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This headline caught the eye on the Surrey Live website – sorry to disappoint Sutton voters but this refers to Cllr Julie Morris on the Epsom & Ewell Borough Council.

Its caught the eye because, after 15 years representing the Liberal Democrats, she is continuing to represent her ward as an Independent!

So Independent is a very real alternative to the ugly and predictable to and fro of party politics and why we think that Sutton Central residents should elect Pam Marsh as their ward Councillor on 10th April.

To put this into context – Epsom & Ewell is made up of only three Lib Dem councillors, along with 25 Residents Association members, three Labour, two Conservative and now two Independent.

Their Borough is not weighed down by political decisions or allegiances and it is why Sutton Independent Residents are only focussed on a fair deal for our voters.

So when you get to the ballot box on 10th April (don’t forget your photo ID) look across at Epsom with its vibrant High Street and put your X next to Pam Marsh’s name, you know she’ll work for you, putting your needs first rather than any party allegiance.

We three Councillors in Beddington have our email inboxes filling up with comments from worried residents about the planned SUEZ Anaerobic Digester that is being presented at the Planning Committee on 2nd April – worried because the Council’s Planning Department are recommending its approval.

Designed to process 100,000 tonnes of food waste from all over London people are concerned on many levels – that is a load more lorries on Beddington Lane and the HGV ban promised in 2019 is like so many promises from this Council it remains a pipe dream. And unless they keep the place spotless, the vermin will be back and of course, the smell!!

But with people of Beddington and Hackbridge already with health risks under the Lib Dem imposed incinerator with its high sulphur fuel and regular breakdowns, many are worried about what they see as a clear and present danger.

This is an image from October 2023 when lightning hit a methane tank at the Severn Trent Green Power Plant at Cassington in Oxfordshire. The sky was lit by the explosion and six fire engines and 40 firefighters were required to bring it under control.

When you look at the location of the explosion, it is in a rural area with few houses. What is worrying Beddington and Hackbridge residents is that the SUEZ proposal is not rural – there are houses in both wards and neighbouring Croydon as well as two local primary schools.

If you look at the image on the map, the same gas tanks can be seen as are on the image of the proposed SUEZ plant. Lightning is a natural phenomenon and it could happen here and that worries people – a lot!

The Planning Committee will be on Wednesday 2nd April at 7.00pm in the Civic Centre in Sutton and we would encourage people to attend to add their voices to other people in Beddington and Hackbridge who are telling their Councillors – enough is enough!

With all the political parties cranking their election machinery into motion, it is interesting to look at the subtleties in the various campaigns and then consider what following a particular political flag will give you the voter in Sutton Central.

The Conservatives were quick off the mark on Social Media with the inevitable photo of their canvassers out and about:

And it was interesting to see in the comments about the photo, people saying “Vote Reform” – I think everyone is aware that there are two Members of Parliament making the wrong headlines at present – one from Reform and one from Labour. It is a useful reminder that it is not the party but the person who represents the voter – so important locally.

But you need to watch out for the use of PR to disguise the lack of policy – go back to Facebook and you will have seen your Liberal Democrat MP (and still local Councillor) Bobby Dean promoting a survey:

He’ll get a lot of good advice from the two fellow Councillors he is surveying in the photo! It is party PR pure and simple.

If you want a person who will actually fight for the residents and not follow party diktats, just vote for Pam Marsh – positive independent and caring:

And if you wanted to know why that is important – we mentioned the “Croydonisation” of Sutton in our last post – 1,000 + flats on the B&Q site – well just over the railway line at Quadrant House they are planning partial demolition and erection of an additional two and three stories to existing building, a part 14, part 23 storey extension and extension of existing basement to provide a mixed use development comprising 312 self contained residential units and 195 co-living units .

If you want to ask why or comment it is application DM2025/00226 on the planning portal and while it is across the ward boundary in Sutton South, it looks like you should book your GP appointment for 2027 now!

There will be lots of media in the next few weeks about Local Elections for County Councils – many of us get repeated questions because they think we are all up for re-election and we have to tell them no, it’s 2026!

