’s continued chairmanship of the item.
That acknowledgement goes directly to the distinction between the legitimate issue and the inappropriate way in which it was pursued.
Cllr Dallen nevertheless submitted a Code of Conduct complaint on 11 February, alleging disrespect and bullying.
Independent investigators appointed by the Council recommended that Cllr Ames be found to have breached the requirement to treat other councillors with respect.
Their report concluded that his personal criticism, allegations of a cover-up and repeated interruptions went beyond acceptable political debate.
But it also made findings which place his conduct in a more complicated context.
The investigators accepted that Cllr Ames was pursuing “a genuinely held, good faith argument” about transparency and access to information. They found that he was not engaged in a calculated or malicious attack and recognised that political speech attracts enhanced protection.
They expressly declined to decide whether his questions were legally and procedurally correct.
“It is not within the scope of this investigation to comment on any of the concerns highlighted by Councillor Ames during the meeting,” the report stated.
The investigation therefore examined how Cllr Ames challenged Cllr Dallen and the Monitoring Officer, but not whether his challenge was substantively justified.
Nor did it investigate whether Cllr Dallen’s insistence that it was the chairman’s meeting, his termination of questions about a decision in which he had participated or his failure to relinquish the chair contributed to the disorder.
The report treats respect for “the authority of the Chair” as a consideration against Cllr Ames without examining whether the authority of the chair was itself being exercised properly.
Who referred it to a hearing?
The complaint is now due to be considered by a Standards Hearing Sub-Committee on 22 September.
There is, however, a fundamental uncertainty over how it arrived there.
The Council’s scheme of delegation states:
“Determination of complaints referred by an Investigating Officer regarding alleged breaches of the councillors’ Code of Conduct shall be delegated to Hearing Panels.”
Democratic Services told Cllr Ames:
“The hearing has been convened following receipt of the Investigating Officer’s Report into the Code of Conduct complaint.”
It continued:
“In accordance with the Council’s arrangements, the determination of complaints referred by an Investigating Officer regarding alleged breaches of the Councillors’ Code of Conduct shall be delegated to a Hearing Panel.”
In this case, the Investigating Officer was the external investigator who wrote the report.
The report recommends that Cllr Ames be found in breach. It does not expressly recommend or direct that the complaint be referred to a Hearing Panel.
That distinction may be important.
The Council’s Constitution gives the Monitoring Officer broad authority over Code of Conduct matters except for decisions reserved to a Hearing Panel or another decision-making body. But the specific delegation to Hearing Panels appears to apply to complaints “referred by an Investigating Officer”.
If those words establish a mandatory gateway, the question is whether the external investigator actually made such a referral. The Monitoring Officer cannot necessarily substitute himself for the Investigating Officer or silently supply a procedural step which the Constitution assigns to someone else.
There may be an answer. The Council might argue that a report recommending a finding of breach necessarily constitutes an implied referral. It might identify a separate written decision by the external investigator which has not been included in the report supplied to Cllr Ames.
But the Council has declined to say.
EET asked who made the referral, when it was made, where it was recorded and under which constitutional power. The Council’s blanket response does not identify any decision or decision-maker.
This was not a request to prejudge the allegation. It was a request for proof that the body proposing to judge it had been properly convened.
Report arrived after hearing invitation
The procedural uncertainty is compounded by the Council’s communications with Cllr Ames.
On 7 August, Democratic Services sent an invitation to the proposed Hearing Panel. It did not identify Cllr Ames as the subject member in the body of the invitation.
When he replied that he did not know what the hearing concerned and would not attend, Democratic Services responded:
“For the avoidance of doubt, you are the subject of the Standards Hearing Sub-Committee.”
Cllr Ames says that was the first time he had been told expressly that the complaint was proceeding to a hearing.
He had not received the final investigation report. The investigator subsequently attributed this to a “communication breakdown” between himself and the Council’s legal services team.
Instead of acknowledging that failure and apologising, the Council adopted a tone which implied that Cllr Ames should already have understood the position.
Cllr Ames has asked who decided to refer the case, on whose recommendation and under what policy. No substantive answer is contained in the correspondence supplied to EET.
Monitoring Officer was involved in original dispute
The position of Monitoring Officer Piero Ionta creates a separate concern.
Mr Ionta attended the January meeting and gave advice supporting Cllr Dallen during the disputed exchange. It was the adequacy and correctness of that advice which Cllr Ames was challenging.
The Monitoring Officer also failed to identify and advise upon the underlying question of whether Cllr Dallen should relinquish the chair while his own part in the urgent decision was being questioned.
The independent investigation was subsequently commissioned on the Monitoring Officer’s behalf.
Employing an external investigator does not necessarily remove an apparent conflict if the Monitoring Officer defines the remit, supplies the evidence, receives the report, manages the procedure and controls what happens next.
The external report placed the legal and procedural correctness of the Monitoring Officer’s advice outside its scope. It then recommended a finding against the councillor who challenged that advice.
EET asked why Mr Ionta did not withdraw from managing the complaint and whether an unconnected monitoring officer from another authority had been considered. These are questions about institutional impartiality, not the merits of the complaint against Cllr Ames.
The Council declined to answer them.
A participant proposed as judge
The proposed panel consists of Cllrs John Beckett (RA Auriol), Alan Williamson (RA West Ewell) and Julian Freeman (LibDem College), with Cllr Rachel King (RA Town) named as reserve.
Cllr Beckett is scheduled to chair it.
But Cllr Beckett participated in the January exchange which the panel will be required to assess.
When Cllr Ames questioned why the Rainbow information had been withheld, Cllr Beckett defended confidentiality on the basis that private companies would not want their financial information published. Cllr Dallen immediately told him that he was right.
Cllr Beckett’s intervention is quoted in the independent investigation report.
This does not prove that he has predetermined whether Cllr Ames breached the Code. Nevertheless, appointing someone who participated in the underlying dispute to chair the subsequent disciplinary hearing creates an obvious appearance problem.
EET asked whether all panel members had confirmed that they had not predetermined the complaint and why Cllr Beckett had been selected despite his involvement.
The Council declined to answer.
Hearing behind closed doors
The Council has announced in advance that the hearing will not be webcast and that “all evidence shall be received and heard in exempt session”.
Some evidence about individual councillors may lawfully require protection. It does not follow that the whole hearing must be secret.
The incident occurred during a public meeting recorded on the Council’s webcast. The complaint, the investigation and the proposed hearing concern the conduct of elected representatives performing public duties.
The Council has not identified which statutory exemption justifies excluding the public from the entire proceeding or whether the required public-interest assessment has been undertaken.
It has also declined to identify the sanctions constitutionally available to the panel if it finds a breach.
The Council’s response invokes “applicable confidentiality requirements” without identifying what those requirements are or explaining why they prevent answers about jurisdiction, procedure and panel powers.
Complaints against Dallen
The contrast with complaints against Cllr Dallen is increasingly difficult to ignore.
Cllr Ames says that he made a complaint against Cllr Dallen arising from the same January meeting. Among other matters, it challenged Cllr Dallen’s use of the chair to prevent continued scrutiny of a decision in which he had participated.
That complaint was rejected without an equivalent external investigation.
A complaint from a member of the public against Cllr Dallen was also reportedly rejected.
Cllr Ames has also made a complaint concerning Cllr Dallen’s reported participation in a panel dealing with a complaint against the Chief Executive about the Rainbow Leisure Centre urgent decision.
His case is that Cllr Dallen’s direct involvement in approving that decision created a conflict when he subsequently helped consider a complaint about the Chief Executive’s account of it.
EET does not suggest that any complaint against Cllr Dallen must be upheld. Different complaints can properly receive different assessments and outcomes.
The issue is whether they have been examined with the same willingness to commit time and external resources as Cllr Dallen’s complaint against Cllr Ames.
The Council could have answered that concern by publishing anonymised information about receipt dates, assessment dates, reasons for decisions and outcomes. Instead, it has invoked a blanket principle of silence.
Confidentiality or avoidance?
There are legitimate reasons for protecting information about unresolved complaints. Premature disclosure can damage reputations, discourage witnesses and undermine a fair investigation.
But confidentiality should protect the integrity of a process, not conceal whether a proper process exists.
EET did not ask the Council to decide publicly whether either Cllr Ames or Cllr Dallen had breached the Code. It asked:
who exercised the power to refer the Ames complaint to a hearing;
where that referral was recorded;
whether the Independent Person was consulted;
how the Monitoring Officer’s involvement was managed;
why a participant in the original incident was selected to chair the hearing;
why the whole hearing was designated private in advance;
what powers and sanctions the panel possesses; and
how the Council ensures that complaints are prioritised consistently.
None of those questions required the Council to reveal confidential witness evidence or prejudge an allegation.
A response sent within 45 minutes which simply restates a policy of not commenting creates the impression that the Council did not attempt to distinguish questions about confidential merits from questions about public governance.
Standards or selective discipline?
The case against Cllr Ames is not fabricated. His language became personal and intemperate. An independent investigator has provided reasoned grounds for finding that it breached the Code.
But that is only one side of what happened.
Before Cllr Ames called Cllr Dallen arrogant, the chair had already declared that it was “the chairman’s meeting” and terminated further discussion of an issue involving his own earlier decision. After the insult, he intensified the same assertion with the words: “It is my meeting.”
Cllr Ames failed to convert his legitimate concern into the formal point of order it should have been. Cllr Dallen failed to recognise that the proper response was to obtain a ruling and consider relinquishing the chair to the vice-chair. The Monitoring Officer failed to guide either of them towards that procedure.
Yet only Cllr Ames’s failure has been externally investigated and sent towards a disciplinary hearing.
The legitimacy of any finding against him depends upon the legitimacy of the process used to determine it.
A Council cannot demand meticulous respect for standards from an opposition councillor while treating its own compliance with constitutional gateways, impartial adjudication and transparent decision-making as matters upon which it will say nothing.
Nor can confidentiality be allowed to make unequal treatment impossible to test.
Different complaints can properly have different outcomes. A pattern of different outcomes does not prove political bias. But where a complaint by Cllr Dallen against a Labour opposition councillor receives an external investigation and formal hearing while complaints against Cllr Dallen are rejected or apparently progress no further, the Council must provide enough procedural information to demonstrate that the difference results from evidence and established criteria rather than identity or influence.
The unanswered question is no longer merely whether Cllr Ames spoke disrespectfully to Cllr Dallen. It is whether EEBC has constructed a fair and constitutionally valid process for deciding that question, while applying the same standards to the person whose conduct and chairmanship provoked the dispute.
By refusing to answer, the Council has not protected public confidence in its standards regime. It has deepened the doubts surrounding it.
Epsom and Ewell’s rock history goes under the hammer
1 September 2026
Rare posters from Ewell Technical College (today’s NESCOT) concerts featuring Nick Drake, Genesis, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin are among more than 300 pieces of music memorabilia being auctioned from the collection of industry veteran Lindsay Brown.
A remarkable collection chronicling both Ewell’s place in British rock history and one man’s five-decade career in the music industry is to be sold at auction next month.
