Geoff Acton, Ben Khosa and Philip Morgan: councillors for St Margaret's and North Twickenham

cllr.gacton@richmond.gov.uk · · · cllr.bkhosa@richmond.gov.uk · · · cllr.pmorgan@richmond.gov.uk . . . Please scroll down the page for full details of roles, biographies, etc.. • We have combined with the ward's Safer Neighbourhood police team to hold regular "Drop in Surgeries" at Eurowash Launderette, 99 Whitton Rd, on the last Thursday of each month, between 2 pm and 3 pm. Residents are invited to drop in to discuss crime fighting, security and any Council issues.

• St Margaret's Community Website

• MY St Margaret's [community website]

• COMMUNITY toilet scheme: One of the popular initiatives started by the Liberal Democrats on Richmond Council has been the Community Toilet Scheme. 90 toilets in pubs, cafés, and offices around the borough are now open to the public. The Council pays the venue £600 a year to allow unrestricted access to the toilets. This is very much cheaper, and offers many more toilets, than the traditional public toilets, which are very expensive to maintain. Just look for the Community Toilet sign outside.

• 17 places in TWICKENHAM and ST MARGARET'S have joined the scheme: Alexander Pope; Arthur's on The Green; Barmy Arms; Bloomsbury; Cabbage Patch; Cambridge Gardens Café; Civic Centre; Cricket Pavilion; Crown; The George; Kentucky Fried Chicken; Orleans Garden Café (summer only); Orleans House Gallery; St Margarets Public House; Twickenham Library; Waitrose; and the York House Gardens urinals. Richmond Council's Cabinet Member for Environment, Cllr Geoff Acton, says: "We are delighted with the success of the scheme which, we believe, signals the way forward for clean, safe, accessible toilet provision for the public. It would not have been possible without the support of local businesses and I applaud their commitment. The idea has certainly taken off. We have been inundated with enquiries from other boroughs and some have already introduced similar schemes in their own areas."

• The Borough's 90 Community Toilets

• [From Comments Winter 2009-10]: TWO recent PLANNING proposals in St. Margaret's have aroused much concern and opposition from residents. These were the proposed development for housing of the back land behind Orchard Road and the proposed conversion of the former doctor's surgery in Crown Road into a hostel. In both cases your Lib Dem councillors were against the plans; Cllr Philip Morgan, with strong support from residents, coordinated the opposition. Both were refused permission; the Crown Road scheme did not even come to the Committee [the house is now up for sale as a single residence].

Many planning applications are categorised as "permitted development" and decided by a planning officer. Only the large or controversial proposals are referred to the Council's Planning Committee, which will confirm, reject or defer a recommendation from a planning officer. "In the light of misleading information that has been circulating, it is important to point out that planning decisions have nothing to do with political party allegiance but everything to do with national and local planning policies. In the latter case the relevant policies happen to be those adopted by the Richmond Tory administration in the 2005 Unitary Development Plan," said Cllr Philip Morgan.

• St Margaret's POST OFFICE serves residents from a large area. Last year your three Lib Dem councillors and our MP Vince Cable campaigned vigorously to prevent this sub-office being added to the Post Office list for potential closure. Happily our campaigning paid off and not only has the sub-office been saved but it is being expanded to offer a wider range of services to residents. Of particular value will be the improved facility for paying for council services locally rather than having to trek to the council offices.

• Richmond Council is continuing to SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESSES with over 500 now having applied to the rate relief scheme including several in our area. We are working with local traders to promote shopping in St Margaret's in a number of ways:

• Production of a branded shopping bag. • Money for Christmas lights and hanging baskets. • Supporting the Crown Road Christmas Fair on 6th December. • On street pay and display charges have been reduced, with max discounts, to 10p for 20 minutes. • Charges have also been slashed on Thursday afternoons in all open air council car parks to aid shoppers. • Planning application processes are also being made easier where possible and also help with promoting new businesses in empty shops.