But not for residents in Sutton Central:

Liberal Democrat Councillor David Bartolucci has been absent from all Committees for 6 months. The Council therefore dismissed him and called a by-election so, after a prolonged period of being underrepresented by the Liberal Democrats, local residents will get the opportunity to have their say about what has been described as the “Croydonisation” of Sutton.

And it is residents who count most to our party, Sutton Independent Residents, and we are pleased to introduce Pamela Marsh, a candidate who residents will really relate to:

Moving to the Borough 30 years ago after growing up in neighbouring Croydon, Pam has worked in Primary Care and a variety of healthcare settings including work with learning disabilities and elderly care.  More recently, she has been working in finance roles in various industries,

Running a Residents Association locally, she is passionate about health, local neighbourhood and community but most of all her belief that local residents should be consulted, listened to and represented fairly.

Beddington residents first elected Independent Councillors in 2018 – the ward had been poorly served by the Ruling Liberal Democrats and residents in Sutton Central may have the same sense – the B&Q site was originally granted planning in December 2023 for 970 apartments, recently that was increased by an extra 44 apartments! With a 19 floor development in St Nicholas House and a 20 storey development in Throwley Way approved, we have heard people ask “what about schools, what about doctors”

Sutton Central Residents need a Councillor who will ask those questions, ask how much money is being spent to bring more people into Sutton and how much was wasted on Beech Tree Place.

You can guarantee that there will be a blizzard of leaflets coming your way but just put your cross next to Pam’s name on 10th April and you will notice the difference.

Propaganda is  defined as the dissemination of information—facts, arguments, rumours, half-truths, or lies—to influence public opinion. Deliberateness and a relatively heavy emphasis on manipulation distinguish propaganda from casual conversation or the free and easy exchange of ideas.

Sutton’s Liberal Democrats have turned this into an art form with a blizzard of leaflets pushed though letter boxes – the very definition of “Junk Mail” and many living in Beddington will have received the latest offering from that itinerant politician who was elected to represent Carshalton and Wallington at the last General Election.

Easy to ignore or to add to the hamster cage , but it contains a really misleading piece under the front page heading of “Council clamps down on rogue landlords”:

Fact – I appreciate that Mr Dean is not interested in facts – on 21st March 2023, supported by their local Independent Councillor, Beddington residents living in Upper Road sought through a petition to the HEB Committee to invoke an Article 4 direction to remove permitted development rights for small Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO) in the Sandy Lane/Upper Road area of special local character (ASLC).

The outcome of that action was that research was undertaken into the issue and, on 28th November 2023 at another HEB Committee meeting, the London Borough of Sutton sought to invoke an Article 4 Direction but, to allow existing developments to take place, it was agreed that this should be enacted on 22nd February 2025!

It is sad to say that stable door and horse bolting come to mind as of 169 HMO’s in the Borough, 59 were registered after November 2023.

But what is the reality of this Liberal Democrat Council’s attitude to HMO’s – well just a few months back, Beddington residents were horrified that there was a proposal to make the Lodge at Bandon Hill Cemetery an HMO:

Bobby Dean’s “Rogue Landlord” in this case was none other than the London Borough of Sutton.

And what about the protection afforded by the Article 4 Direction – it means that rather than being built under “permitted development”, the plans will be subject to scrutiny by the Planning Committee. And in case you think that means you can relax, consider the residents of Crichton Road in Carshalton.

Plans to convert a local doctor’s surgery into an HMO received 39 separate objections, Planning Committee in December 2024 was crowded with concerned residents and when only five of the Liberal Democrats voted for the HMO and the vote was drawn, the Liberal Democrat Chair of the Committee cast his deciding vote for the development.

