Mary Reid

The Library at the Hook Centre is trying out late night opening on Tuesdays until 10pm from now on. This will largely be self service using the electronic loan-and-return machines.

I'd love to know whether you think this is a good idea.

By the way, following a number of complaints about quality and service, the café is temporarily closed. The Council is looking for a new operator to take it over as soon as possible. In the meantime, you are welcome to take your own refreshments in, and the drinks cabinet will be working again soon.

Hook Library in the Hook Centre has just won a national Public Library Buildings Award 2007.

It came first in the category 'Heart of the Community'. This is specifically for new or refurbished libraries that have been designed to provide "new, inclusive, innovative services to the whole community".

Fantastic news, and well deserved! Congratulations to all the staff involved.

In case you missed it here is the video that was produced to promote the entry - you may see people you recognise.

MeWe is a local youth theatre group that I have written glowingly about before. Their latest production - developed by the group themselves - is based on the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, a slave who bought his freedom and then played a key role in London in the movement to abolish slavery.

Back in March I was invited to a workshop performance of this play, and since then the cast have gone deeper into the history. One thing I particularly liked is that they now present only simple but telling hints of the legacy of slavery today. The very last moment of the play is a short but moving encounter between a young man in modern clothes and Equiano, who just nod and smile knowingly at each other.

This was good ensemble playing with some very strong performances, but I do have mention Marlon McDonald in the lead role (centre in photo) - this young man will go far.

A couple of months ago our very good friends, Ros and Colin Ball, left Hook and bought the Ivydene Hotel in Eastbourne. It was a tremendous change for them, and, in my mind, an incredibly brave thing to do. Their son Michael is a chef, so they are now jointly running a family business.

We've just been down to stay overnight with them for the first time since they moved - and I can't believe they have been there for such a short time, as they seemed so happily in charge of everything. Colin says it still feels like being on holiday, though how anyone can imagine that cooking, cleaning and washing for a couple of dozen guests is a holiday beats me!

So if you fancy a stay in Eastbourne where you will be warmly welcomed, you know where to click.

It's South of the Borough Neighbourhood Meeting today at 7.30pm in the Hook Centre - all are welcome.

There are seven planning applications (see below), but I think the main discussion will be around the proposed site for Castle Hill Primary, which I wrote about a couple of days ago.  If you missed the consultation meeting last week then this is another opportunity to ask questions.

The planning applications are for:

• 268 Hook Road - 8 flats
• Victory House, Cox Lane - 2 storey extension
• St Mary's Primary School - new block of classrooms and assembly hall
• 425 Leatherhead Road - domestic extension
• Glanmire Farm - retention of mobile home
• 9 Woodview - domestic extension
• Chessington World of Adventures - temporary sea life centre

Planning regulations mean a formal procedure has to be followed when hearing applications. Open discussion is not allowed, although formal deputations from objectors can be heard if notified in advance.

OK, so it is a bit self-indulgent, but Alex Folkes sent me this photo that he took at party conference.

I was speaking in the debate about local government last month in Brighton.

Now should I replace my standard photo on the right with this one?

This term kicked off with a new school in the Neighbourhood. Buckland Infants and Moor Lane Juniors have amalgamated to form Castle Hill Primary. The school officially opened two weeks ago.

Now there are lots of sound educational reasons for preferring an all-through primary school to separate infant and junior schools - the whole teaching team can work together to provide a suitable education for each child as they progress through the years - so when the opportunity arose with the retirement of one of the headteachers the Council was wise to make this happen.

The new school is still operating on the two sites, which are only a few minutes walk from each other, but one of the two sites must now be chosen as its eventual home. There are issues to be tackled whichever site is selected, but the Council is proposing that Buckland should be it.  A consultation document has gone out to 2500 homes.

On Thursday a public meeting was held, when questions were asked about traffic in Buckland Road, the playing field at Moor Lane, and what the Moor Lane site will be used for. There will be another chance to discuss this at our South of the Borough Neighbourhood meeting next Tuesday (23rd), starting 7.30pm at the Hook Centre.

