More on Ice and Snow

The weather forecast now predicts a frost-free few days so hopefully things in South Farnham can get back to normal. It's been bitterly cold and therefore icy, and quite a few residents have been contacting me to ask for the county's gritting machines to help them out and to get salt bins refilled.

The answer has unfortunately had to be 'no' for most gritting requests since Surrey's policy (rightly) is to concentrate on the primary road network. However, the prolonged icy conditions have made life very difficult for some people, especially those on bus routes, so I've asked the highways service to modify their policy on priorities for salting to ensure that the main secondary roads get more attention if the ice lasts more than a day or two.

In addition, some salt bins have been emptied very quickly and I've asked for more urgency to be given to refilling them. As always, we rely heavily on residents reporting empty bins - we don't have enough people to continually check on the 1400 bins or so in the county.

A rather more peaceful Christmas in prospect I hope.

Winter Weather Arrives

The snow of the last few days has understandably brought Surrey County Council's road salting efforts to the fore, and I've been contacted by several residents asking if their particular road is going to be treated.

Surrey's policy is not to salt every single road, but to concentrate on the main transport networks covering about 40% of the road network. Priority 1 roads are done come what may - and have been salted repeatedly over the weekend - and Priority 2 roads are done when crews and machines are available.

In South Farnham, the roads are categorised as follows:

Priority 1 - The A325, A287, Ridgway/Shortheath/Echo Barn Road, Weydon Lane and Upper Lane, Tilford Road.

Priority 2 - Boundstone, Sandrock Hill, The Long Road and Fullers Road, Chapel Road, Burnt Hill Road, Green Lane, Little Green Lane. As I write, all the county's effort has been on Priority 1 but they are hoping to get round to Priority 2 as soon as they can.

I think the policy is right, although it's understandably frustrating for residents who want to access main roads from their houses and are finding difficulties. But, with limited resources of money, crews and salting machines, it's surely correct to keep the major transport arteries open.

Another problem has been that many of the salt bins have now been exhausted despite being topped up only a couple of weeks ago. They are being refilled as a matter of priority. I suspect alas that some residents are using the contents (meant for the public highway) to salt their own driveways, thus causing stocks to be run down more quickly than they should be.

Quarries and Minerals

Surrey County Council has won a major victory in its effort to reduce its minerals apportionment set by government. This is the annual tonnage that the county is required to make available to the quarrying industry for minerals such as building sand. The equation is simple: higher apportionment = more quarries.

For the last few years we at Surrey have been arguing for a lower apportionment (I remember some quite tetchy meetings in the Regional Planning Committee) with the county being at odds with most of our neighbours. Now, however, Surrey has been vindicated by a government-apppointed inspector who has declared we were right and has dramatically reduced the apportionment from its current sky-high level.

Our argument was very simple in theory but hard to convince others: although Surrey is blessed (or cursed) by plenty of potential mineral sites, they're nearly all located in the Green Belt or in relatively remote parts of the county. Opening up new quarries would cause severe environmental problems. There will be many communities out there who (without realising it at the time) are now saved from the misery that adjacent quarries would have caused.

Further to my post of 16 November about the possible sale of the water meadows to the South of Farnham town centre (where I hoped to reassure people that the site was as safe as possible from speculative development) I spent a morning last week helping to deliver leaflets to the surrounding area updating residents on where we are, and urging them to contribute to raising the approx £280,000 to buy the land on behalf of the community.

My message remains the same: there is very little chance of the meadows falling in to the hands of developers who want to build houses there. However, it would be great if the land could pass into community ownership and therefore have cast-iron protection for evermore.

I hear that pledges of support and actual cash are coming in nicely so we will see if there is the will and deep pockets to raise the total amount. Whatever happens, it's good to see a cross-party consensus (Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat) to tackle this issue.

Petition on Sandrock Hill Farnham

At Surrey County Council's local committee last week we councillors received a petition from a number of residents about the dangerous state of Sandrock Hill Road in South Farnham. I know the road well, having used it two or three times a week for years but have to admit not realising that residents were concerned about it. However, a meeting with the organiser of the petition just prior to the meeting soon disabused me.

The primary concern is the speed of traffic and then the condition of the road, including its propensity to flood. I hope we can do something about this (some of the measures ie white lining don't look too expensive) and have contacted the local highways service to ask for their views.

Formally, responses to petitions are given at the subsequent committee meeting - in this case not until the Spring - but I hope we can get action way before this date.

New Trees at Sandrock Hill Junction

My last post as a Farnham county councillor concerned the campaign to get a £25 million bypass at Wrecclesham, to the South West of Farnham town. This post records a more mundane matter, but one which is also dear to some residents' hearts: three new trees at the recently-completed Sandrock Hill/Shortheath Road cross-roads improvements.

After a little delay, the three Himalayan birches were duly planted. I am not a horticultural expert but am told that Autumn is the best season (in fact a month ago would have been even better) to allow the trees to put out some roots before the winter and be in a better position to flourish in the spring.

A local gardening and forestry expert tells me that he went along to tidy up and improve the planting by adjusting the ties, undertaking some pruning etc - thanks Brian.

I'm told that the trees will need constant watering next year if it's dry so we will need to think how this can be done reliably.

Wrecclesham Relief Road and Farnham Bypass

A number of items discussed at the Local Committee today. The committee is composed of all county councillors representing divisions covered by Waverley Borough plus an equivalent number of borough councillors.

Perhaps the most interesting was a debate on how to keep pushing for major improvements to Farnham's roads, including a Wrecclesham Relief Road and a split-level roundabout at the centrepoint of the Farnham Bypass. We have to be realistic and honest here and say that there doesn't seem to be any cash until at least 2016, and even then it will be hard to obtain the £60m or so to get the proper road improvements that so many people want. However, that isn't an excuse for doing nothing.