More than 300 posters, records, autographs, backstage passes and other pieces assembled by Lindsay Brown will go under the hammer at Omega Auctions in Merseyside on Tuesday 15th September.
Mr Brown began his music industry career in 1969 as social secretary at Ewell Technical College – now part of Nescot – where he helped bring emerging and established performers to the college.
The venue hosted concerts by artists including Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Caravan, Taste, Genesis, Nick Drake and Atomic Rooster. Other celebrated acts associated with the college’s musical heyday included Led Zeppelin, King Crimson and Queen.
“It was a thrilling time to be involved in music,” Mr Brown told the Epsom and Ewell Times. “The great artists of the day were available for all to see. Hendrix, The Doors and Led Zeppelin, to name but a few.
“New artists were emerging all the time, some of which were booked to support at Ewell – Genesis, Black Sabbath, King Crimson, Queen and the now legendary Nick Drake.”
Mr Brown said the college became an important stop on the national concert circuit because successive social secretaries and entertainment committee members were adept both at securing major performers and identifying artists with the potential to become stars.
The college was also well placed near venues including the Toby Jug in Tolworth and the Fox Club in Croydon, with London’s music clubs within easy reach.
“Many managers and agents would offer their talent and new signings for support slots at Ewell,” he recalled.
Among the most valuable lots is an exceptionally rare poster advertising an Ewell Technical College concert by Atomic Rooster, Genesis and Nick Drake on 24th January 1970. It is expected to sell for more than £5,000.
Posters featuring Drake are particularly scarce because of his reluctance to perform live. The auction house believes the Ewell poster may be the first example of its kind to reach the open market.
Another lot is a small poster advertising what is described as the final public concert of Drake’s career, held at Ewell Technical College on 25th June 1970. It has an estimated value of more than £2,000.
A red-and-gold poster by artist David Arnott, produced for a college performance by Black Sabbath supporting Caravan, is expected to fetch more than £1,000. An Arnott poster for Deep Purple’s appearance at Ewell Tech on 18th April 1970 is being offered together with a ticket from the concert.
A framed 1968 Ewell Technical College poster originally advertising The Yardbirds is also expected to attract considerable interest. Following changes to the group, the concert instead featured an early incarnation of Led Zeppelin before a reported audience of just 150 people. The poster is estimated to sell for more than £2,000.
Mr Brown retains especially fond memories of concerts by Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Taste, although he said Caravan – which appeared at Ewell on several occasions – was the venue’s most successful act.
“Seeing a very early King Crimson concert was a real privilege,” he added.
After leaving Ewell Tech, Mr Brown went on to hold senior positions at Red Bus, MAM, Rock Exchange, Polydor and Eagle Rock Entertainment. As managing director of Eagle Rock, he signed The Rolling Stones for visual rights.
Across his career he worked with artists including Kate Bush, Elvis Costello, Barclay James Harvest, Dr Feelgood, 10cc, The Cure, Van Morrison, Björk, Alice Cooper, Queen, Jeff Beck and Simple Minds.
The wider collection reflects those associations. It includes authenticated Beatles autographs expected to fetch more than £3,000; a Fender Telecaster signed by Keith Richards; Rolling Stones autographs including that of Brian Jones; a 1969 Woodstock ticket; and Kate Bush tour posters, clothing, passes and merchandise.
A Queen collection relating to the band’s 1976 Hyde Park concert includes autographs, a framed show flyer and a map of the band’s route formerly owned by their driver. It is valued at more than £3,000.
Also for sale is a three-foot-high poster for the New York Dolls’ first UK performance at the Rainbow Room at Biba in November 1973 – a concert attended by figures who would later help shape British punk.
A 1969 flyer for the Toby Jug Blues Club in Tolworth features Led Zeppelin’s name misspelt and is valued at more than £500.
Although Mr Brown is parting with most of the collection, he has retained six particularly personal pieces. These include a poster from his farewell Caravan show at Ewell in 1970, a set of Rolling Stones autographs, a Kate Bush tour poster, a Barclay James Harvest gold disc and sales plaque, and a poster personally dedicated to him by Jeff Beck.
“It’s sad to see the collection go, but I am thrilled by the continued worldwide interest in Ewell Tech’s heritage, told through its posters, many of which were designed by the Redhill artist David Arnott,” he said.
“Knowing these posters are going to good homes is very gratifying and lets the story continue to survive.”
He believes collectors have an important role in protecting evidence of performances and events which could otherwise disappear from public memory.
“Without people keeping what might seem at the time inconsequential – tickets, stubs, flyers and so on – many of these shows would be completely forgotten in future years.”
The collection, entitled “Time Has Told Me – 50 Years in Music”, will be auctioned by Omega Auctions on Tuesday 15th September, with a public preview on Monday 14th September. The catalogue and bidding details are available from www.omegaauctions.co.uk.
Julie Kapsalis, CEO of NESCOT, responded to this story and told the Epsom and Ewell Times: “Music continues to be an important part of Nescot. The Entitled Sons played a gig at the college last year and Bazil Meade ran a masterclass on gospel music. Our music department also trains young people to enter the sector and this year they showcased their talents on the community stage at The Epsom Derby Festival. We now have a DJ club and college bands who regularly perform at college and external venues.”
Dirty water double: sewage spills and blocked drains put Epsom and Ewell under pressure
1 September 2026
Epsom and Ewell recorded the longest duration of storm-overflow discharges among seven constituencies examined in a new study of sewage spills across parts of South London and Surrey.
Research undertaken by Purley-based Drainage & Plumbing Ltd using official Environment Agency data identified 55 spills lasting a combined 801 hours during 2025 — equivalent to more than 33 days of continuous discharge.
Almost all the constituency’s total came from the storm overflow at Leatherhead Wastewater Treatment Works, which discharged into the River Mole 49 times for a combined 787 hours. A further four spills, lasting 12 hours, were recorded at the Manor Drive storm tanks discharging into the Hogsmill.
The geographical label refers to the parliamentary constituency in which an overflow is located and should not be confused with the boundaries of Epsom and Ewell Borough Council.
Epsom and Ewell did not have the greatest number of spills in the study. Mitcham and Morden recorded 125 and Reigate and Redhill 61. However, their combined discharge durations were considerably shorter, at 204 and 556 hours respectively.
Across all seven constituencies covered by the research, 250 spills lasting 1,578 hours were recorded during 2025. Epsom and Ewell therefore accounted for just over half of the total discharge time in the study.
The figures came from the Environment Agency’s Event Duration Monitoring returns. These record how often a monitored storm overflow operates and for how long, but not the volume of sewage released.
Storm overflows are intended to act as safety valves when rainwater and wastewater threaten to overwhelm combined sewer systems. They discharge diluted untreated sewage into rivers and other waterways to reduce the risk of sewage backing up into homes. Their frequency and duration have, however, become the subject of growing public and regulatory concern.
Flooding reaches Epsom homes and gardens
The same Drainage & Plumbing Ltd investigation examined Thames Water’s sewer-flooding register for the three financial years from 2022/23 to 2024/25.
Across the Epsom postcode districts, it identified 24 recorded incidents: 12 in KT19, seven in KT18 and five in KT17. Of the 420 incidents identified across all the areas examined, about two-thirds involved external flooding in gardens or yards, while just under one in five reached inside a home or business.
The information was obtained by the company under the Environmental Information Regulations. Thames Water said it did not yet hold a completed register identifying properties formally considered to be at risk of sewer flooding.
The flooding register only covers incidents attributed to Thames Water’s sewer network. It does not include flooding from private drains, burst water mains or surface water which never entered a sewer.
553 highway drainage reports
A separate investigation by the company found that Surrey County Council received 553 reports concerning blocked gullies, blocked highway drains or drainage flooding in Epsom and Ewell during the same three-year period.
Reports increased from 156 in 2022/23 to 229 in 2023/24 before falling to 168 in 2024/25. The latest figure was therefore 7.7 per cent higher than in the first year, although substantially below the intervening peak.
The borough accounted for three per cent of the 18,463 reports recorded across Surrey. Epsom itself generated 288 reports: 70 in 2022/23, 116 the following year and 102 in 2024/25.
The countywide information was obtained from Surrey County Council through a Freedom of Information request submitted by Nima Fazlipour, director of Drainage & Plumbing Ltd. The company said it checked the 18,463 individual records against the Council’s annual and electoral-division summaries.
The figures count reports made by members of the public rather than confirmed blockages. They do not show how many reports concerned the same problem, how many resulted in repair work or how quickly the Council responded. Surrey’s released spreadsheets did not include gully-cleaning totals or dates on which cases were resolved.
A road gully is the grated opening beside a kerb which carries rainwater away from the highway. Its underground pot can become filled with silt, fallen leaves and road debris, leaving water standing on the carriageway after rain.
Highway gullies are generally maintained by the county council, while public sewers are the responsibility of Thames Water. Drains within private property boundaries ordinarily fall to the property owner.
MP says infrastructure is failing
Helen Maguire, Liberal Democrat MP for Epsom and Ewell, has accused Thames Water of failing to invest sufficiently in its ageing infrastructure.
Her intervention came as Thames Water customers remained subject to a hosepipe ban introduced following prolonged dry weather, heatwaves, low rainfall and unusually high demand.
Figures analysed by the House of Commons Library and the Liberal Democrats indicate that Thames Water lost an average of 569.1 million litres of treated water a day through leaks during 2024/25. That is equivalent to approximately 228 Olympic-sized swimming pools every day.
Those leakage figures apply across Thames Water’s network and should not be read as losses occurring within Epsom and Ewell alone. They nevertheless add to concerns about the resilience of the company’s infrastructure as it attempts to manage both periods of drought and the overloading of sewers during heavy rainfall.
Ms Maguire said she had written to Thames Water seeking a meeting about its preparations for increasingly extreme weather and how it intends to make the water network more resilient.
She said: “Thames Water needs to urgently get its house in order. They have got away with their negligent handling of our water infrastructure for far too long. It’s simply not good enough.
“Whilst residents in Epsom and Ewell have to face a hosepipe ban as well as continuing increasing bills, Thames Water continues to fail. Thames Water must stop rewarding their unaccountable bosses with bonuses and start investing in fixing their infrastructure so we can avoid this happening time after time.”
Ms Maguire also called for customer payments to be reinvested in stopping leaks and preventing sewage discharges, supporting her party’s proposal for water companies to be placed under a mutual ownership model.
The Government has already announced that Ofwat will be abolished and its functions combined with water-related responsibilities currently divided between the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Drinking Water Inspectorate. The existing regulators retain their legal powers until the new regulator is established.
Different drains, common concern
The highway gully, sewage overflow, sewer-flooding and clean-water leakage figures describe different parts of the water and drainage system and should not be treated as one dataset.
Taken together, however, they illustrate the competing pressures placed on local infrastructure: too little available water during prolonged dry weather, leakage from the supply network, road flooding when surface drainage becomes blocked and sewage discharges when combined sewers are overwhelmed.
Drainage & Plumbing Ltd brought its two investigations to the attention of the Epsom and Ewell Times. The company, based in Brighton Road, Purley, provides commercial drainage services across Surrey and South London.