If Buckland is finally chosen as the site for Castle Hill, then I'm prepared to make the following commitments:

• the Moor Lane site will be used for services to children and to families
• no part of either site will be sold to developers
• the playing field at Moor Lane will remain as the playing field for the new school; in fact, we would like its use to be extended to the wider community
• a pedestrian entrance in Mount Road would encourage walking to school; no extra parking would be allowed in Mount Road
• the use of the swimming pool at Moor Lane will continue as at present
• we will encourage the school and parents to introduce walking buses to reduce car use

I've just had an email from Steve Webb saying that he is not standing for the leadership, and this is reported by the BBC, and now on his blog.

That is a shame, and reduces the contest to two serious contenders, Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg. Actually Liberal Democrats are blessed with a very talented cohort, and either of these would make an excellent leader.

I'm just not at all sure which to go for now, and I'm open to persuasion.

Our three local MPs have ruled themselves out of the contest for the leadership of the Liberal Democrats.

Ed Davey's wife Emily is expecting their first child next month so I wasn't surprised to hear from them yesterday that he probably wouldn't be standing. Susan Kramer would have been a welcome female contender, but she has decided not to run, and Vince Cable fears he will suffer the same appalling agism from the press as Ming received.

The expected contenders are listed here. 

With the locals out of the running, I will be supporting Steve Webb, if he decides to stand. He comes from the same philosophical roots as me - sometimes described as being on the left of the party, which really means committed to grassroots democracy and social liberalism. I designed his website, and have been very impressed with the way he communicates with his constituents through email, texting, blogging and Facebook.

I wanted to share some terrific photos of the work going on in the Rose of Kingston theatre.

You can see that it is well on its way to being ready for the opening in the New Year.

At my last viewing the whole of the main auditorium was full of scaffolding, so it's great to see the shape emerging again.

I can't claim any credit for the photos themselves; they were taken by Chris Pearsall.

The theatre will actually open officially on 16th January, with a performance of Peter Hall's production of Uncle Vanya. The full press release is on the website. 

Twenty years ago my father woke on the morning of his 70th birthday to the news that much of southern England had been swept by a hurricane. His home in Wales had been spared the worst of the strom, but I wished him a Happy Birthday and described how all the roads around Hook were swathed in green branches and fallen trees. The storm had kept us awake for several hours during the night and we had heard tiles crashing from the roof.

My father's sister in Australia rang him to congratulate him on reaching 70, and he told her the news: "But hurricanes never happen in England" was her response.

Strictly speaking they don't, because the term hurricane is reserved for tropical cyclones, but the windspeeds were equivalent to a category 2 hurricane. It seems astonishing that there are three grades of hurricane above what we experienced that night.

What is often forgotten is that this one-in-three-hundred-years event was repeated in January 1990. This time the storm was not quite as severe, but it still reached the strength of a category 1 hurricane.

I can clearly remember looking out from the eighth floor of Kingston College and watching people who were completely unable to walk into the wind. We were really worried that windows would crack, and falling glass was indeed a major risk on that day. Overall the storm caused less damage than the previous one because the trees were already without leaves, and of course, many of the vulnerable trees had already fallen just over two years earlier. But sadly because it occurred during the day more people were killed in the 1990 storm than in 1987.

Well, I wasn't expecting that! 

Liberal Democrat bloggers actually featured in the news headlines at 1pm today, although the references to the blogosphere bursting with questions about Ming's leadership sent me clicking through to LibDem Blogs to check.  I counted 9 blogs on that topic over the weekend out of a total of 108; not all were anti-Ming and some of those were by the same person! Hardly a huge grassroots movement.