• The Go Green programme. Helping businesses save money and jobs whilst being environmentally friendly. • 1,000 business have taken up small business rate relief. "Helping small businesses start up and survive through the hard times is an important part of the Council's package to stimulate the borough's economy." said Cllr Geoff Acton, the Borough's Business Champion.

• HEATHAM House is the most successful youth club in the borough and provides a diverse range of services for young people. We work closely with the Police to ensure young people are usefully engaged and do not become a cause for concern to local residents. Cllr Ben Khosa is your rep on the Heatham House Advisory Committee.

• Going Green: Residents can also take advantage of our free initiative at libraries where they can borrow ENERGY MONITORS for their home for three weeks and purchase one later from the website if they wish for £25 once they realise how much money they can save!

• Thanks to pressure from Cllr Khosa there will be extra ticket inspectors at St Margaret's station to catch FARE DODGERS.

From Comments Summer 2009: • PARKING Zones: Responding to many residents' requests, who live north of St. Margaret's station to join the successful S Zone that operates to the south, a consultation exercise was launched. The exercise was controversial and the scheme was extended only into two roads adjoining the S zone . In order to assess the success and impact of this extension a further opportunity has been provided for residents to comment in the recent review. At the TCG on the 20th May a decision was made to add Sidney Rd, Moormead Rd, the Grove and Cole Park View with the traffic order covering Godstone and Kenley Roads which will not be included at present but an early reassessment has been requested following many representations from those roads. The implementation will take 6-8 weeks.

• CAR Clubs have arrived in the Borough! 70 car parking bays have been provided across the Borough with 5 so far in our ward. These are in St Margarets, Northcote, London, and March Roads, and Broadway Ave. Full details are on the Council web site. These bays provide money from the operators to the Council to help hard pressed council taxpayers and early estimates in other boroughs suggest up to £3500 can be saved by resident users. Surveys also indicate that as many as 15 parking spaces can be saved in the vicinity of the car club bays, as residents dispense with a second car or an occasionally used single car. Our scheme will be reviewed in 6 months.

• GEOFF Acton, a former marketing director at car manufacturing giant SAAB, has been appointed the Borough's Business Champion. Together with Cllr Ben Khosa member of the newly established Small Business Task Group, they are helping local businesses get through these difficult times. " The Council want to help local businesses, like Joseph's Hairdressers get through the recession," said Cllr Acton.

• WHITTON Road Littering: The route between Twickenham station, Tesco's sandwich bar and the College in Egerton Rd has become a serious litter trail to the annoyance and distress of many residents. Working with local residents, Councillors Philip Morgan and Ben Khosa have persuaded the Council and College to provide more litter bins, ensure they are emptied promptly and undertake more frequent road sweeping. The way litterbugs behave, this will never be enough but things are improving in most roads.

• PHONE Masts: You may recall an application for a new Phone Mast at the corner of Egerton Rd and Chertsey Rd was successfully thwarted by your Lib Dem Team about 18 months ago when they enlisted the help of Vince Cable MP. The phone company came back again to haunt the area. Very quickly, working with popular resident Peter Mayers, Cllr Ben Khosa handed in a petition at full Council. Thankfully the application has again been rejected. We need to be ever vigilant and ready for action against such applications whilst health risks, particularly for children, are still largely unknown.

• THE Marriott Hotel at the Twickenham Stadium is now completed. Transport for London will be replacing the bus shelters and considering the implementation of a bus lane. Until all the developments at the RFU are complete it is not possible to judge the effect on traffic on adjacent roads. There will be consultation with residents as soon as possible. There will also be an opportunity to review parking arrangements [the "R" Zone ].

• LOWER parking charges: There will be low cost short term parking; 20p for 20 minutes (or 10p for 20 minutes if you own a low polluting car) in street bays, £1/£1.50 for three hours afternoon parking in car parks and free May Spring Bank Holiday Monday all day parking in car parks Practical help will also be given to small shops and businesses.