EET acknowledges the public-interest work of Mr Fazlipour and the company in obtaining, checking and publishing the official information.
Image: River Mole in Leatherhead – geograph.org.uk Nigel Cox
Record A level results open doors for Epsom and Ewell students
1 September 2026
Students at two Epsom and Ewell secondary schools are celebrating impressive A-level and vocational qualification results, with Rosebery School recording its best results to date and seven Glyn School students securing straight A* grades.
At Rosebery School in Epsom, 43% of all A-level entries received an A* or A grade, while 73% were graded A* to B and 88% A* to C. All three figures represent new records for the girls’ school.
Twenty-four Rosebery students achieved A* or A grades in every subject. Five secured straight As: Emma Glencross, with four A*s, and Emily Woodville, Grace Worley, Amy Box and Amy Helyar, each with three.
The school also highlighted students whose results demonstrated particularly strong progress since their GCSEs. Emily Gromova, Amelie Dale, Lara Sollewijn Gelpke and Jacqueline Tetteh were among the strongest members of the cohort when measured by the progress made from their earlier attainment.
Rosebery headteacher David Lach said: “These results are truly outstanding and reflect the talent, resilience and determination of an exceptional group of young women. We are enormously proud of what they have achieved and the way they have supported one another throughout their journey.
“At Rosebery, we believe there should be no limits to what girls can achieve, and this year’s results demonstrate exactly that.”
Members of the Class of 2026 will now progress to destinations including Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, King’s College London and the universities of Warwick and Bath. Others have secured degree apprenticeships or will pursue specialist training, including pilot training and drama school.
Mr Lach thanked Rosebery’s teaching and support staff for helping the students to believe in themselves and fulfil their potential.
At Glyn School in Ewell, staff and students were meanwhile celebrating A-level and vocational qualification results in which more than 51% of students achieved A* to B grades.
Seven students obtained straight A*s. Vrushabh K achieved four, in chemistry, further mathematics, mathematics and physics, and will study mechanical and electrical engineering at the University of Bristol.
Oliver H gained three A*s in mathematics, further mathematics and physics and is heading to the University of Sheffield. Amri R achieved the same top grades in computer science, mathematics and further mathematics and will study at Imperial College London.
Amelie S secured As in biology, chemistry and mathematics, while Ilario Lok C achieved As in further mathematics, mathematics and physics and will attend the University of Hong Kong.
James D received three A*s in chemistry, mathematics and physics, while James Y achieved three in economics, mathematics and geography.
Glyn headteacher Jo Garrod said: “We are thrilled to see this year’s A-level and BTEC exam success. With over 51% of students achieving A* to B grades, they should all be extremely proud of their efforts, and we wish them the very best for their futures.”
She said the school was delighted that students had secured places at their chosen universities, apprenticeships and careers, while paying particular tribute to those who had overcome significant barriers before sitting their examinations.
“They should be incredibly proud of themselves and the results they have secured under difficult circumstances,” she added. “Thanks also go to the staff for their immense effort this year to ensure our students got the grades they deserved.”
Warwick Sharp, chief executive of GLF Schools, which includes both Rosebery and Glyn, congratulated the students and staff.
Describing Rosebery’s results as “record-breaking”, he said its students had been set on a path towards future success by the school’s committed team.
Addressing Glyn’s results, he added: “We are excited to see what these wonderful young people go on to do next as they shape their futures. A huge thanks and well done to the brilliant team at Glyn who should be proud of these impressive achievements.”
Epsom and Ewell Borough Council’s bill for councillor allowances rose by more than £19,000 last year, with 30 of the borough’s 35 councillors receiving more than in the previous financial year.
The Council paid a total of £285,011.33 in members’ allowances in 2025/26, compared with £265,736.49 in 2024/25 – an increase of £19,274.84, or 7.25%.
The newly published figures cover the financial year from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. The previous return covers 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025.
Much of the increase resulted from the basic allowance payable to every councillor rising from £5,779.86 to £6,202.68 – an increase of £422.82, or 7.3%.
Across all 35 councillors that added £14,798.70 to the bill. In other words, just over three-quarters of the £19,275 year-on-year increase arose from the increase in the basic allowance alone.
Special Responsibility Allowances – additional payments for councillors holding particular positions – increased collectively from £62,822.38 to £67,359.72, an increase of £4,537.34.
Travel and subsistence payments actually fell slightly, from £619.01 to £557.81. No dependants’ carers’ allowances were recorded in either year.
The Council states that Special Responsibility Allowances do not relate to actual attendance at meetings but to membership of committees and panels, and that allowance payments are subject to Income Tax and National Insurance.
McCormick remains highest-paid councillor
Cllr Steven McCormick topped the table for the second successive year. His total increased from £16,983.46 to £18,608.16, a rise of £1,624.70.
For clarity, McCormick was a Residents’ Association councillor throughout the 2025/26 financial year. Although EEBC’s present councillor page now records him as Conservative, the Council’s earlier listing recorded him as RA and he contested the new East Surrey Council election on 7 May 2026 as a Residents’ Association candidate for Epsom Town and Downs. His subsequent change of allegiance therefore falls outside the period covered by these allowance figures.
Second highest was Cllr Neil Dallen, whose payment increased from £15,645.76 to £17,057.52, a rise of £1,411.76.
Council Leader Cllr Hannah Dalton moved from second to third place and was one of only five councillors whose total payment fell. She received £16,266.40, £429.41 less than the £16,695.81 received in 2024/25. The difference largely reflects a reduction in her Special Responsibility Allowance and travel and subsistence payments.
The other councillors whose total payments fell were Humphrey Reynolds (£175.96 less), Steve Bridger (£75.76 less), Julian Freeman (£52.16 less) and Bernie Muir (£52.16 less).
Biggest rises
After McCormick’s £1,624.70 increase, the biggest cash increases went to:
John Beckett – up £1,474.94
Neil Dallen – up £1,411.76
Alan Williamson – up £1,395.42
Clive Woodbridge – up £1,214.94
The percentage comparison can sometimes exaggerate relatively small payments, but Cllr Beckett’s total nevertheless rose by almost a quarter, from £6,278.44 to £7,753.38.
At the other end of the scale, 12 councillors received no Special Responsibility Allowance in 2025/26 and were paid simply the basic £6,202.68 allowance.
The two published returns show all 35 councillors serving in both financial years, allowing a direct like-for-like comparison.
Councillor allowances compared
The table is ranked by the latest, 2025/26, total.
Councillor / ward / party during 2025/26
2024/25
2025/26
Change
Steven McCormick — Woodcote & Langley Vale — RA
£16,983.46
£18,608.16
+£1,624.70
Neil Dallen — Town — RA
£15,645.76
£17,057.52
+£1,411.76
Hannah Dalton — Stoneleigh — RA
£16,695.81
£16,266.40
−£429.41
Clive Woodbridge — Ewell Village — RA
£12,431.10
£13,646.04
+£1,214.94
Liz Frost — Woodcote & Langley Vale — RA
£9,790.14
£10,562.54
+£772.40
Peter O’Donovan — Ewell Court — RA
£9,648.02
£10,544.64
+£896.62
Phil Neale — Cuddington — RA
£8,131.92
£8,994.00
+£862.08
Alan Williamson — West Ewell — RA
£7,553.56
£8,948.98
+£1,395.42
Bernice Froud — Woodcote & Langley Vale — RA
£7,802.86
£8,373.72
+£570.86
Christine Cleveland — Ewell Village — RA
£7,727.52
£8,063.52
+£336.00
John Beckett — Auriol — RA
£6,278.44
£7,753.38
+£1,474.94
Shanice Goldman — Nonsuch — RA → Conservative
£7,300.16
£7,488.26
+£188.10
Kate Chinn — Court — Labour
£6,708.26
£7,173.00
+£464.74
Rachel King — Town — RA
£6,539.96
£7,133.04
+£593.08
Jan Mason — Ruxley — RA
£6,358.22
£6,822.96
+£464.74
Humphrey Reynolds — West Ewell — RA
£6,998.92
£6,822.96
−£175.96
Chris Watson — Ewell Court — RA → Labour
£6,286.66
£6,822.96
+£536.30
Alison Kelly — Stamford — Liberal Democrat
£5,779.86
£6,719.58
+£939.72
Kieran Persand — Horton — Conservative
£5,779.86
£6,719.58
+£939.72
Bernie Muir — Horton — Conservative
£6,658.22
£6,606.06
−£52.16
Alex Coley — Ruxley — Independent
£5,993.54
£6,593.09
+£599.55
James Lawrence — College — Lib Dem → Independent
£5,779.86
£6,552.72
+£772.86
Julian Freeman — College — Liberal Democrat
£6,358.22
£6,306.06
−£52.16
Arthur Abdulin — Town — RA
£5,779.86
£6,202.68
+£422.82
Chris Ames — Court — Labour
£5,779.86
£6,202.68
+£422.82
Steve Bridger — Stamford — RA
£6,278.44
£6,202.68
−£75.76
Tony Froud — Stoneleigh — RA
£5,779.86
£6,202.68
+£422.82
Rob Geleit — Court — Labour
£5,779.86
£6,202.68
+£422.82
Christine Howells — Nonsuch — RA → Independent
£5,779.86
£6,202.68
+£422.82
Graham Jones — Cuddington — RA
£5,779.86
£6,202.68
+£422.82
Robert Leach — Nonsuch — RA
£6,029.16
£6,202.68
+£173.52
Lucie McIntyre — West Ewell — RA
£5,779.86
£6,202.68
+£422.82
Julie Morris — College — Independent
£6,179.82
£6,202.68
+£22.86
Kim Spickett — Cuddington — RA
£5,779.86
£6,202.68
+£422.82
Darren Talbot — Auriol — RA
£5,779.86
£6,202.68
+£422.82
TOTAL
£265,736.49
£285,011.33
+£19,274.84
Political allegiances also shifted during the year covered by the figures. Shanice Goldman left the Residents’ Association for the Conservatives in January 2026, Chris Watson moved from the RA to Labour in February, and James Lawrence left the Liberal Democrats for the Independent Group in March. Christine Howells, who had been an RA councillor during part of the year, was also sitting as an Independent by its end. Steven McCormick remained an RA councillor throughout the 2025/26 financial year; his subsequent move to the Conservatives came after the May 2026 unitary council election, which he contested unsuccessfully for the Residents’ Association in Town and Downs.
Image: Epsom and Ewell Borough Council Chamber. EEBC YouTube
Surrey eyes a share of its own taxes under devolution plans
1 September 2026
Surrey’s future strategic authority could retain a share of locally generated income tax and business rates under government plans to transfer more money and decision-making from Whitehall to England’s regions.
The Government’s “Rewiring the State” programme proposes replacing some central government grants with a share of the income tax generated within each mayoral area from April 2028.
Mayors would not, on the information published so far, be given the power to set income tax rates. Instead, part of the existing tax collected by the Treasury would be assigned to their regions.
The intention is that an area which expands its economy and tax base would benefit from the additional revenue. Councils and strategic authorities would also retain a greater proportion of locally raised business rates.