Lots of us were pretty fed up with the reporting of Party Conference - Andrew Neil was the worst culprit -  where viewers were constantly told that delegates were all busy discussing Ming's leadership. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

I've supported Ming quite publicly over the last couple of years - last March on Sky News, and recently on the BBC news website. He is a man of integrity and intelligence; I'm sorry to see him go so soon, but typically he took decisive action without fuss.

So who will be the next leader? - discussing this over a pint or two has always been a Lib Dem pastime, but now its a real decision that we have to make again before Christmas. The BBC lists some of the frontrunners, who include both of our Kingston MPs, plus Vince Cable from across the river.

I decided to wimp no longer, take some Beechams, and throw myself into local democracy again. 

So we welcomed a group of Kingston University students, who are all training to be primary school teachers, to the Guildhall to talk about citizenship. I think they were pretty surprised to learn from Andrew Bessant just how many services are provided by the council.

My job was to talk about citizens and councillors, and given my interests I homed in on participation in local democracy, and how children can learn about it and get involved. 

I repeated something I've said many times before - children are not citizens-in-the-making, they are citizens already. They deserve to be listened to, and decision-makers have a duty to listen to them, because they experience their environments in a different way from adults, so can inform debate from a new perspective.

Over the last four or five years I've been involved in lots of initiatives around the citizenship curriculum, including the election of the Kingston Member of the UK Youth Parliament, the establishment of Kingston Youth Council as a consultative body of the Council, and online surgeries for young people with MPs and councillors.

Then last year, as Mayor, I visited a number of primary school councils to discuss with them how they could improve life in their areas - Lovelace plus their excellent suggestions , Fern Hill, St Mary's and again,  St Paul's Primary, St Josephs',  The Mount. (I've put in all the links so the students can follow through the process if they are reading this)

I had one of those moments of disbelief yesterday. I put my bank card into a cash machine and it immediately crashed, displayed this message and swallowed up my card.

Apparently, it was nothing to do with my card, and I've since heard that this has happened to that ATM several times before - it was the Nationwide one outside Budgens in Hook Parade (and not their responsibility, of course). So I suggest you avoid using it, especially as there are three others in the Parade.

The meeting on 'Looking After our Green Spaces' produced some good discussions.

The managers from Quadron explained their long term plans to develop community use of the parks as well as keep the planting in order. Criticisms of poor performance by some of the employees (driving over wet grass, pitching litter into the trucks etc) were responded to with apologies and a commitment to stop the practices.  Quadron said they would welcome feedback like that, so they can deal with problems - the easiest route is to contact the Council's Environmental Services.

I learnt a great deal during the discussion about the Green Spaces Strategy, which will guide Quadron's work in the future.  It is a particularly important document for South of the Borough, given its semi-rural location.  

Barbara Webb gave us her expert opinion on nature conservation, and said that it was not given the attention it deserved in the document, which was generally agreed. Nick Owen from the Lower Mole Project - a joint effort supported by six boroughs including Kingston - said that the contribution made by volunteers should be mentioned. We talked about footpaths and rights of way, and about bio-diversity in our gardens as well as in nature reserves. The Council ecologists were busy recording lots of ideas and are hoping to incorporate them into the final version.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow evening when we will be holding a special South of the Brorough Neighbourhood meeting on the theme of 'Looking after our green spaces'.  Everyone is welcome to attend and join in the discussion.

For the first hour we will have a chance to meet managers from Quadron, which is the Council's contractor for parks and grounds. They look after parks and wayside gardens, children's play areas, grass verges and allotments (but not school playing fields).  After an introduction they will be happy to take questions from anyone at the meeting.

For the second hour we hope that local people will give their opinions on the Council's Green Spaces Strategy, which you can download from here. As this is a draft, any comments made at this stage can easily be incorporated into the final version. The session will begin with a short presentation so don't worry if you don't manage to read the rather lengthy document. Do come along and gives us your views.

The meeting will begin at 7.30pm in the newly named Castle Hill School, on the Moor Lane site.