• ONCE again we will be at the St Margaret's Fair on Saturday 11th July in Moormead Park. Please come and say hello and discuss any issues you may have at this excellent event, details of which can be found on the St Margarets Community Website http://www.stmgrts.org.uk

• "WE live in one of the safest wards in the safest Borough in London, but you can help make it safer. Why not visit one of The Safer Neighborhood Team Drop in Surgeries at various places (visit http://www.met.police.uk/saferneighbourhoods/) or attend the PLG meetings," says Ben Khosa, Vice Chair Police Liaison Group.

• BEN Khosa is your rep on the Heatham House Youth Club Advisory Committee. "Please do encourage your teenagers to come along - there is skateboarding, drop in sessions, band nights, Radio Heatham and street dance to name a few," said Ben.

• FINDING it difficult to park your bike in our Ward? Let us know where you would like to see more or new bike racks and we'll try and get them installed for you. Bike Racks

• NEW roles for St Margaret's councillors: Cllr Ben Khosa has succeeded Cllr Geoff Acton as Deputy Mayor for the coming year. He intends, as far as possible, to fulfil his public engagement by bicycle. Geoff Acton has been appointed Cabinet Member for Environment, taking over from Cllr Martin Elengorn [Teddington], who will become his Assistant.

His responsibilities include: allotments, building control, cemeteries, commercial environmental health, corporate property, development control (planning), licensing, parks and open spaces, planning policy and design, procurement, recycling, registrar's office, special projects (contaminated land, air pollution), street scene enforcement, sustainability, tourism, trading standards, and waste collection. He's going to be busy!

ST MARGARET'S South CPZ Extension - Review: This seeks the views of the residents and businesses within the extended CPZ on how it has worked since its implementation, whether it should remain in operation and, if so, whether any changes to it should be taken forward. As part of the review, residents and businesses situated in roads outside the CPZ which were consulted in May 2008 are being consulted again to see whether they would wish to have the CPZ further extended to include their road. The decision to re-consult this area follows requests made at the TCG meeting last June.

The deadline for return of completed questionnaire and comments is Monday 20 April 2009. The results of the consultation will be reported to a meeting of the Transport Consultative Group (TCG) on Wednesday 20 May 2009 starting at 6.30pm at York House, Twickenham, following which a decision will be made on the way forward.

• [From COMMENTS Winter 2008-9]: ACTION on Anti Social Behaviour in Moor Mead Park: Action has now been taken to tackle anti- social behaviour in Moor Mead Park after residents aired their views at a street briefing with local councillors. The local Lib Dem team pledged their support and action has now been taken - the council has installed a Rapid Deployment Camera overlooking the play area, the Safer Neighbourhood Team have changed their shift patterns to work around the problem and increased their patrols in this area. A bench where youths tended to gather around was removed. "It is very important for all agencies to continue to work together to ensure that the work done contributes to a lasting improvement for the area. Youth outreach workers at Heatham House are also now on hand to help with the issue," said Cllr Philip Morgan. "These measures seem to have helped, although there may have been some displacement into neighbouring roads and we continue to work with the Police to tackle this. We recognise young people need a safe place to gather and are working to provide suitable facilities. However, anti social behaviour cannot be tolerated," added Cllr Ben Khosa. Residents may report similar disturbances to the Safer Neighbourhood Team on 078 7943 2330 / 020 8721 2912 or StMargarets.NorthTwickenham.snt@met.police.uk or the non emergency number 020 8607 9199. Remember the team is not on duty all hours and in an emergency dial 999.

• SCHOOL Places: Although there remains considerable demand for primary school places in the Ward, particularly on the St Margaret's side, places were found for everyone in the 2008/9 intake. With selective school place expansion already agreed your Councillors are working with the Admissions officers to ensure that enough places are available for 09/10 and 10/11. There has been a very significant increase in the birth rate in the Borough over the last three years (12.4% ), and we will be having to expand a number of schools. This is a London wide problem.

• TACKLING Nuisance Parking: At the request of residents a CPZ has been installed in a small number of roads in St Margaret's, where the majority of residents who voted indicated they wanted these controls. No road has been included where the majority didn't want to be included. There will be a review, around the end of the first quarter and if there are problems you wish to be addressed please feed into this review or contact any of us at any time.

