Parish Council News Update – December 2023

Letter from the Chairman

Dear Villagers,

This is the time of year when your Parish Council takes a host of detailed financial decisions. As for many of us, the run up to Christmas is a costly time. Every year we set aside some of the Parish Council precept (tax revenue) for grants for village organisations. Our grant budget this year is £8,000. The amount we can award in grants is both constrained by legislation (this year we are capped at £9.33 per electorate) and by available funds. This year, grant requests were roughly double the available budget. By the time you read this, we will have spoken to all the organisations who applied, and we will be able to report in detail in our newsletter next year. We also must review our budget annually and submit our precept (tax revenue) requests to Tandridge in January. Please see Councillor and Head of Finance Peter Hutchinson’s report below for detail. Setting the budget is never an easy task and as ever, we look forward to any feedback you might wish to share.

Planning Engagement

As reported in these pages, the last couple of years have seen an appreciable increase in the number of planning application submitted and requiring commentary from the Parish Council. As a reminder, we are the statutory consultee for Woldingham. Given the higher work volume and the need for speedier work, the Parish Council have voted to create an informal working group to focus in detail on planning. Detailed reviews and proposals will still be discussed by the full Parish Council in publicly noticed meetings. Deploying a work group to deep dive into planning is a common way that many Parish Councils address work on planning commentary.

Quarry application update

You may recall that on the 20th of October, we submitted a joint objection to Surrey County Council regarding the Southern Gravel Chalkpit Quarry application to vary the minerals license and build seventy-five houses on Green Belt and AONB land. We worked closely with Oxted Parish Council, The Oxted and Limpsfield Residents Group and the Woldingham Association. In last month’s letter to the village, I mentioned that Tandridge District Council have initiated a judicial review of this process given that most of us, and certainly Tandridge District Council, believe that jurisdiction for the housing approvals of this proposed plan should fall to the District Council. This is not a brief process and at the writing of this, there is no update to report. We continue to keep a careful eye on the situation and are prepared to take action as needed.

The growing problem with traveller’s sites harming the Greenbelt

Also in last month’s update, I reported that the WPC had recently worked closely with Chelsham and Farleigh Parish Council, Tatsfield Parish Council and Warlingham Parish Council to address the growing number of transgressions on sites in the Green Belt, including a number of sites near the boundary of Woldingham. We sent a joint letter to Chief Planning Officer Helen Murch, raising a host of issues. We had positive acknowledgment of our joint letter from Chief Planning Officer Helen Murch and await meeting dates to positively address the concerns and ensure enforcement is undertaken.

Parish Elections in May

I once again remind you that local elections will take place this May, when the whole of Tandridge Council is up for election, as is the whole of Woldingham Parish Council. We currently anticipate two vacancies, and we always welcome as many people as possible to run. There is no requirement to run affiliated to a party, and historically the Woldingham Parish Councillors run for Council with no party affiliations. We are hoping that some of you may step forward to volunteer for the Parish Council. We work to protect Woldingham as a community and to further social well-being in the village. There are all sorts of activities to engage in, from organising events for the village to commenting on planning, helping beautify the village, working on security and safety and representing village views in consultations and other matters. If you may be interested, please reach out to hear more at deborahwoldinghampc@outlook.com. Or perhaps consider attending a meeting! If you are interested in serving as a Councillor or attending a meeting, please email our Clerk for more details at: parish.clerk@woldingham.com.

Police Meeting 1830 on the 26th of March

The Woldingham Parish Council have organised a meeting with Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner Lisa Townsend and Sergeant Wayne Stephens on the 26th of March 1830-1930, at the Woldingham Village Hall. Topics will include car break-ins, thefts and house break-ins, apprehension and conviction rates and Q&A. All are our welcome. Let us know in advance if you have specific questions at Parish.Clerk@woldingham.com.

As a reminder, news, updates and meetings from around the village are available on this website Woldingham.com.

And finally, by the time you read this, the holidays will be upon us. We hope that many of you will have enjoyed our Carols in the Crescent event, together raising our voices joyfully. It has been an eventful year, and we hope that you and all your loved ones are safe and that you can cherish the holidays together. We wish you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Chairman Deborah Sherry

 

Woldingham Parish Council Annual Precept Review

At the Parish Council Meeting on November 29, we reviewed our budget for next year and considered the level of precept we should request. The precept is collected on our behalf by Tandridge District Council and forms part of the annual council tax payments made by all households.

We consciously decided not to ask for an increase for the current year (April 2023- March 2024) and froze the precept at the level of the previous year. However, each of the past two years has seen a major village event (The Platinum Jubilee and The Coronation). These one-off events were funded from our reserves which have now been significantly depleted.

In addition, our running costs have been subject to general inflation. If we take the retail price index as a guide, this has risen by over 15% since the point that we froze the precept.

The Council is committed to providing good governance for the Parish, protecting the Village from inappropriate development and supporting a wide range of village activities.