However, the Government has yet to disclose what percentage of either tax would be retained, how the system would operate during an economic downturn or how revenues would be redistributed between wealthier and less prosperous regions.
Those details are expected in a fiscal devolution roadmap accompanying the autumn Budget, followed by more precise income-tax arrangements in the next Spending Review.
The proposals could prove particularly significant for Surrey, with its comparatively strong economy, high employment and large number of higher-rate taxpayers. Whether that translates into substantially more money for local services will depend upon the formula eventually adopted and the grants which tax revenues replace.
Surrey County Council says a Foundation Strategic Authority is proposed for the county in 2027, providing a possible route to a Mayoral Strategic Authority from 2028.
That distinction matters. The Cabinet statement promises a share of income tax to “every mayor”, while saying that mayoral authorities will receive greater powers than non-mayoral bodies. It does not clearly promise non-mayoral Foundation Strategic Authorities the same income-tax entitlement.
The Government says it will not impose a mayor on an area which does not want one, although it regards directly elected mayors as offering the strongest form of accountability. It wants every part of England to have, or be establishing, a strategic authority by the end of 2027, with authorities operating everywhere by the end of 2028.
Councillor Steve Wotton, Leader of the East Surrey Shadow Authority, welcomed the direction of travel.
He said: “Surrey has a strong economy, a highly skilled workforce and an important role to play in supporting national growth. Giving strategic authorities a stronger link to locally generated revenues has the potential to provide greater certainty for long-term investment in transport, infrastructure, housing and skills.
“The ability to plan over a longer time horizon could help local leaders make better decisions, unlock investment and deliver improvements that residents and businesses want to see.”
Councillor Paul Follows, Leader of the West Surrey Shadow Authority, said the principle was positive but cautioned that the detail would be critical.
“Places like Surrey should have a stronger voice in the decisions that affect their residents, businesses and local economy,” he said.
“However, it will be important that government gets the detail right. Any new funding system must be fair, sustainable and recognise the different opportunities and challenges faced by communities across the country.”
Beyond taxation, the programme proposes giving mayors greater control over transport, housing, skills, employment support, innovation, energy and cultural investment.
Mayors would gain control of budgets for technical and vocational education for 16 to 19-year-olds and locally tailored employment support. They could also be given greater influence over commuter rail services, bus regulation, affordable housing and regional investment.
Police, fire and rescue services and Integrated Care Boards are eventually expected to align with strategic-authority boundaries. Deputy mayors could be appointed to oversee important public services.
All strategic authorities, including non-mayoral ones, would also be able to introduce an Overnight Visitor Levy. The charge, sometimes described as a tourist tax, could be imposed on overnight accommodation, with authorities expected to explain by March 2028 how the proceeds would be invested.
No proposed rate or charging mechanism has yet been announced.
The reforms could therefore give a future Surrey mayor considerable influence over services and investment currently controlled by Whitehall or separate public bodies. They would also create another directly elected political office above the two new Surrey unitary councils.
Epsom and Ewell is due to form part of the new East Surrey authority under the county’s local government reorganisation. The precise relationship between the two unitary councils and a county-wide strategic authority—including how powers, costs and accountability would be divided—has still to be settled.
Tax retention could reward economic growth and provide more predictable funding for long-term projects. It also raises difficult questions. Income-tax receipts fluctuate, affluent regions begin with much stronger tax bases, and replacing government grants with locally assigned revenues could expose authorities to greater financial risk.
The Cabinet statement acknowledges that different areas have unequal starting points and says growth incentives will have to be balanced against fairness. It also proposes stronger oversight, including making the chief executives of mayoral strategic authorities accountable for the use of public money as Local Accounting Officers.
Business-rate retention is scheduled to begin for mayors in April 2027, with locally retained income-tax receipts following in April 2028. A government white paper setting out the legislation, funding arrangements and timetable is promised for the autumn.
For Surrey, the headline prospect is an attractive one: keeping more of the wealth generated within the county. Whether it represents genuinely additional local spending power—or chiefly a new way of funding responsibilities transferred from Westminster—will only become clear when the figures and equalisation rules are published.
A newly built railway footbridge has been delivered to Epsom Common but cannot be installed after a late dispute emerged between Surrey County Council and Network Rail over its width.
Residents of Castle Road, Epsom, who have endured nearly three years without the former crossing to Evelyn Way, briefly blocked access to the Network Rail compound when the replacement structure arrived to be stored beside their homes.
The previous bridge was closed and demolished almost three years ago. Work to strengthen and rebuild its supports began earlier this year, and residents had expected the new bridge to be installed over the weekend of 4 July.
Instead, the structure is now lying within the building site while Network Rail and Surrey County Council attempt to resolve whether it can legally be installed.
The bridge has been designed with a width of 1.5 metres. However, SCC says the public footpath crossing the railway has a legally recorded width of 3.6 metres.
The council maintains that allowing a narrower bridge would obstruct part of the public right of way and breach its statutory duty to protect its full width.
What has particularly angered residents is that the conflict appears not to have surfaced until April 2026, despite the bridge having been absent for almost three years and construction work beginning in February.
SCC says it was neither consulted about the replacement design nor asked to approve the works before construction began.
‘No choice but to object’
Cllr Matt Furniss, SCC Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Economic Growth, told the Epsom and Ewell Times:
“We appreciate and share residents’ frustration at the situation. Unfortunately, Network Rail failed to consult us on the installation of the bridge prior to starting construction works in February, nor did they apply under the Highways Act for an S118 or technical approval to undertake works to a structure on a public highway.
“This meant when we found out about the bridge work in April, we had no choice but to object in line with our statutory duty to assert and protect public rights of way.
“The bridge being proposed by Network Rail also fails to meet minimum width national design standards, with it being less than half the width of the public footpath. To provide a narrower bridge is an obstruction under the Highways Act.”
Cllr Furniss added that SCC understood Network Rail had placed a structure on the site but said the rail infrastructure body had not confirmed its intentions.
“We will continue to work with Network Rail to resolve this situation as soon as possible while achieving the best possible long-term outcome for the community and ensuring that the public footpath is protected,” he said.
Residents halt delivery
Residents learned that, rather than pay for storage elsewhere, the completed bridge was to be delivered to the site and left there pending a resolution.
When the delivery day arrived, a group gathered at the entrance and initially prevented the vehicle from entering.
“We were ready for it; the whole thing was set up for it,” said Castle Road resident Linda Barry. “But if it’s now just dumped here, we have no idea when the bridge will be installed. What has been the three-year hold-up at Surrey County Council?”
The project manager was called to the scene and attempted to reassure residents that the delay would be temporary. With the bridge already in transit and no alternative place immediately available for it, residents eventually allowed it to be unloaded.
“We were in an impossible position,” said Ms Barry. “The bridge was here, and there was nowhere else for it to go. But now we have no guarantee that it will be installed, so it could be here by the side of the road for a long time.”
Residents say they have already endured years of disruption, dust and temporary sewage-pumping arrangements associated with the works.
Council learned of bridge through social media
In a separate response to Ms Barry, a member of the SCC Countryside Capital Programme said the authority became aware of the proposed replacement bridge only in late April — and did so through social media.
She wrote: “Unfortunately, we had not been consulted on the design and therefore had no opportunity to provide input during its development.”
She explained that Section 130 of the Highways Act 1980 requires the council, as highway authority, to assert and protect the rights of people using public rights of way.
“This includes protecting the full recorded width of the public footpath,” she said. “As a result of the legislation, we are not legally able to permit the installation of a bridge that would reduce the available width of the public footpath to below the recorded legal width.”
Ms Barry questioned why consultation had apparently not taken place during the years between the closure of the old bridge and construction of its replacement.
She also pointed out that, during her 43 years living in Castle Road, she had known the crossing as a footbridge used by pedestrians and people with pushchairs rather than as a route requiring a 3.6-metre-wide structure.
Potential year-long delay
Residents have been told that resolving the dispute could delay installation by as much as another 12 months, although no revised completion date has yet been formally confirmed.
The controversy raises questions over how a replacement bridge could be designed, manufactured and brought to the point of installation without the highway authority responsible for the public right of way being consulted.
For Castle Road residents, the immediate result is that a bridge built to restore a long-closed route has reached Epsom — but remains firmly on the ground.
Photo caption: Castle Road residents Linda Barry and Rob block access to the Network Rail site before the replacement footbridge was unloaded.
The procedural controversy at Epsom and Ewell Borough Council did not end when 11 councillors walked out of the Council Chamber on 21 July in protest at the Mayor’s ruling in favour of her father participating in a debate on the development of Council owned Hook Road arena, where his annual fireworks display is held.
Since Epsom and Ewell Times’s (EET) report, “Fireworks at Epsom Council spark walk-out”, further exchanges with Councillor Neil Dallen (RA, Town) and the Mayor, Councillor Lucie McIntyre (RA, West Ewell), have raised questions about accountability, consistency and the proper boundary between robust scrutiny and personal abuse.
An interview made a condition of answering
Before the earlier publication, EET sent Cllr Dallen straightforward written questions about his position as a director of Epsom Fireworks Display Limited, the company’s agreement to hire the Council-owned Hook Road Arena, and whether he has ever received remuneration, expenses or another financial benefit through the company. After five days Cllr Dallen did not reply before publication.
After the publication he made an interview a condition of responding: “I do not intend to answer them (the questions) in isolation but if you wish to meet and discuss the firework display, how it is organised, who benefits etc. I would be very happy to meet you either face to face or online.”
EET explained that its settled news-gathering policy is to conduct enquiries by email. This creates an exact, contemporaneous record of the questions asked and answers given and protects reporters, contributors and those being interviewed against later disagreement about what was said. This policy has been expressly approved by EET’s regulator IMPRESS. Furthermore, as volunteers we do not have the time to give and Cllr Dallen is no exception to our method. EET would welcome for publication an article about the history of the Epsom fireworks, an annual event that has been a staple of community life in the Borough since 1971.
Cllr Dallen replied: “I can see no point in responding. Perhaps you need to consider taking out insurance or getting agreement to record meetings.”
For clarity, Cllr Dallen did not decline an interview. He required one before he would answer. EET declined that condition and renewed its invitation to answer in writing. No substantive response has followed.
Cllr Dallen is under no general legal obligation to answer questions from a newspaper. His decision not to answer proves neither payment nor wrongdoing. EET nevertheless considers the questions proper and relevant to the public controversy.
In particular, the question remains unanswered:
As a director, does Cllr Dallen receive, or has he ever received, fees, expenses or any other financial benefit from Epsom Fireworks Display Limited?
Gain is not the only possible interest
At the 21st July Council meeting, Cllr Dallen declared that he was a director and trustee connected with the fireworks display, but said he did not have a pecuniary interest in the Hook Road proposal.
It is possible that he reached that conclusion in good faith because the motion sought to advance development which might ultimately bring the annual firework display to an end rather than produce a gain for him.
A pecuniary interest, however, is not confined to the prospect of making money from the decision. An existing financial interest may also be adversely affected and that would constitute a “pecuniary interest“
Moreover, EEBC’s Members’ Code of Conduct includes among disclosable pecuniary interests a contract between the Council and an incorporated body of which the councillor is a director, where goods or services are to be provided and the contract has not been fully discharged. Epsom Fireworks Display Limited had an agreement to hire Hook Road Arena for the November 2026 display.