One last thought – on Monday, Council will be debating (?) the 2025/6 budget – one of the specific areas for approval is an increase in Councillor Allowances and it was interesting to see the use of this propaganda piece to push their party leadership:

You can be sure that they will vote for the increase but that will make an interesting comparison – the three Beddington Councillors will receive what is a generous basic allowance collecting a cumulative £38,396 before tax. Next door in Wallington North, with their special allowances, the three Councillors pictured will receive a cumulative £132,796 – we are all paid by Sutton’s Council Tax payers and one wonders how much harder Liberal Democrat Councillors are working for their special allowances

We believe that local Councillors are here to support local residents and not to promote ourselves or a political party – Residents First Always!

Monday 21st October, the London Borough of Sutton held a full Council meeting at their Civic Offices. On the agenda that evening were three motions for debate:

a) Motion: England’s Councils in Crisis: Key Asks from the New Government
b) Motion: Concerns Over Delays in the Sutton New Hospital Redevelopment and Upgrades Amid National Review
c) Motion: Mitigating the impact of Incineration and a plan to step away from dependency on it

As we approached the motion that impacted the health and welfare of the residents of Hackbridge, Beddington and the wider community – the motion about the incinerator – a Constitutional stroke was pulled by Cllr Barry Lewis Leader of the Council, by allowing the proposer and seconder (Cllrs Dave Tchil and Sheldon Vestey) to speak and for the vote to be taken immediately after their opening addresses.

Why?

In simple terms, the Ruling Liberal Democrats and the Administration do not want the issue debated and furthermore, we are denied the opportunity for a similar motion to be considered in the next 6 months.

In the next few days, there was a fallout in the media and amongst opposition Councillors of every persuasion but then there were a couple of things that brought the whole issue into sharp local focus.

The first was news of the first of what turned out to be two outages for the SDEN heating system – residents of the New Mill Quarter are obliged to use the Council’s heat network for their heat and hot water. The development of this system was a major rationale for the incinerator, which would provide the energy for the system.

But it doesn’t – the heat comes from landfill gas engines on the Beddington Farmlands, sold by Viridor to Valencia Land Management. There are no confirmed dates for the connection of the incinerator to the SDEN pipeline but that has not stopped Sutton Council from pushing a development by Clarion Homes to take SDEN heat, nor prevented the Council from renegotiating the long term loan to SDEN

Meanwhile, Viridor has found the time and energy to apply for variations to the Environment Agency taking the volume of waste they can burn first to 347,000 tonnes to a possible 382,000 tonnes! Coincidentally, the South London Waste Plan was voted in with a tonnage quoted at 279,696 tonnes when the application for the latest increase was already live but the Administration refused to delay it adoption.

So are we a green borough?

The second thing that brought this all into focus was a diligent email from Viridor telling the Community Liaison Group “The Beddington ERF will undertake a period of maintenance this evening (Friday) and Saturday to repair processing equipment on one of the ERF lines. This will require the ERF to stop processing waste on one line for a number of hours and will necessitate a shut down in a controlled manner.”

And there was a dawning realisation that repair and maintenance (as well as failure) seemed to be a regular occurrence so we looked back and to put this into perspective – there have been seven such shutdowns in 2024 and nine in 2023. 2023 included a major incident when there was failure from UKPN and the incinerator failed to go into “island mode” and the whole operation shut down and there was a clear environmental hazard as a result.

Interestingly on that occasion, it was Cllr Tchil who alerted the Environment Agency and not Viridor but no measurement of the environmental damage could be taken because of the total failure.

There are two primary schools close to the incinerator and a huge number of residents in Hackbridge, Beddington and Croydon potentially impacted by the incinerator.

The Liberal Democrats and the Administration do the entire population of our Borough a disservice for not debating the issues and allowing an American owned commercial entity to have such a potentially negative impact on all our lives.

I expect tomorrow’s  meeting could be noisy and full of interested members of the public and I don’t find that daunting because local people are getting involved and voicing their thoughts and concerns.

However, it is to my eternal regret that the current political system has marginalised the voting public and has failed to involve them on daily issues that really affect their lives.