• Meals on Wheels: The Council now offers elderly people who need help a Self Directed Support plan. The idea is that services are planned around the person, the person is not just fitted into Council services. As part of this it was proposed by a cross-party working group to end the home hot meals service. The savings made will be invested- carers for those that rely on the hot meals service as their "daily call in", assistance for old people with shopping & cooking and providing meals at day centres, ending the social isolation that some elderly residents feel. "I understand residents' concerns, but this is actually about providing a tailor made service for our users. The microwavable meals will also be a far better quality," said Cllr Denise Carr, the Social Services Cabinet member.

• LOCAL Businesses: St Margaret's Councillor, Geoff Acton has been appointed the borough's Business Champion. Geoff will be acting as the link person between business and the Council. If you are in business and have suggestions about how the Council help, contact Geoff on 0208 891 3816.

• CAMPAIGN Success! St Margaret's train station will remain open on Sundays! The Department of Transport intervened to stop South West Trains proposed closures after a hard fought campaign by Vince Cable MP and your local Councillors. "This is great news," said Cllr Morgan.

• The majority of those surveyed had not wanted a CPZ in their road and had not been given an opportunity to say if they wanted a CPZ in the area.

• Alternative options were not considered. Information, including the parking survey was withheld from residents. There were discrepancies in the data used leading to some properties being omitted from the consultation.

• The consultation document had not mentioned the proposed introduction of double yellow lines which would further reduce the number of available parking spaces. At 6 m, the stretches of double yellow lines were considerably longer than was necessary.

• The CPZ did not address the problem of residents being unable to park near their homes at night. Whilst the area consulted was viable for a CPZ, the inclusion of two streets was not sustainable. The inclusion of Bridge and Winchester Roads in the CPZ would exacerbate the parking problems in neighbouring streets; this would inevitably lead to the extension of the CPZ to other streets in the area.

• The decision should be made on an experimental basis. The formal advertisement of the proposals was premature and suggested that the decision had already been made.

A resident of Sidney Road expressed the view that the road should not have been excluded from the CPZ as a majority of residents, albeit marginal, voted in favour of the CPZ. A resident of Winchester Road spoke in support of the proposals and expressed the view that the decision as to whether a particular road should have a CPZ should be made by its residents and not by others who did not wish to be in the scheme themselves.

Cllr Morgan addressed the Committee as a Ward Cllr. He outlined the history of the consultation following requests from residents for a CPZ in 2006. The Ward Cllrs had not expressed a preference for or against the CPZ but his personal opinion was that the discrepancies in data had not significantly affected the outcome of the consultation.

The Cabinet Member for Traffic, Transport and Parking, Cllr Trigg and officers responded to the issues raised. Cllr Trigg stated that, following representations from St Margaret's residents about parking problems, it had been necessary to consult over a wider area to establish the extent of the problem; the consultation process had adhered to the Council's policy; although there were some errors in data these had been largely addressed in the second consultation and officers were satisfied that the outcome of the consultation had not been affected.

Cllr Trigg believed that the inclusion of Bridge Road and Winchester Road in the St Margaret's South CPZ was viable; however, if the results of the review after six months of operation revealed that residents of the two roads no longer wished to remain in the CPZ then these roads would be removed. With regard to the double yellow lines, Cllr Trigg reported that that these should be the minimum length compatible with safety requirements; he confirmed that the extent of the yellow lines would be included in the review. With regard to Sidney Road, Cllr Trigg stated that whether or not to include it in the CPZ extension was a marginal decision; however he was prepared to consider an early review of the decision not to include it in the CPZ. It was also agreed that the in future, CPZ consultation documents used in the review would include maps which detailed the yellow lines and parking layout proposals.

Following further discussion, Committee members considered that errors in the previous consultation had been overcome by the latest returns, and that clear support had been shown in the 2 roads selected for inclusion in the adjacent St Margaret's South CPZ. Members also supported investigation of proposals made by residents to include echelon parking in Hillview Road to alleviate evening parking problems. The proposal to refer the decision back to the Cabinet Member for further consideration was put to the vote and lost.