The Code says that, where a matter “directly relates” to such an interest, the councillor must disclose it, take no part in the discussion or vote and leave the room unless granted a dispensation.
That leaves an important question of application. Did a motion merely making development of the Arena a strategic priority “directly relate” to the existing fireworks-hire contract? The motion did not itself cancel that agreement or approve a particular development. There is consequently room for legal argument.
But the existence of a company contract is relevant independently of whether Cllr Dallen receives directors’ fees. An answer about remuneration would still help establish whether his directorship also falls within the separate category of an office carried on for “profit or gain” and would allow the public to understand the full nature of his interest.
It remains a question Cllr Dallen has chosen not to answer.
The Mayor’s full statement
EET also asked Cllr McIntyre why she did not formally disclose that Cllr Dallen is her father and why she did not invite the Deputy Mayor to chair the dispute over his participation.
The Council supplied the following statement on her behalf: “I was elected Mayor this year and, as you will read in my biography on the Council website, the commitment my father, Councillor Dallen, demonstrates in helping others is one of the things that inspired me to serve my community by becoming a councillor, and now Mayor. I am perfectly able to chair a meeting in my capacity as Mayor when my father is in attendance. At the Full Council meeting on 21 July, Councillor Dallen declared that he did not have a pecuniary interest in the item concerning Hook Road Arena, which was his right.”
The original report summarised the first part and reproduced the final two sentences verbatim, these being the part directly addressing the question. The Council subsequently insisted that the entire statement should appear, saying that editing it had altered its meaning.
EET therefore publishes it above in full.
The additional passage undoubtedly supplies context. It also expressly records Cllr McIntyre’s admiration for her father and the influence he has had upon her own public life. Readers may consider that this reinforces, rather than dispels, the appearance of a conflict when she chaired rulings determining whether he could remain, speak and move the motion.
The issue is not whether a mayor can ordinarily chair a meeting attended by a parent. It is whether she should have continued to chair the particular dispute over that parent’s interests, without formally disclosing the relationship and when the Deputy Mayor was available.
Cllr McIntyre’s statement does not answer that question.
In requesting publication of the full quotation, the Council’s communications team added: “We value our working relationship with local media and always respond to enquiries in good faith, with the expectation that comments will be represented accurately.”
This was not an express threat to end cooperation with EET. In its context, however, the reference to the working relationship could be read as placing institutional weight behind the request. A constructive relationship between a council and the local press must permit fair editing, difficult questions and disagreement over what is relevant. It cannot depend upon every supplied statement being published in full.
Was there “hate” in the chamber?
At the conclusion of the Hook Road debate, Cllr Dallen said: “We, as a council, made a motion about Debate Not Hate, and I think we need to remind ourselves about that.”
EEBC unanimously adopted its Debate Not Hate motion in July 2023. It committed the Council to challenging abuse and intimidation while encouraging healthy political debate.
The campaign was never intended to make councillors immune from criticism. When the East Surrey Shadow Authority recently supported the same Local Government Association campaign, councillors emphasised that they expected their decisions to be questioned and that there was a fundamental difference between robust disagreement and personal abuse. As one councillor put it: “We should challenge each other’s policies, question decisions, and hold one another to account.” Read EET’s report.
EET has reviewed the transcript of the Hook Road exchange. It records repeated procedural objections, interruptions, an adjournment and the walk-out. Cllr Kieran Persand (Conservative Horton) called the Council “a joke”. Cllr Clive Woodbridge (RA Ewell Village) praised those opposition councillors who remained for showing a “mature side”, prompting Cllr Chris Watson (Labour Ewell Court) to defend the walk-out as a valid democratic act. Cllr Hannah Dalton (RA Stoneleigh) referred more generally to “cheap pop shots and remarks” and councillors feeling “mauled”.
Some of that language was sharp and the atmosphere was plainly heated. EET found no threat, discriminatory abuse, harassment or personal attack upon Cllr Dallen in the recorded Hook Road exchange of the kind at which Debate Not Hate is principally directed. The objections concerned whether he was entitled to participate and whether the correct procedure had been followed.
It is therefore fair to ask what Cllr Dallen intended by invoking Debate Not Hate. If it was directed at those procedural objections, it risked treating scrutiny as abuse and turning a campaign designed to protect democratic participation into a means of discouraging it.
“Debate Not Hate” cannot sensibly mean “debate, but no uncomfortable questions”. The campaign protects councillors against intimidation; it does not release them from accountability.
Cllr Dallen may maintain that he had no pecuniary interest and was entitled to participate. Cllr McIntyre may maintain that she was capable of chairing impartially. Both are entitled to state those positions.
But accountability involves more than asserting that one is right. It includes answering reasonable questions, disclosing relationships relevant to public perception and permitting established rules to be tested without characterising the challenge itself as hate.
Whether the approaches taken here demonstrate consistency—or something closer to selective accountability—is a judgment readers can now make with the exchanges before them.
Eleven councillors walked out of Epsom and Ewell Borough Council after the Mayor ruled that her father could remain in the chamber and lead a debate on the future of land hired by a company of which he is a director.
Despite the upheaval, the Council agreed on Tuesday 21st July to give strategic priority to the potential development of sports facilities and housing at Hook Road Arena.
The decision does not approve development. It elevates the Council-owned, 14-hectare site between Chessington Road and Horton Lane to one of EEBC’s strategic priorities for its final months before abolition in April 2027.
A feasibility study will examine whether housing on part of the Arena could finance playing pitches and other sports and recreation facilities. Up to £250,000 has already been allocated from the Council’s Corporate Projects Reserve.
Consultants are expected to be appointed by the end of August, with the study intended to be completed before EEBC’s functions transfer to the new East Surrey Council on 1st April 2027.
However, the merits of the proposal were overshadowed by a bitter dispute over the participation of Councillor Neil Dallen (RA, Town), chair of the Council’s Strategy and Resources Committee.
Fireworks company hires Council land
Cllr Dallen is a director of Epsom Fireworks Display Ltd and a trustee of the associated Epsom Fireworks Display Charitable Trust.
The company contracts with EEBC to hire Hook Road Arena for its annual fireworks display. It has done so since between 2019 to 2021 after taking over from the local scouts that had organised the annual event since 1971. The company has a further agreement with the Council for the November 2026 event.
The company has just three directors. Two of those directors are two of the four trustees of the charity that distributes its income to scouting groups and other worthy charitable causes.
Development of the Arena could eventually bring the fireworks display at that location to an end.
At the beginning of the ordinary Council meeting, Cllr Dallen declared that he was a director and trustee of the fireworks organisations and that the Arena was used for the display.
He also disclosed that he had met representatives of Epsom and Ewell Football Club and the borough’s netball club concerning their proposals for the site.
Cllr Dallen told the meeting that he had never expressed a view for or against their plans and was “confident that I have an unbiased and open mind”.
When the Hook Road item was reached, he proposed that development of the Arena be made a strategic priority.
Cllr Alex Coley (Independent, Ruxley) immediately raised a point of order. He said Cllr Dallen had treated the same connection as a conflict on two previous occasions when Hook Road Arena was discussed by the Strategy and Resources Committee.
Cllr Dallen disputed Cllr Coley’s account. He said he had not left the room at the earlier meetings, although on one occasion he had not voted.
Cllr Bernie Muir (Conservative, Horton) supported Cllr Coley’s objection. She said the conflict had caused controversy at both previous meetings and asked for a ruling from the Council’s Monitoring Officer.
The legal officer advising the meeting said Cllr Dallen had declared his connection and had self-declared that it was not a pecuniary interest. The officer said that where a member decided that an interest was not pecuniary, participation was a matter for that member’s discretion.
Cllr Coley tried to point out that Companies House registered Cllr Dallen as a director of Epsom Fireworks Display Ltd and that the company had a financial relationship with the Council.
Mayor Cllr Lucie McIntyre (RA, West Ewell) repeatedly instructed him to stop speaking and sit down.
She ruled that it was for Cllr Dallen to decide whether his interest was pecuniary and said councillors who disagreed could pursue the relevant complaints procedures after the meeting.
After further objections, the Mayor adjourned proceedings. When councillors returned, she announced that Cllr Dallen had confirmed that he did not consider his interest pecuniary and would continue to participate.
Eleven councillors then walked out of the chamber.
Cllr Kieran Persand (Conservative, Horton) put on record his view that “this council is a joke”.
Cllr Chris Watson (Labour, Ewell Court) remained but later defended the absent councillors, saying their walkout was “a perfectly valid democratic process”.
Mayor was ruling on her father
It was not disclosed to the meeting or to members of the public that Mayor Cllr Lucie McIntyre is Cllr Dallen’s daughter.
It does not follow that being Cllr Dallen’s daughter automatically gave the Mayor a disclosable pecuniary interest of her own under the Localism Act. The statutory definition generally extends to a councillor and their spouse, civil partner or person with whom they live as a partner—not to an adult parent or child.
Nevertheless, Cllr McIntyre was making contested procedural rulings about whether her father could remain, speak, propose the recommendation and vote.
No suggestion is made that the family relationship necessarily disqualified her from chairing the whole meeting. However, declaring it would have enabled councillors and the public to assess openly whether the Deputy Mayor (Cllr Julie Morris Independent College) should have ruled upon this particular dispute.
EET asked the Mayor why she did not disclose that Cllr Dallen is her father or invite the Deputy Mayor to chair the objection to his participation and the item. After referring to her reference in her Council website biography to the inspiration her father gave her to be a Councillor she responded: “I am perfectly able to chair a meeting in my capacity as Mayor when my father is in attendance. At the Full Council meeting on 21 July, Councillor Dallen declared that he did not have a pecuniary interest in the item concerning Hook Road Arena, which was his right.”
EET asked the Council’s legal adviser if his legal advice took account of the live company-council contract and the statutory contracts category in the 2012 Regulations? And whether any formal dispensation was granted to Dallen to participate, and whether an external Monitoring Officer will be asked to review the matter?
A Council spokesperson responded: “At the meeting of the Full Council on 21 July, Councillor Dallen declared that he did not have a pecuniary interest in the item concerning Hook Road Arena. There are no plans to review this.”
Five sources allege history of obstruction
Cllr Dallen’s public advocacy of the Hook Road project also contrasts with accounts given privately to Epsom and Ewell Times (EET) about his earlier approach.
Three councillors belonging to Cllr Dallen’s own Residents’ Association group and two sources closely connected with Epsom and Ewell Football Club have independently told EET that he repeatedly impeded progress on proposals for the Arena.
The sources allege that proposals were pushed “from pillar to post” and from one committee or process to another, causing avoidable delay.
Cllr Dallen has also been quoted by more than one source as saying, while discussing the future of the Arena: “I want the fireworks four more years.”
The sources asked not to be named because of their continuing political or organisational relationships. EET knows their identities and considers each to be in a position to have direct knowledge of the events described.