We celebrated as the Bank of England reduced the interest rate by 0.25% but back in April, the Council increased your Council tax by 4.9% and that was before Sadiq Khan took his own little bite out of your pocket.  So, you would think people would ask where their money went – you work hard to earn it, politicians and their administrative machinery don’t, and therefore we should be holding them to account at the ballot box!

At the recent Strategy & Resource Committee for the Council, elements of underestimated budgets on different projects were identified that the Council, on delegated authority, agreed to fund.

For example, Oru Space in Sutton High Street had drainage works and an additional staircase to safeguard fire escape routes – this work had incurred an additional cost of £103,808.  They also identified additional costs incurred of £220,850 which the Council met on the basis of it being funded by increased rental payments but will be funded by borrowing.

Businessmen have to think about cash flow, Council’s don’t.

On a greater scale, Wilmot Dixon stated that cost increases on their project for the Council in Coomber Way had, including a 6% contingency, required an additional £669,000 which will be funded by the Council increasing our – that’s yours and mine – borrowing costs by £53,000 per annum.

When I raised concerns at Committee, the rather weak response was that the capital budget is £55 million so these are only small amounts – I think residents who fund the Council may have a different view over the scale of these amounts.

We had another example of profligacy with a proposal for a 20 mph limit in what was referred to as the Morton Gardens Area. This included a large section of Beddington all of which already have a lot of traffic calming road humps.  A “public consultation” garnered just 4 replies but with the support of Liberal Democrat Councillors the objections of Beddington’s Independent Councillors could not prevent the go ahead at a cost of £120,000 for the signage!

And they cannot get rid of our heritage quick enough – that same committee meeting agreed the sale of the Russettings in Sutton, where so many people have married and has been the base for the Registrar.  Weddings will move to the Civic Centre which of course will, in time relocate to the St Nicholas Centre – can we expect Leader of the Council to be doing Elvis impersonations in Sutton’s Chapel of Love?

And in the face of the Council’s own wholly owned building company, Sutton Living, unable to convert The Old Rectory in Carshalton, The project is said to be uneconomic so we are going to offer that for sale as well.  How are they going to balance the budgets when they have sold all the assets.

My old Grandma always said look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves – the Liberal Democrat Council happily waste money on badly managed glamour projects and then moan about the need to cut services forgetting who we are elected to serve.

Like the McDonalds Planning, get involved people!

Six weeks of media coverage, six weeks of politicians seeking attention and it will all boil down to whether you vote tomorrow or not.

The first thing to remember is that modern politicians love a low turnout – they don’t have to work so hard and it means that a pot of money or influence from a trades union, a fat cat millionaire or a special interest group can make the difference between winning and losing.

High turnouts may not give the decision you want, but is it proper democracy – look at the bloody nose that a high turnout in France gave Monsieur Macron and the ensuing panic in the political classes. Let’s shake up the establishment and get back what we have lost.

Sutton Independents’ great campaigner, Cllr Nick Mattey has already been expressing local concerns about the Liberal Democrat candidate selection. Like many of the main political parties, whether a MP is resident in their constituency and truly committed to their local area seems an irrelevance.

In Carshalton and Wallington, we have one genuine local candidate, born, bred and educated in the Borough – Elliot Colburn – but he’s attacked for being Conservative!

Better Labour’s Hersh Thaker? With an election record of 6th place and failure to get elected as even a Councillor on Leicester City Council – what was wrong with someone like committed local Labour Councillor Dave Tchil from Hackbridge – at least he truly understands local issues.

And let’s just look at Elliot’s Liberal Democrat opponent – “this is my home” his latest leaflet states yet in 2019 Ladywell Live in the Lewisham Deptford area had this quote from him

Bobby says: “I’m honoured to be selected to stand in Lewisham Deptford once again. …..Lewisham residents demand better on the economy, health, crime and education. The Liberal Democrats are the party ready to deliver.”

Local? Really?

If the polls are to be believed, then Labour are a shoe in to be the next Government – those of us around to see Neil Kinnock’s triumphalism fall flat against a very grey John Major know there is no guarantee. But if you accept that the next Government is not likely to see Rishi Sunak or Sir Ed Davey in Downing Street, think about your LOCAL area.