However, in order to continue this work without further reducing our reserves, we concluded that a modest 5% increase in total precept for the upcoming year (April 2024- March 2025) was both necessary and appropriate under the circumstances.

Councillor Peter Hutchinson

 

Gatwick and Biggin Hill Airspace Updates

Gatwick Airspace Update. Airspace modernisation is expected to support the Government’s objective to increase capacity, including through the development of a northwest runway at Heathrow as outlined in the Airports National Policy Statement, and other airports making best use of their existing runways subject to environmental issues being addressed – hence the second runway proposal at Gatwick Airport. It sets out the ends, ways and means of modernising airspace through fifteen initiatives that will upgrade the design, technology and operations of airspace, initially focusing on the period until the end of 2024.

FASI – South consists of the following airport participants or ‘sponsors’ – Biggin Hill, Bournemouth, Farnborough, Gatwick, Heathrow, London City, Luton, Manston, RAF Northolt, Southampton, Southend and Stansted. These are complex airspace design programmes that require coordination between the different ‘sponsors’ of airspace.

The window to comment on the Northern runway proposal closed on the 29th of October but Councillors Holbrook and McEwan have been involved with the Initial Options Appraisal public information sessions.

The process has now moved to Step 3A where the Preferred Proposal Options will undergo detailed design development ahead of the Stage 3 Full Options Appraisal. The Stage 3 Full Options Appraisal (FOA) is the second stage in a three-phase appraisal of airspace change options. It is required to provide more rigorous evidence, typically through quantitative evaluation, of the options compared against the ‘do nothing’ pre-implementation scenario.

The outcomes of the Full options Appraisal are used to inform the public Consultation and at this stage a preferred option will be identified. Councillors Holbrook and McEwan have registered their and Woldingham Parish Councils’ interest to take part in the public consultation starting in Q1 2024.

In the meantime, Councillors Holbrook and McEwan are attending London Gatwick Noise & Airspace Annual Public Meeting on Wednesday 6 December and will provide an update on points of discussion.

Biggin Hill update

We note that at the recent Woldingham Association AGM there was a presentation by Colin Hitchins from Biggin Hill highlighting their current status and future goals. One item which has been contentious for several years is the redesign of the flight path into runway 03 ( only when the wind direction is from the east ), which initially was rejected by the CAA. This proposed flight path would have moved the runway 03 approach below Woldingham. Parish Councillors consulted with Biggin Hill in detail to ensure the flight path was moved south of Woldingham.

Since the original plan was rejected, Biggin Hill Airport have proposed a new flightpath. The new plan will be trialled next September and will take the planes some distance from Woldingham to the west and come back in over the M25 before flying into Biggin Hill. This has been accomplished in consultation with Gatwick and takes the path some 500m away from the Ridge instead of the previous 200m. Let’s hope this is accepted by the CAA as it would be good news for the village.

Councillors Leanna McEwan & Peter Holbrook

 

Briefing by Surrey Police – November 20 2023

On November 20, I attended a briefing/Q&A session with Surrey Police at the Marriot Hotel in Lingfield. This was part of a series of meetings around Surrey.

It was chaired by the Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner, Lisa Townsend together with Surrey Police Chief Tim De Meyer and Tandridge Borough Commander Lyndsey Whatley.

The short presentation dealt with the challenges of more policing on ever tighter budgets and making sure they made the most of the resources they had. Interestingly, they have a lot of vacancies which they are trying to fill to provide a better service. Surrey Police Chief Tim De Meyer is new in the role and seemed very thoughtful and realistic about the challenges they faced in winning the trust of the public. Tandridge Borough Commander Lyndsey Whatley talked about how they were aiming to continue their improvement in detection rates, especially vehicle theft.

There were about forty people in the audience. Quite a few parish councillors from Tandridge parishes as well as some TDC members and members of the public attended. The Q & A was largely about complaints where the police either did not show up or were uninterested in following up. De Meyer was a bit phased by this and restated his position that the only way the police could be effective was if there was a bond of trust between police and public and the public had to be able to see the police doing their job. They were targeting attending all domestic burglaries and were making inroads into shop lifting, anti-social behaviour and substance abuse.

Several parish councillors were interested in the effectiveness of the ANPR cameras which had been purchased by their communities and whether they represented value for money. Lyndsey thought they had been essential in reducing car crime as they had provided valuable evidence leading to successful prosecutions.

The meeting was essentially an acceptance by Surrey Police that it had delivered a below par in performance in the past but had set up their stall to improve the level of trust through smarter deployment of resources and better contact with the communities they serve.

Time will tell.

There will be an opportunity to meet the Commissioner together with members of the Tandridge police team on March 26 at 6.30pm at the Village Hall. We will be giving more information nearer the time, and it will be helpful if questions are put in writing in advance of the meeting.

Councillor Peter Hutchinson