Their accounts do not, by themselves, prove that every delay resulted from Cllr Dallen’s intervention or that any intervention was motivated by the interests of the fireworks company. Large developments involving Green Belt, restrictive covenants, sports bodies, housing and Council land inevitably pass through several stages.
Nevertheless, the consistency of the accounts raises a legitimate question about why a councillor alleged to have resisted or delayed the proposals behind the scenes emerged at Full Council as their proposer and public champion. Was he seeking to publicly erase perceptions that he had been the cause of previous delays?
Cllr Dallen told the meeting that he wanted the work concluded quickly and, ideally, before EEBC ceased to exist, although he acknowledged that this might not be possible.
EET has asked Cllr Dallen to respond to the allegations that he previously delayed the project, to confirm whether he said he wanted the fireworks to continue for four more years, and to explain what caused his apparent change of approach.
At the time of publication, Cllr Dallen had not responded.
What do the fireworks accounts reveal?
Epsom Fireworks Display Ltd’s latest micro-entity accounts show turnover of £109,324 for the year ending 30th April 2025.
Almost the entire amount—£108,890—is placed under the single expenditure heading “cost of materials”, leaving a profit of £434.
The company accounts state that it had no employees, but do not break down the £108,890. They do not separately identify the cost of fireworks, Arena hire, insurance, event services, charitable donations, directors’ remuneration or directors’ expenses.
Accounts filed by the associated charitable trust show total income of £48,623 during the same year, including a £41,250 donation from Epsom Fireworks Display Ltd.
The Charity Commission register states that the charity’s trustees receive no remuneration, payments or benefits from the charity. That does not answer the separate question of whether anyone receives payment or expenses from the limited company.
The company’s accounts neither establish that its directors were paid nor prove that they were not. The donation to the charity must form part of the £108,890 wrongly described as all being “cost of materials”.
Companies House identifies Cllr Dallen as one of four directors. It names another director, Anthony Williams FCCA (Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), as the company’s only registered person with significant control. Cllr Dallen’s directorship therefore does not, without further information, establish that he owns or controls the company. It is a company limited by guarantee with no share capital.
EET has asked Cllr Dallen whether he receives any remuneration, expenses or other financial benefit from Epsom Fireworks Display Ltd.
At the time of publication, no response had been received.
The legal question
The Localism Act 2011 prevents a councillor with a disclosable pecuniary interest from participating in a discussion or vote unless a dispensation has been granted. A beach is a criminal offence.
The prescribed interests include an “employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain”, together with specified contractual, property and ownership interests.
Whether Cllr Dallen’s directorship falls within that statutory definition may therefore depend upon facts not revealed by the micro-entity accounts—including whether his office as director is carried on for profit or gain and whether he has a beneficial interest in the company.
The existence of a statutory interest is not ultimately determined by whether a councillor personally “feels” that an interest exists. Members must initially assess and declare their own position, but whether the legal test is satisfied is an objective question of fact and law.
The legislation is preventive. If a disclosable pecuniary interest exists, the prohibition applies regardless of whether the councillor supports or opposes the proposal and regardless of whether the councillor believes that he has an open mind. An ongoing contractual relationship is a disclosable interest regardless of any personal benefit.
There is a paradox in this case. Development could ultimately end the fireworks display at Hook Road Arena. Cllr Dallen was therefore advocating a process which may operate against, rather than in favour of, the future interests of the fireworks company and the charitable causes it supports..
That may be relevant when assessing his motivation and the seriousness of any alleged breach. It does not, by itself, determine whether the statutory definition of an interest was satisfied.
The Council’s wider code of conduct and the appearance of bias are separate issues from the narrower statutory offence concerning disclosable pecuniary interests.
Rainbow row preceded ordinary meeting
The ordinary Council meeting followed an extraordinary meeting convened earlier that evening to debate the governance of the emerging Local Plan.
During that earlier meeting, Cllr Chris Ames (Labour, Court) expressly referred to the controversy surrounding the Rainbow Leisure Centre.
Cllr Dallen had authorised an urgent and confidential Council decision making up to £500,000 available to address an unexpected dilapidations liability following the change of leisure-centre operator.
Cllr Ames told the extraordinary meeting that problems with the Rainbow contract had become apparent early and argued that an officer and urgent-decision process had been used to bypass democratic scrutiny.
Mayor Cllr McIntyre interrupted him twice and instructed him to return to the Local Plan motion.
Cllr Ames replied: “I really don’t think it’s for you to tell me what my speech is to be about, Madam Mayor. Absolutely not. If I think this is relevant, I will make this point. I will not be silenced.”
He said the Rainbow affair formed part of a pattern in which procedural rules had been used to prevent councillors discussing matters for which they were responsible.
Cllr Clive Woodbridge (RA, Ewell Village) subsequently described criticism of officers as “unconscionable” and said the opposition did not like the answers it received.
Sports shortage wins support
After the walkout from the later ordinary meeting, the councillors who remained overwhelmingly supported making Hook Road Arena a strategic priority.
Cllr Peter O’Donovan (RA, Ewell Court) said the borough had a severe shortage of sports pitches. He referred to 84 junior football teams and said the netball club lacked a permanent base and was forced to hire facilities which could be withdrawn at short notice.
Cllr Alison Kelly (Lib Dem, Stamford) said residents frequently raised the shortage of accessible local sports facilities. She described the feasibility study as the first step towards evaluating the available options.
Cllr Clive Woodbridge said the site had “tremendous potential” as a sporting hub but stressed that the Council was not approving the details of development.
Cllr Jan Mason (RA, Ruxley) supported further investigation but warned against simply stamping through a large scheme without careful consideration of the surrounding homes and existing open land.
Council papers acknowledge substantial obstacles. The Arena is in the Green Belt and a 1975 deed restricts its use largely to open space and recreation unless Surrey County Council consents.
Any housing would also depend upon the emerging Local Plan. Development beyond the feasibility stage would require a separate business case and further decisions, some of which would require the consent of the new East Surrey authority.
The recommendation was carried without a recorded numerical vote.
Cllr Dallen ended the debate by reminding councillors that EEBC had adopted a “debate, not hate” motion.
The Council’s decision means the future of Hook Road Arena will now advance as a formal strategic priority. Whether the dispute over Cllr Dallen’s participation also advances through the Council’s standards process—or to the police under the Localism Act—remains to be seen.
After the meeting Cllr Steven McCormick (Conservative and former prominent RA – Woodcote and Langley) said
“To put this forward now is too little, too late. This council had a prime opportunity over many years to clear the path for enhanced sports facilities at Hook Road Arena, yet proposals were repeatedly shuffled from committee to committee while time ran out.”
He added “Instead of proactive leadership when it could have made a real difference, we are left with a last-minute scramble just months before council abolition. Residents and sports clubs were forced to wait years for progress; they deserve to know why momentum was continually blocked until the eleven-hour mark.”
Epsom and Ewell Council votes for continuing a local Mayoralty after its abolition, for a small fee …
1 September 2026
Epsom and Ewell could retain its mayor, civic traditions and borough regalia after the borough council is abolished next year following a vote by councillors.
Epsom and Ewell Borough Council agreed on Tuesday 21 July to ask the Government to establish Charter Trustees for the borough. The new East Surrey Council will also be asked to support the proposal.
The trustees would preserve the ceremonial office of Mayor of Epsom and Ewell after East Surrey Council assumes responsibility for local services on 1 April 2027.
They would not exercise normal council powers. Their duties would be limited to maintaining the mayoralty, civic ceremonies, historic rights and property such as the borough’s regalia.
Councillor Neil Dallen (RA, Town), who proposed the recommendations, said he had been approached by scores of residents concerned about what would happen to the mayoralty.
“The number of residents that have come to me about what’s going to happen about the mayor have been quite numerous,” he said. “I won’t say they’re in the hundreds, but they’re certainly in the tens, probably closer to 100.
“I have been a mayor, and there are a number of other councillors here who have been a mayor. Once you’ve been a mayor, I think you appreciate what the residents want as a mayor, and it will be a great loss if we don’t have a mayor.”
Cllr Dallen said several members of the new East Surrey Council had indicated support, although the final decision would not rest with Epsom and Ewell.
“We’ve got to get agreement of East Surrey to do this,” he said. “But I’ve spoken to three or four East Surrey councillors, and they are all very much in favour of keeping the mayor.”
Before the main debate, Councillor Alex Coley (Independent, Ruxley) attempted to have the proposal referred to the Strategy and Resources Committee. His move was defeated.
Cllr Coley argued that the proposal had come directly to Full Council without committee scrutiny, public consultation or a detailed estimate of its eventual cost.
Charter Trustees may ask East Surrey Council to fund their activities during the first year. After that, they can raise a council tax precept. The council report said the average Band D charge among existing Charter Trustee bodies was around £2.50 a year, with examples ranging from 46p to £5.
Cllr Coley drew a comparison with the council’s recent Community Governance Review, in which 82 per cent of approximately 2,200 respondents opposed the establishment of parish councils.
“The Charter Trustee item in front of us contains powers to raise a precept – i.e. council tax,” he said. “There was no consultation on this. It does include precepting powers and would create a new instituted body, and I believe that it should go to consultation.”
He added: “We don’t know what this will cost because no work has been done on costing it. For those reasons, I’d like this to go to Strategy and Resources for a debate where questions can be answered.”
Cllr Dallen said referring the proposal to committee could cause the borough to miss a narrow legislative window.
“There are two or three reasons why I think we need to make the decision tonight,” he said. “There is the urgency of trying to get a response before March 31 because, if we don’t get a response and we’re not set up, then everything goes into East Surrey and we lose control.”
He said East Surrey would meet the first year’s cost and described even a possible £5 annual charge as “really good value for money for having a mayor in the borough”.
Councillor Alison Kelly (Lib Dem, College) supported retaining a recognisable civic institution when the borough becomes part of a much larger authority. “Epsom and Ewell, as a relatively small borough, has benefited from a strong local identity,” she said. “With the new unitary authority, there is a risk that we will lose our distinctiveness.”
She said discussions with businesses, charities and East Surrey councillors had indicated appreciation for the mayoralty. “In this case, the relatively small additional charge would be outweighed, in my opinion, by the funds the mayor’s charities have gained,” she said.
Former mayor Councillor Robert Leach (RA, Nonsuch) said his year in office had shown him that the mayoralty was particularly appreciated by residents who might otherwise receive little civic recognition. “The people who valued the mayor were often some of the most disadvantaged people,” he said, recalling presenting certificates to children with special educational needs.
“People really felt honoured. Sometimes I almost felt embarrassed. They were saying, ‘We’re greatly honoured to have His Worshipful the Mayor here,’ and I was sitting there thinking, ‘Why?’ But they do really value it.”
He acknowledged concerns about a precept but said the borough already possessed its mayoral regalia, gowns and chains, making the cost of continuing the office comparatively modest.
Councillor Peter O’Donovan (RA, Ewell Court), another former mayor, said the office involved far more than its small number of compulsory civic engagements. “You do as much as you like because it’s such a fantastic position to hold,” he said. “It’s raising money for charities and seeing people.”
He recalled one child asking his father who the mayor was. “The dad said, ‘That’s the King of Epsom.’ So I’m royalty now as well,” he joked.