If you want to ask a question or make a comment then fill in one of the slips when you arrive, and bring it to the front table. You'll be called to give your contribution, and we'll try to group the questions around topics - that way we can get through a good range of ideas in the time available.

Recycling can be quite a controversial topic. Kingston Council's recycling and refuse contract is up for renewal, so there's a very important consultation going on at present to capture the views of people who live in the borough.

You'll find the online version of the consultation on the Council's website, so do spend a few minutes filling it in. You've got until 3pm on Friday 12th October - the consultation period has been extended from the original deadline of last weekend.

In South of the Borough we'll be holding a special Neighbourhood meeting to look at the results of the consultation and discuss the options. This will be on Tuesday 20th November at 7.30pm at Tolworth Girls School. Everyone is welcome to attend and join in the discussion.

Parliamentary elections are the only ones in the UK that are at the whim of just one person - and a person who has a strong personal interest in the timing. 

We councillors are governed by our Code of Conduct, and if we stand to gain or lose personally by a decision then we must declare it and take no part in the debate or the decision. Why then is the Prime Minister allowed to choose the date of the election?

I've already explained why I think it would have been unethical for Brown to call a mid-term election, and I now believe Parliament should agree to elections every four years.

Two Lib Dem MPs will be tabling a motion tomorrow calling for a fixed term parliament. This shouldn't really be a politicised debate since everyone should be able to see the damage caused all round by the on/off election speculation over the last few weeks.

I have been feeling really sorry for a number of people I know who have been caught up in the mess of the last few weeks.  I've already mentioned local government officers who have had to do a lot of preparation in order to be ready for a very short election period.

Local political parties will all have been busy, as ours was, getting materials printed, teams in place, and strategies developed. Then what about those seats where the sitting MP has decided to stand down, and a new candidate has been selected, like Martin Tod in Winchester? Having thought that there was a good chance that he could look forward to a new life, his plans have now been put on hold for another 18 months.

And what about those constituencies which had not selected candidates yet? It is quite wrong for this important process to be carried out in haste.

Thousands of people have been directly affected by the Prime Minister's will-he/won't-he game. It's not fair on them, and it does nothing to serve democracy.

The Mayor had just cut the ribbons and the balloons floated up into the sky.

Today we were celebrating two exciting new ventures.

Buckland Infants and Moor Lane Junior have amalgamated to form Castle Hill Primary, under the headship of Chris Wansborough.

At the same time the first Children's Centre in South of the Borough opened on the Buckland site. This will offer a huge range of activities and resources for parents of younger children, provided by education, health and other professionals.

It includes the Piglets pre-school, parent-and-child groups and events, family learning (parents workshops, ICT, English as a second language etc), toy library, as well as a breakfast, after-school and holiday clubs for the older ones. On top of all that, drop in advice sessions will be available on health care, welfare benefits, housing and with the local Safer Neighbourhoods police team.

This is a great step forward in the community and certainly worth a few balloons.

I'm not referring to the campaign costs racked up by each of the parties, but the actual administration costs of running a general election.

Well, it is local Councils that have to administer elections, and they do get a grant from Government to cover the expenses. That still means that taxpayers pay for it. According to the BBC the 2001 election cost £80 million - I can't find the figures for the 2005 election, but it must have been more than that.

What is overlooked is the impact that an election has on local Councils, especially small Districts. They have to divert considerable manpower into organising this massive event, from booking polling stations, sending out polling cards and postal votes, to arranging polling and counting officers. 

Now why am I complaining since elections are an essential component of a democracy? My concern is that if Gordon Brown calls an election next week it will be a totally unecessary waste of resources and will put great strains on local councils.

The five year limit on each parliament means that normally general elections are held about four years apart. Mid term elections are normally only called if there is a crisis of confidence in the government, as happened over the miners' strike in 1974.

There is no national justification at all in calling an election now. The need to provide a mandate for Gordon Brown's premiership has been cited, but at the last election we all knew that Tony Blair would be standing down and that Brown would most likely follow him. There is no demand from the electorate to legitimise his position.