The involvement of Hampshire County Council is vital and we will be making renewed efforts to engage with them - up to now their support has been lukewarm at best. The proposed eco-town just down the road at Bordon might get us some developer's money to make a start, and that's one of the avenues we will be exploring too. Overall though, I think that the eco-town would be very bad for Farnham as it would attract far more traffic through the town and surrounding villages.

Standards Committees

On Monday I spent the day and evening on Standards Committee business. I'm a member of both Surrey County Council's and Waverley Borough Council's Standards Committees and their meetings were scheduled on the same day.

Local government's standards committees are an important way of ensuring that councillors maintain the highest standards in all that we do. I think that Surrey's councils are pretty good in this respect: none of the horrors that we read about in councils in the North of England - but we mustn't become complacent. There are very few complaints made about councillors' conduct and I hope that this continues. But when there are accusations then it's crucial that they are investigated swiftly, impartially and with the interests of our residents in mind.

Highways in South Farnham

I toured my county division of Farnham South yesterday with the Communities Highways officer, Patrick Giles. We do this regularly, to look at problems he and I have noticed, or brought to our attention by residents.

I was impressed by the significant improvements that have been made in the last few months - very few potholes, so that the enormous effort to repair them after last winter seems to have paid off (but there were still a few, and more are bound to appear, so we must keep on top of this), a great deal of re-surfacing (more to do though) and generally, a better-looking and tidier network of highways and pavements. Lots of leaves around but that's par for the course in November and Waverley Borough Council will no doubt be clearing them away very soon.

Naturally though, there were still some things to repair, tidy, chivvy and so on, and we both took away a list of issues to address over the next few weeks.

We went through Monks Lane where a tree had fallen across the road - see my post of 17 November. This time, the tree had been cut right back and Patrick told me that he had asked the landowners, Abbey Business Park, to do this at their own expense - good!

Surrey Children's Boss Visits Farnham

Welcome to Garath Symonds, Surrey County Council's recently-appointed head of children's services. He came to see us in Farnham yesterday and I hope had an instructive time. With visits to the Bourne Children and Youth Initiative, Weydon School, the Sandy Hill Estate and 40 Degreez (the youth centre in the heart of Farnham), he got a good snapshot of some of the major facilities we have in our town. Far more important of course was the opportunity to meet and debate with the many dedicated staffers and volunteers who actually make things happen.

I felt that Garath came over well: not trying to minimise the problems that we'll all face when public funding dries up, but putting over an enthusiastic vision of what he thinks his youth service, in partnership with others, can achieve.

Rehabilitation Care in SW Surrey

Thursday saw me chairing an important Surrey Health Scrutiny Committee meeting at County Hall. The main item on the agenda was a final round of evidence-taking about NHS Surrey's plans for rehabilitation care in Guildford and Waverley boroughs. In laymen's language, what happens to someone after they've had a stroke, a broken hip after falling or any one of a number of sudden tragic events? The committee has the legal duty of commenting on the proposals and can, if it feels strongly about an initiative, refer it to central Government for review.

Having listened to health professionals, local doctors, community groups and patient advocacy groups, we felt that we could come to a broad decision.

Firstly, we agreed that the proposals, taken in the round, would benefit residents and therefore gave them the green light in principle. This will come as good news for people in the Farnham, Haslemere, Milford, Guildford and Godalming areas whose hospitals will, broadly speaking, remain open for business and will, in many cases, actually expand.

Cranleigh people will be in two minds however, as there is controversy over whether the proposals leave the locality with too few community-hospital-type beds (I am summarising a much more complicated situation here). I personally was swayed particularly by the views of local GPs who were happy that the health of their patients would not be impaired.

But we're not going to leave it at that. The committee will be producing a detailed report highlighting some particular areas of concern, for instance access to nursing home beds, that we would like NHS Surrey to explain, and will be returning to the issue to ensure that what is being planned actually happens and that there are no adverse side-effects.

Surrey Highways Clears up after Storms

Taking the just-in-post temporary area director from Surrey, Lynne Martin, round my division of South Farnham, we noticed this enormous tree which had clearly fallen during the storms. Gratifyingly however, it had been made safe for vehicles and pedestrians. I presume this was the work of Surrey's highways service (if not, thanks to whoever did the job). It demonstrates that you can never relax - there's always something that needs attention.

Farnham's Water Meadows

I wrote to the Farnham Herald last week about the threat - or rather lack of it - to Farnham's water meadows between the town centre and the bypass. The owners are selling up and there are groundless fears that the site could be up for redevelopment.

No such thing, although it would be indeed disastrous if this occurred. But the area has several layers of protection through the planning system: it's in the flood plain, part of the 'Farnham Green Envelope' and in the Farnham Conservation Area. In short, it's one of the most heavily-protected sites in the borough.

I hope the letter helps to allay worried residents' fears. There are, unfortunately, many other equally-unspoilt parts of the borough that have far less protection against redevelopment and it's surely these that we should be focussing on.

NHS Surrey Board Meeting

As Chairman of Surrey's Health Scrutiny Committee, I went along as usual to NHS Surrey's monthly board meeting. NHS Surrey (formerly called the Surrey Primary Care Trust) is responsible for paying for most of the health services in the county.

A sombre meeting. It's quite clear that they have run out of money to provide the health services that we have come to expect, let alone having anything in the bank to improve matters. Their finance director said that the financial situation this year is bleak (over £4m in the red) and we know already that the medium-term position is if anything worse.

I fear that the role of the health committee will be focussed on trying to prevent matters getting even worse, rather than helping to make things better.