We need a pair of MP’s who will hold the local authority to account, we need to buck the trend and elect genuinely local people to represent us in Westminster.

A very personal refection from Councillor Jillian Green

As I sit looking across the garden I decided to look back over the last year.  Re-elected by the wonderful residents of Beddington ward in May 2022 I was optimistic that the next four years would be less politics and more working together for the good of the people of Sutton.

How wrong can one be!!  For Councillor David Bartolucci, Chair of Housing, Economics and Business Committee, to say Tim Foster didn’t care about residents of Sutton, and by inference neither did Nick or I, was the ultimate insult and no apology was given despite the Mayor asking him to modify his language.  Still as my old dad used to say “when they start throwing insults you know they have lost the argument”.  Our Beddington residents know how hard we work on their behalf and will continue to do so for the next three and a half years.  We may not have the firepower of the ruling party but by heck we do hold our own in challenging decisions and asking the right questions.

One of the decisions we challenged on was the building of the new Carew Academy on the old Sheen Way playing fields.  We lost this one and on 9 May the building of the new school began. 

The carpet of buttercups, daisies and clover has gone as have the butterflies, bees, bats, foxes and birds (a whole colony of goldfinches once so prolific seems to have dwindled).  The line of hedgerows that provided homes for the wildlife have been dug up and tossed aside and residents can no longer pick the blackberries which was an annual event for some.  The Sheen Way Strollers who met on Wednesdays in the summer for a chat and amble cannot continue as the open space left is no bigger than a medium sized garden.  It is so sad when one considers the Liberal Democrats boast about their green credentials!! 

No green space is safe under the ruling party or indeed any party in my opinion.  There seems to be huge encouragement to use fields for solar panels and possibly more onshore wind farms.  Can anyone tell me how we are going to grow our own food if farmland is decommissioned for green energy?  Are we going to import cheap food which travels around the world increasing the UK’s carbon footprint thus negating the green energy.  

On 29 August the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, implemented the much hated ULEZ scheme.  I find it hard to contain my anger that so many who have non-compliant cars and are still struggling to pay off debts incurred during covid are going to have to pay £12.50 a day just to do their jobs to earn money to enable them to feed their families and pay the ever increasing bills. 

As a Councillor I have access to information about helplines for struggling families but ULEZ is not helping and I cannot understand why the major political parties are just letting Mr Khan get away with destroying people’s lives. 

Again another politician resorting to insults by calling people racists, nazis and covid deniers.  I have grave concerns that the suicide rate may rise because people are in such despair.  If cleaner air is what the Mayor aspires to, why were the cameras erected near hospitals where people suffering lung problems go to be treated.  I hear today that there is a possibility that cancer patients will get refunds.  It is my considered view that these cameras should not have been put up in those positions in the first place, nor indeed anywhere.

Also why just cancer patients getting refunds, why not all patients, whether they have physical or mental problems?  What about those attending GP appointments?  What about the night shift workers having to pay twice – once on the way in and once on the way home?

It beggars belief that this is acceptable to all politicians whatever their party colours.  It certainly is not acceptable to me but then I’m not a politician with a big “P”.  I’m just someone who cares about people and will do anything I can to assist them with their problems.  What will happen when businesses go bust because they cannot afford ULEZ, LEZ and the congestion charge?  Where will Mr Khan and local authorities get business rates from when shops stand empty.  How will this impact what seems to be a nation dream of 15 minute cities – George Orwell was right “big brother is watching”?  Are we to be fined for “stepping outside our zone”?  I wish the Government and the opposition (of all parties) would come clean and tell us what they mean by this and what the rationale is behind it.  

I turn now to a favourite topic of mine “democracy”.  Not something the Liberal Democrats in Sutton know a lot about.  You will all recall that when Labour won 3 seats last year, we the 3 Independents for Beddington, were told we had to share seats on the strategic committees with them.  How can it be that a party with a majority of 3 have the same amount of seats on committees they had before the election?  I’ll tell you why – because they interpret the constitution as it suits them. 