So why do it? Vanity and self-interest should not take precedence over the national interest, and if he does call an election then the values that drive him will be exposed for all to see.

Most of us go from time to time to the tip at Villiers Road - or as they now call it, the Household Refuse and Recycling Centre. 

It seems people from other boroughs have been using it as well, and Kingston council tax payers have been paying a lot to get rid of their rubbish. So now the Villers Road site will only be open to Kingston residents.

If you live in the Borough then you should have received a permit in the post. Mine hasn't arrived yet, and if it doesn't turn up in a few days then send an email, with your address, to environment@rbk.kingston.gov.uk.

Don't worry if you haven't got your permit yet and want to use the tip - just take some other official proof that you live in the Borough such as your current Council Tax bill or payment book, or a  residents' controlled parking zone permit, or your Freedom Pass.

Update

It seems that soemthing went wrong at the printers - they've admitted it was their fault - and the starting date has been postponed until 15th Oct. You should get your permit next week.

You'd think that local councillors would know their areas best and would be able to make decisions about planning applications without outside interference.

I suppose there should always be some kind of appeals process to guard against maladministration, but I'm not talking about that. In the two cases that have got me agitated the decisions were made in line with our local planning policies. In both cases we followed the planning officer's recommendation.  We sometimes get criticised if we go against the advice of officers, but in these cases they agreed with us.

You may have read about the application from Chessington Nurseries on the front page of the Kingston Informer last week. Chessington Nurseries is probably one of the most popular destinations in the whole Neighbourhood (Chessington World of Adventures excepted), and many customers recognise the environmental and ethical stance of this business.

Their plans for expansion, which included an education centre, were submitted after lengthy discussions with local residents, customers and the planning department. 2000 letters of support were sent in and there was very little opposition. As local councillors in South of the Borough Neighbourhood we supported the application. The application did have to go to Kingston's strategic Development Control Committee, who voted to permit.

And yet the Mayor for London has overturned this innovative project. He can intervene on a growing numbers of our decisions, and he has been trying for some time to take even more powers from us.

The second application went the other way - South of the Borough Neighbourhood turned it down but the Planning Inspector in Bristol let it through. The application was to build 21 houses on the site of 44-60 Leatherhead Road. Much of the building would have been in the back gardens. We are firmly against what is known as 'backland development' so we refused planning permission.

What happened next was less straightforward. The developer appealed against our decision to the Planning Inspector. The Inspector agreed in principle to the development, because gardens are now considered 'brown field' sites not 'green field' ones. However the Inspector did highlight a few other concerns and did not allow the appeal.

The developer then revised the plans to meet the Inspector's concerns and submitted them again to us.  We knew we could not object on backland development grounds because the Inspector had already agreed to it.  But we did defer our decision because people in Sussex Gardens, which backs on to the site, were concerned about the flood risk.

Finally the application came back to us this month with a flood risk assessment and a report from the Environment Agency. We were very disappointed that the Environment Agency did not oppose the development.

So we were stuck in an awful spot. The last thing we wanted to do was to give permission to the application. But the Inspector and Environment Agency had already overturned all our objections.  The heroic response would have been to turn it down again. The developer would have appealed and would have won the appeal, and the Council would have had to pay legal bills for both sides, which could run into six figures. We couldn't throw away that amount of council tax payers' money just to make a gesture. So we had no choice but to permit it, expressing all the while our deep disapproval.

A leaflet has been circulating which claims that we permitted backland development - technically, of course, we did, but only because all our objections had been overturmed by 'higher' powers. I will continue to object to backland developments. 

The Inspectors are allowing building developments even though the planning officers and local councillors have both wanted to refuse them, and even though they are in line with the properly agreed local planning policies. This makes a total nonsense of local wisdom on planning matters.

And now the Mayor of London can take upon himself the power to stop developments that local people want. It's madness!