Councillor Alan Williamson (RA, West Ewell) said he had changed his mind after initially concluding that the scale of local government reorganisation counted against retaining a separate Epsom and Ewell mayor. “I think it’s necessary for the community to have a focal point, a focus of civic pride and for local identity,” he said. “If we lose that, we’ll be losing something significant.”
He warned that many residents did not yet appreciate “the enormity” of the borough council’s abolition. “We’re going to be subsumed into a rather amorphous administrative unit known as East Surrey, which very few people will be able to relate to on a day-to-day level,” he said.
Councillor Rachel King (RA, Town) said Charter Trustees could also help preserve Epsom and Ewell’s formal relationship with its French twin town, Chantilly. “The structure of the French government is such that it has to be twinned between a government body in France and a government body in the UK,” she said. “This would enable twinning to happen for our existing twinning and if we were to look for further twinning in the future.”
Councillor James Lawrence (Independent, College) opposed the proposal, arguing that councillors had not learned from the rejection of parish councils. “When the public were last asked for a precepting authority, they said no,” he said. “It is a concern to me that the learning moment from our last consultation seems to be: don’t consult, just take the decision straight to Full Council.”
He said that, despite growing up in the borough, he had little awareness of the mayor before becoming a councillor. “Not once did I come across the mayor,” he said. “I think I once saw a picture of someone in funny clothes wearing a big gold chain, which is largely accurate.”
Cllr Lawrence also questioned whether a mayor chosen from among councillors could claim to represent residents in the same way as a directly elected officeholder. “The mayor is not popularly elected,” he said. “It’s not chosen by the people of this borough. It’s chosen by a bunch of politicians.”
Councillor Clive Woodbridge (RA, Ewell Village) said the council was not itself creating the trustees but ensuring that East Surrey and the Government had an opportunity to consider doing so. “There’s a narrow window of opportunity,” he said. “If we don’t pass it today, then it won’t happen. At least we give it a chance of happening.”
Cllr Coley returned to the potential demands on East Surrey’s ten councillors representing Epsom and Ewell. The regulations require at least five Charter Trustees, who would elect a mayor and deputy mayor from among themselves. “Half of all councillors will need to be Charter Trustees minimum,” he said. “We know that the unitary councillors will have an extraordinary workload. They will be doing the work of the district and of the county.”
He added that continuing costs could include civic events, hospitality, expenses and administration, not merely the preservation of existing regalia.
Council leader Hannah Dalton (RA, Stoneleigh) said consultation was not legally required because Charter Trustees would have ex-officio membership and exclusively ceremonial responsibilities. She stressed that neither Epsom and Ewell nor East Surrey could guarantee that the Government would approve the request. “The answer from the ministry may be no. The answer from East Surrey may be no,” she said. “But if we don’t do it, and we don’t do it now, we are actually going to have lost that opportunity altogether.”
The recommendations were carried. The voting figures were not announced.
Under the proposal, the Government would need to introduce a further statutory instrument, approved by both Houses of Parliament. East Surrey Council must support the application before it can proceed.
Bitter exchanges in Epsom and Ewell Council Chamber on Local Plan oversight
1 September 2026
A bid to force greater councillor oversight of Epsom and Ewell’s Local Plan was defeated after an extraordinary council meeting descended into bitter accusations of dishonesty, procedural obstruction and democratic failure.
The motion, proposed by Councillor Kieran Persand (Conservative, Horton) and seconded by Councillor Julian Freeman (Lib Dem, College), was rejected by 15 votes to 12, with three abstentions, on Tuesday 21 July.
It sought to instruct the Licensing and Planning Policy Committee (LPPC) to review additional Local Plan documents submitted to the Government-appointed Planning Inspector after the 2025 examination hearings.
It also called for consultation responses not to be sent to the Inspector without LPPC approval. By the time the extraordinary meeting was held, however, the consultation had closed, 346 responses had been submitted and a further examination hearing had taken place on 2 July.
Recognising that events had overtaken parts of his original motion, Cllr Persand attempted to substitute proposals for an independent external review of the Local Plan’s governance.
His amendment questioned whether delegated authority allowing officers to propose “changes and corrections” to the plan and its supporting documents had been used more extensively than councillors intended.
It listed eight additional documents, covering urban sites, the Green Belt, potential housing allocations, sustainability, habitats, infrastructure and transport. Cllr Persand argued that the “scale and significance” of these documents raised questions about whether they should have gone before LPPC.
The proposed review would have examined:
The use of delegated powers during the examination;
Whether LPPC had fulfilled its constitutional role;
Whether councillors received adequate opportunities to scrutinise material changes;
Whether appropriate constitutional and legal advice was available;
How governance and transparency could be improved.
A separate factual report would have listed the documents submitted, the powers relied upon and the reasons they had not been considered by LPPC beforehand. The review’s findings would have gone to the Standards and Constitution Committee, the Planning Inspector and the shadow East Surrey Council.
Cllr Persand said the purpose was “to strengthen governance, transparency and democratic accountability, not to revisit the planning merits of the Local Plan”.
Mayor rejects amendments
Mayor Councillor Lucie McIntyre (RA, West Ewell) rejected the amendment under Full Council Rule 17.5 after taking officer advice.
She ruled that it was outside the scope of the published motion and did not identify a source of funding for an external review.
“The proposed amendment has no relation to the scope of the original motion,” she said. “It would not be in order to allow your proposed amendment, which seeks to make decisions which have no bearing on the original motion and provides no source of funding for the request.”
Cllr Persand disputed the ruling. “You’ve just quoted back my amendment, not really telling me why it’s out of scope,” he said. “It is about the Local Plan, but it’s also about transparency and governance, which the original motion was about.”
The Mayor said she had made her decision and invited him to follow the issue up in writing after the meeting. Following further exchanges, she agreed to adjourn the meeting so that Cllr Persand could prepare a revised amendment.
After consulting the Chief Executive and legal advisers Cllr McIntyre rejected the second version on the same basis.
When Cllr Persand continued to challenge the decision, she warned that she would ask him to leave the meeting if he persisted. “I have made my decision,” she said. “I have given my rationale. I am not going to discuss it any further.”
Councillor Bernie Muir (Conservative, Horton) intervened after another member called out during Cllr Persand’s speech. “This is not normal,” she said. “I haven’t seen this happen at county or anywhere else, where a member of the floor has piped up in the middle of someone’s speech.”
The Mayor then warned all members against interruptions.
“Masterclass” in democratic failure
Forced to proceed with his original motion, Cllr Persand launched a fierce attack on the council’s administration and handling of the plan. “This Local Plan process has become a masterclass of how not to conduct democratic decision-making,” he said. “Time and again, councillors have been denied the opportunity to do the very jobs residents elected us to do – scrutinise.”
He accused the council of cancelling meetings, delaying discussions and relying too heavily on decisions taken under delegated authority.
“Important decisions have been taken away from the committee whose constitutional role is to review, consider and help shape the Local Plan,” he said. “Councillors have too often been told what has been decided instead of being given the opportunity to help make those decisions.”
Cllr Persand claimed LPPC chairman Councillor Peter O’Donovan (RA, Ewell Court) had previously admitted not reading what was submitted to the Inspector.
“Think about that,” he said. “The chairman of the committee responsible for planning policy doesn’t know what was submitted in the council’s name. If that does not ring alarm bells across this chamber, I genuinely do not know what will.”
He also criticised the absence of a legal officer when constitutional concerns were previously raised at LPPC.
“Members were asked to consider important constitutional issues without legal advice being available in the room,” he said. “That should be a concern to every councillor here, regardless of political party.”
Cllr Persand said residents had been encouraged to spend hours responding to consultations but increasingly believed their views had “disappeared into a black hole”.
“Whether residents supported the Local Plan or opposed it is almost beside the point,” he said. “They deserve confidence that their views have been properly considered and that decisions affecting the future of this borough are being taken openly and transparently. That confidence has been damaged.”
He argued that the affair was symptomatic of broader problems at the council, referring to recent Audit and Scrutiny Committee criticism of the procedure followed over an urgent decision concerning Rainbow Leisure Centre dilapidations.
“What we are seeing is not one isolated issue,” he said. “It points to a wider pattern where proper scrutiny is too often treated as optional, where transparency comes too late and where councillors are expected to accept decisions that have already been made rather than being given the opportunity to shape them.”
Motion “out of time”
Councillor Steve McCormick (Conservative, Woodcote and Langley Vale) agreed with the motion’s underlying concerns but acknowledged that one of its proposed instructions was no longer capable of being implemented.
“Major, highly sensitive Local Plan evidence submitted under delegated authority was sent to a Planning Inspector without prior consideration or scrutiny by the Licensing and Planning Policy Committee,” he said. “When the committee tasked with setting out our planning framework is bypassed, our elected members are sidelined and our residents are completely left in the dark.”
However, the consultation had already closed and its responses had been sent to the Inspector. “Recommendation two is simply out of time,” Cllr McCormick said. “All 346 responses have long been sent to the Inspector, and the hearing itself concluded on July 2.” He added: “We cannot rewrite the past, but we must urgently address how we restore transparency, enforce committee oversight and ensure our residents are never shut out again as we move towards the main modifications stage.”
Councillors “struggled” to participate
Councillor James Lawrence (Independent, College), elected in 2023, said he had struggled to become meaningfully involved in Local Plan decisions. “I haven’t been able to be involved in a single public committee, apart from the one committee in November 2024, which released over 1,000 new pages in seven days to read,” he said.
“That’s not a realistic way to run a committee system. We’re not resourcing our committee system properly. You cannot make considered decisions on that basis.” Cllr Lawrence said committees should be properly engaged because they provided the principal means by which backbench councillors could influence decisions. “If we just get presented with 1,000 pages and seven days to read them, you’re not going to get a meaningful decision,” he said.
Councillor Kate Chinn (Labour, Court) said the “spirit of the motion is absolutely correct”. “We need a plan for the borough,” she said. “It needs to go to Licensing and Planning Policy Committee to make those decisions in the authentic and proper way.”
Cllr Muir described three recurring problems: “Transparency, scrutiny and a fair understanding of our concerns.”
“It has been an almighty struggle to actually have any input that’s been considered,” she said. “We cannot treat members like this. When you treat members like this, you are treating our residents like this.” She said councillors in other authorities were astonished when told how the process had operated in Epsom and Ewell. “Every single member in this room should feel appalled – absolutely appalled – at how we are consistently treated,” she said.
Councillor Christine Howells (RA, Nonsuch) said the sole issue should be whether the correct process had been followed. “It is eminently clear that this process was fundamentally flawed,” she said. “Due diligence now has to take place to show transparency, accountability and regain trust in the system.”
She urged members to put “duty, honesty and integrity” above political allegiance, warning: “This vote will be judged and scrutinised by the residents.”
“Democracy is being subverted”
Councillor Chris Ames (Labour, Court) linked the Local Plan dispute to wider concerns about transparency and officer decisions. When he began referring to the Rainbow Leisure Centre dilapidations issue, the Mayor twice directed him back to the motion. The Mayor being the daughter of Cllr Neil Dallen, who Ames has criticised in connection with the alleged “cover-up” of the £500,000 dilapidations Rainbow Centre bill.