With a general election looming next year I would like to suggest that the politicians with a big “P” start listening to the majority of the population.  They will no longer stay silent and will speak out loud and long about the way they feel about being taxed to the hilt, not being able to recover their way of life because of the cost of living crisis, not being able to afford a compliant car because let’s face it two grand goes nowhere.

I would finish this “rant” by pleading with you all to make sure you are registered to vote next year, look into the ID requirement and make your voices count. I realise it is difficult to know who to vote for but wait and see who makes the candidate list and look into their records before deciding.   Are they really local or bussed in to appear local – are they telling you what you want to hear or what they are really going to do – make your vote count.

I hope you have all enjoyed your summer whether you stayed at home, went out for days or holidayed in the UK or abroad.  Look out for a new Sutton Independent leaflet coming in the autumn to Beddington.

It’s the Lib Demcrats isn’t it? They got the most seats, don’t they run it?  Yes they got the most seats in the May 2022 election but a very narrow majority.

That was potentially bad news for the officers – the Directors of Sutton Council and their myriad of wholly owned companies. Running budgets and borrowing money to fund projects depends on certainties and tiny majorities don’t do that.

Legal guidelines are clear, the proportion of seats on committees must reflect the proportion of seats on the Council – however, officers proposed to Council that even though the Liberal Democrats had just 52.725% of the Council seats, they would be allocated 60.1% of the Committee seats giving them a two-seat majority on every Committee.

Why did they want that – well the Committee system allows substitutes – so even if a member is sick, on holiday or has another reason for absence, the Liberal Democrats always have their majority.

At Council, there are no substitutes so there is always a risk – illness or even a train strike could cause absences and the risk of losing a vote.

That is why you will see a total absence of meaningful Council business at Full Council – everything is decided at Committee! The only way to bring important matters to Council is by requisition of Committee decisions, but the officers dismissed clear guidance of the Constitution and blocked a recent important requisition.

There was a petition raised by concerned residents about this and we are not sure it got the traction it deserved – anyone impacted by lousy decisions – SEN parents, SDEN customers, Environment issues, Housing issues ULEZ – you should sign the petition because this needs to change!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf3EfyC90FHzZTbgKWPqCW0flDWRxHmPZqP4amEq7Edhc4ZTA/viewform

This Council does not want to engage or listen.

SDEN, the Council’s heating system had yet another outage recently – this is the system that was part of the rationale to grant planning for the incinerator.  The system is not even connected to Viridor and last year they sold their landfill interests, including Beddington Farmlands to another company – so the landfill gas engines that currently power SDEN are not even owned by Viridor!

An independent report by CIPFRA talked of optimism bias at the inception of SDEN and the finances came in for heavy criticism – was anyone held to blame – what do you think? 

Yet officers are still trying to sell the concept of SDEN to a prospective developer close to New Mill Quarter.

Let’s try an anagram of SDEN and look at another Sutton Council claim – “Ambitious for SEND” – that is the provision of special needs education managed by another of Sutton’s wholly owned companies COGNUS.  

Are parents wrong when they say that they are treated badly when they apply for an Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP) for their child – the full year statistics for EHCP Tribunals for 2021 tell the story:

Visit or dial into Council  on 6^th March when the Budget is presented and see just how much money is being spent on SEND and ask why we are not doing better. 

At the same time watch the increase in Councillor allowances, the ballooning debt and the increase in your Council Tax and wonder where all that money goes.

And if you think the increase in the Council build at Beech Tree Place – the £30 million budget grew to £44.2 million – is a bit daft. Consider if you will, how two other Council owned companies Sutton Housing Partnership and Sutton Living – these companies transact with one another on property – yet share the same Board Chair.  Impartial?

We need to have a Council that listens to residents – by the same token, just as the voices against ULEZ have been heard, residents need to ask questions.  Your friends in Croydon will be counting the cost of the chaos that has transpired there – don’t wait for the same to happen here, GET INVOLVED!