The Committee resolved: (1) That the decision made by the Cabinet Member for Traffic, Transport and Parking be noted. (2) That the Cabinet Member for Traffic, Transport and Parking be requested to select include the whole second stage consultation area for the review of the new CPZ extension together with any other adjacent roads where particular issues have emerged. (3) That the proposed further consultation for The Mews and the service road off Bridge Road be noted and agreed. (4) That consideration be given to an early review of Sidney Road. (5) That provision of additional parking spaces on Hillview Road be investigated.'

[FROM COMMENTS 170 Summer 2008]: • Lib Dem Richmond Council has continued its drive to improve school standards by earmarking two schools, Whitton School and Hampton Community College, for academy status. The academy plan could see significant improvements in stand- ards and a multi million pound in- vestment in new buildings for the schools. The preferred sponsor for the Whitton and HCC schools is Kunskapsskolan, the largest independent provider of schools in Sweden. Sweden has some of the best secondary education in Europe, and the council is bringing that expertise to Richmond. The schools will remain English, but use the most modern personalised learning techniques. The local authority intends to act as a co-sponsor.

Their potential arrival in the borough has been welcomed by local MP Vince Cable, and the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Nationally, the Conservatives have also heavily praised the Swedish model of education "This is good news for local parents. The academy programme will see millions of pounds made available for school refurbishment. Most importantly, local children could get the opportunity to benefit from an organisation who have a track record of delivering first rate education," said Vince Cable MP. A consultation process with the schools, local parents, and nearby primary schools is underway. In the autumn, if the council gives the go-ahead, and government approval is obtained, a full community consultation process begins.

• A SAFER St Margarets: Residents in St Margaret's have become increasingly concerned with pedestrian safety issues outside the station following a decision, by previous Conservative council administration, to allow the nearby Tesco to increase the size of its loading bay. Now following meetings held by Lib Dem Ward Councillors with Tesco and residents, delivery schedules have been restricted to certain hours; new clearer parking signs in- stalled and parking enforcement enhanced using the previously installed camera outside the station. "I am delighted that these meetings have resulted in a safer environment for elderly residents and children, in particular, on this busy stretch of road," said Cllr Geoff Acton

• COMMUNITY Safety: Since taking over in 2006, the Lib Dem led Council have been committed to ensuring local residents' safety is a top priority. Richmond is now the safest borough in London. In St Margarets there is a full complement of 6 Safer Neighbourhood Team Officers (SNT) whose job it is to ensure effective Policing solely in our ward. The SNT will work with local residents according to their particular policing needs at any given time and alter their shift patterns according to local issues as and when they arise. Adding to these measures, Community TV was launched on the 17th July. Community TV will be shown around the borough, and broadcast local information, community safety messages, and crime reduction initiatives.

• WHITTON Road Gets a Makeover: Following action from your local Lib Dem team, a number of improvements have now been made to Whitton Road: New road surfacing; Retail forecourt surfacing and landscaping; Reinstatement of the zebra crossing; and Re-siting a bus stop. The measures are designed to improve the safety and visual appeal of one of the town's major thoroughfares. "This much needed makeover has led to a pleasanter environment on this major route to Twickenham Rugby Stadium for all local residents and college students," said Cllr Philip Morgan.

• NETHERTON Road: Concerned residents of Netherton Road contacted Cllr Geoff Acton when characteristic flowering fruit trees were replaced with lime trees owing to a new policy. Following a street meeting with the chief Arboricultural Officer, new fruit trees will be planted again in replacement of the limes which will be redeployed elsewhere, guaranteeing future bright spring times!

• RECYCLING rate tops 40 %: The Council are now looking at ways to simplify the system in an effort to drive the recycling figure over the 50 % mark. When the Lib Dems took control of Richmond Council they promised to put the environment at heart of decision making. The Council have now won national praise for its green schemes. Action speaks louder than words!

• ROYAL Mail Sorting Office: The Sorting Office opposite Twickenham Station is due to close in the not too distant future and relocate. Do you have any views on what you would like to see on that site? Please let us know . .