“I really don’t think it’s for you to tell me what my speech is to be about, Madam Mayor,” he replied. “If I think this is relevant, I will make this point. I will not be silenced.”
He accused the administration and senior council figures of using procedural rules to prevent legitimate debate.
“There’s a pattern here,” he said. “Procedural rules are being used all the way along to stop councillors discussing things. This is supposed to be a democratic council, and democracy is being subverted.”
Defence of officers and administration
Councillor Clive Woodbridge (RA, Ewell Village) mounted a forceful defence of council officers and rejected opposition claims that the process lacked transparency.
“One of the most disgraceful things about this whole Local Plan process is the way that the opposition criticises officers – officers who work diligently and hard on behalf of us and our residents, and they’re not in a position to fight back,” he said. He described Cllr Ames’s criticism as “unconscionable” and called on opponents to reconsider the appropriateness of their language.
Cllr Woodbridge said opposition councillors had been given time to prepare an amendment which could properly be debated but had failed to do so. “Rather than blaming us, blaming the Mayor or blaming officers for this, they only have themselves to blame,” he said.
He said an officer had given a lengthy explanation at the previous LPPC meeting and the council’s Monitoring Officer had repeatedly stated that the constitution and due process had been followed. “It’s not about transparency,” Cllr Woodbridge said. “They just don’t like the answer that they get.”
He alleged that the opponents’ real objective was to stop the plan. “What they’re dressing up as transparency and integrity is that they want to stop this Local Plan,” he said. “We know we have to deliver a Local Plan for our residents that protects the Green Belt, protects our environment and delivers the housing that our current and future generations need.”
Cllr Woodbridge nevertheless agreed that residents and councillors should be involved when the Inspector’s proposed main modifications were published.
Delegation dispute
Councillor Shanice Goldman (Conservative, Nonsuch) said she had been an LPPC member when the disputed delegated authority was approved. “In no uncertain terms, we were told that the delegated authority was going to be for the purpose of making small changes, including grammatical errors and spelling mistakes,” she said. “We were not told that material changes would be made by way of delegated authority.”
She said members had been misled about the effect of their decision, while stressing that she was not alleging bad faith. “We took a vote with the information that was given to us,” she said. “That information was misleading. It was wrong.”
Councillor Alex Coley (Independent, Ruxley) said he had raised infrastructure issues directly at the examination hearing because he felt unable to do so through the council. “I made the point that I did it in that forum because I’m not able to do it at this council, either by committee or by talking directly to officers,” he said.
Although the Inspector suggested that councillors and officers should communicate, Cllr Coley said he had received no subsequent approach from the planning policy team. “This blanket, umbrella coverage of delegated authority suggests that councillors are not allowed to take part any more in their own process,” he said.
Councillor Alison Kelly (Lib Dem, Stamford) rejected Cllr Woodbridge’s contention that critics wanted to derail the Local Plan. “What we want is a Local Plan that has fulfilled all the consultation that’s necessary,” she said. “My personal disappointment was that we couldn’t have had an extra LPPC meeting before those original documents were submitted.”
She added: “I definitely want a Local Plan because it’s in the residents’ interest to have a Local Plan.”
“Worst-run council”
Cllr Freeman, who seconded the motion, strongly criticised the handling of the meeting itself.
He said the original motion had been available for two weeks, yet councillors received procedural advice shortly before the meeting which raised doubts about what they could debate. “This should have been quite a simple, straightforward process,” he said. “Instead, it has descended into farce, with people shouting out, being accused of things and being told they can’t talk about this and they can’t talk about that.”
Drawing a comparison with the shadow East Surrey Council, where he serves as a member, he described Epsom and Ewell as “probably the worst-run council I’ve ever had experience of….. For me, there has been a complete lack of due process,” he said. “This underlines why it is a good thing, in my view, that this council will soon cease to exist.”
He added: “In the end, I think there has been a failure of adequate oversight over this whole Local Plan process.”
The Mayor subsequently said Cllr Persand’s amendment had been submitted at 6.39pm, but corrected herself after he protested, confirming it had been sent at 5.04pm. The original motion had been published two weeks earlier.
LPPC chairman rejects accusations
Cllr O’Donovan disputed Cllr Persand’s assertion that he did not know what had been submitted.
“I did not read the actual responses, but I was in full conversation with the Head of Planning Policy and Economic Development,” he said. “I knew what was being asked, what was being replied to and therefore I was in full knowledge of what was being sent.”
He stressed that delegated authority did not require him to sign off individual documents. “I have to make it clear: under the delegated authority, it is not for me to sign anything off,” he said. “But I was well aware of what was being said.”
Responding to Cllr Goldman, Cllr O’Donovan said the full wording of the delegation appeared in the committee papers available to councillors before the November 2024 meeting. “I did not mislead anything,” he said. “The full motion was there, and you could have read it.”
Cllr O’Donovan said the necessary political decisions had been made during preparation of the plan. During examination, responsibility for the process rested with the Planning Inspector, who requested additional evidence to address concerns about soundness. “That work was completed under the delegated authority granted in November 2024,” he said.
The Inspector then approved publication of the additional documents for consultation. At the 2 July hearing, she indicated that documents submitted during the examination could only be withdrawn at her direction.
“As the documents and consultation responses have been published on the examination webpage under the direction of the Inspector, both parts of the motion being considered this evening cannot be implemented,” he said.
Cllr O’Donovan said the Inspector appeared likely to find the plan sound, subject to main modifications. Those modifications would be consulted upon before Full Council decided whether to adopt them. “If we decide not to, then the plan will not be found sound, and we will be in serious trouble,” he said.
Cllr Goldman replied that she had read the papers and fully participated in the November 2024 debate.
“Members of the committee queried the scope of the delegated authority,” she said. “We were then given assurances by the chair that the scope would be limited to small changes, including grammatical errors. That’s what we were told.”
Accusations of lying
In his final reply, Cllr Persand accused Cllr O’Donovan of making two false statements and said video evidence supported his account of what the LPPC chairman had previously said. “You did say that you hadn’t read the papers,” he said. “That is on a video recording.”
He accused Cllr O’Donovan of having “passive involvement versus active involvement” as LPPC chairman and said it was inappropriate given the significance of the Local Plan. “You’re under no obligation to read a paper for us, but you are under an obligation not to mislead the committee and to lie,” he said – apparently meaning not to lie.
Cllr Persand maintained that the November 2024 delegation had been presented as covering minor amendments rather than the material changes subsequently submitted. “There is a culture in this chamber and council where scrutiny is treated as an inconvenience, where transparency is something to be managed rather than embraced,” he said.
He rejected claims that the opposition wanted to defeat the plan. “All of us want a Local Plan. All of us want a sound Local Plan,” he said. “It’s the RA who are bulldozing decisions through without proper consultation, notification or working with other councillors.”
Cllr Persand turned his fire on the Residents’ Association’s record in local government, arguing that voters had already passed judgement in the East Surrey elections, at which only two RA candidates were elected. “You will not be leaving a positive legacy,” he told the administration. “Residents made that very clear in the last local elections.”
Cllr O’Donovan immediately objected to being accused of lying. “I’ve been accused of deliberately misleading the council and lying,” he said. “I just think that is unacceptable language.”
“I’m not lying,” he added during a brief exchange across the chamber.
The Mayor ended the argument and called the vote. Twelve councillors supported the motion, 15 opposed it and three abstained.
The motion was therefore defeated, leaving the additional examination documents without the retrospective LPPC review sought by its supporters. No external governance review or factual report will be commissioned under Cllr Persand’s rejected amendment.
New Gatwick wetland aims to reduce flood and drought risks
1 September 2026
A new wetland capable of holding up to 600,000 litres of water has been created near Gatwick as part of efforts to make the Upper Mole catchment more resilient to flooding, heatwaves and prolonged dry weather.
The South East Rivers Trust has completed the latest phase of a project using natural measures to slow, store and filter water before it travels downstream.
Across two sites, the environmental charity has created the wetland and reconnected 100 metres of river with its natural floodplain.
The wetland will collect rainfall and surface water, releasing it gradually downstream. Restoring the connection between the river and its floodplain will also give water more space to spread out and be held temporarily during periods of heavy rain.
The measures are intended to ease pressure on downstream communities when rainfall is intense, while keeping more water in the landscape during hot and dry periods. The restored areas should also provide new and improved habitats for wildlife.
The work was funded by London Gatwick through its Decade of Change sustainability programme, a strategy covering 10 environmental and social priorities up to 2030.
The latest phase, delivered between July 2025 and June 2026, included:
Installing more than 50 “leaky barriers” to slow the movement of water;
Planting a 100-metre hedgerow containing 400 native trees;
Bringing two more landowners into the catchment project; and
Monitoring rainfall, river levels and water clarity to study how water moves through the landscape.
Leaky barriers are carefully positioned structures made from natural materials such as branches and logs. Under normal conditions, water can continue to flow through them, but during heavier rainfall they slow the flow and hold back some of the water temporarily.
George Biggs, project officer at the South East Rivers Trust, said the recent spell of hot and dry weather illustrated one side of the challenge facing the area.
“During the current hot and dry weather, it can be difficult to imagine how quickly heavy rainfall can create problems for our rivers and local communities,” he said.
“The Upper Mole responds very rapidly when it rains, with water moving quickly through the catchment. By restoring wetlands, reconnecting rivers with their floodplains and installing leaky barriers, we can give that water more space and more time.
“These measures help create a healthier, more resilient landscape that is better prepared for both very wet and very dry conditions. They also provide valuable new habitats for wildlife.”
The Upper Mole is particularly responsive to rainfall because of its clay soils, modified river channels and surrounding urban development. Heavy rain can move rapidly downstream, increasing the risk of flooding and placing additional pressure on water quality and river habitats.
Natural flood management seeks to tackle those problems nearer their source by working with the landscape to slow, store and filter water.
Mark Edwards, head of sustainability at London Gatwick, said: “This important initiative, delivered in partnership with the South East Rivers Trust, is a vital part of London Gatwick’s Decade of Change sustainability programme.
“This partnership is a great example of bringing together technical expertise, landowners and local knowledge to deliver practical measures that support biodiversity, water quality and climate resilience.
“It demonstrates how London Gatwick can support enhancements to the local area outside the airport.”
Further restoration work is now being planned across the Upper Mole catchment. Proposals include restoring an old pond so that it can store more water and support biodiversity, installing additional leaky barriers and designing another wetland to improve water quality and availability.
The partners also intend to extend the project into another of the Upper Mole’s six waterbodies, continue monitoring the measures already installed and hold community engagement days about the river and natural flood management.
The project initially concentrated on the headwaters of the River Mole, including Baldhorns Brook near Rusper. Its longer-term ambition is to expand throughout the Upper Mole catchment and demonstrate how nature-based measures could help restore other urban river headwaters across the South East.
Monitoring equipment is recording rainfall, river levels and turbidity – a measurement related to water clarity – so that the Trust can assess how the catchment and the completed interventions respond to wet weather.
