Mary Reid

... recycle it! But only if it is a real one, of course.

The Council will collect your tree on the day when your wheelie bin is emptied, starting next Monday. That means some people will have to put theirs out before Twelfth Night, the traditional day to take down Christmas decorations.

Don't forget that next week, everyone's collection day will be a day later than usual. (See the Council website for exact arrangements).

So it's trees out on your wheelie bin day between 5th and 16th January, and old bins out on your wheelie bin day between 19th and 30th January.

It's sad to see a longtime fixture of Hook Parade shut its doors. I can't remember a time when Woolies wasn't there, so it must go back over 35 years.

And it's more than a little worrying for the local retailers, who have managed to sustain this as a viable local shopping parade against the competition from the big supermarkets.

These small shopping centres - and we are blessed with two successful ones in the ward - are the lifeblood of local communities, but they are rather fragile. So the loss of one of the larger shops, and the gap it will leave between Budgens and the bakers, threatens the future of all the retailers. 

Let's hope the location is of some interest to Iceland or some other chain.

Actually, the demise of Woolworths has some personal significance for my family, because the Ladybird brand will disappear with it.

A while ago I wrote about the unemployment in the Welsh Valleys in the 30s and how it brought my father up to London as a teenager, and eventually his father to Slough where he managed to get work as a roadsweeper.

My father looked for an opportunity to join his parents in Slough, and indeed that was where he met my mother in his early twenties.

One evening my father was at a party (so he told me) and met another young man called Eric Pasold, who had just set up a children's clothing business, called Ladybird, in Langley. He gave my father a job, marketing (I believe) the new company.

After a while Eric offered my father a partnership in the growing company, but by then my father was planning to go to theological college to train for the ministry, so declined the opportunity.

Throughout my childhood, Ladybird was the leading brand for quality children's clothes. Ironically my parents could not afford to buy Ladybird clothes for me on a clergy salary, but my grandmother loved to spoil me from time to time. 

Eventually the brand was bought up by Woolworths in an attempt, I imagine, to lift their profile, although I rather think it had the opposite effect.

(By the way, the Ladybird book imprint - another icon of my childhood -  is not connected to the Ladybird clothes brand, though it must be suffering from the confusion at the moment)

So before the Hook branch of Woolworths finally closed this week I called in and bought - along with a DVD of Mamma Mia! and assorted notebooks - a Ladybird coat for my grandson.

I'm signing off for a few days to enjoy Christmas with my grandson and the rest of the family.

Happy Christmas one and all!

The Council is not a Scrooge and doesn't expect the binmen to work on Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year's Day (although they do work all the other bank holidays in the year).

OK, so my recycling is collected on Tuesdays and 'm expecting them tomorrow as usual. The following week the collection will be a day late because of the backlog from Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

But the pattern does depend on when your normal collection day falls, so do check the leaflet that came round a week or so ago.

If you've lost it then you can check your collection days on the Council's website.

I've just heard the brilliant news that Kingston's services for Children and Young People have once again been judged to be outstanding.

This is the judgment of Ofsted's Annual Performance Assessment, and it covers all public services that work with children such as health, as well as the Council.

Kingston is one of only six local authorities in the country who gained the highest possible scores.

Interestingly, Ofsted does comment about a couple of areas for improvement, and I see that they have picked out the waiting lists for occupational therapy, which are still too long.

That was something that I was very conscious of when I held the Children's Services portfolio. At that time the NHS Primary Care Trust, who commission OT services, was deeply in debt and gave that as the reason for not being able to increase the number of professionals.

I don't know what the current reason is, but the Primary Care Trust no longer has a deficit, so I do hope they address this ongoing problem as soon as possible.

Congratulations to everyone for an excellent outcome!

In spite of all the doom and gloom from the Conservatives, the Rose Theatre has just pulled off a spectacular coup!

It is one of only three venues in London that have attracted grants of £50,000 apiece from Arts Council England, to provide free tickets for young people. It shares this honour with the National Theatre and the Barbican. Other theatres have been given smaller grants, but the level of the award to the Rose does reflect its high standing in the arts world.

It seems that the offer of free tickets will be made from 16th February to all 18-25 year olds, on a first come first served basis.

"The Rose Theatre will be taken to the brink of financial ruin before receiving a penny more of taxpayers' money." according to David Lindsell at the Kingston Guardian. And he's right.

But what he doesn't mention is that if I had not interrupted the Conservative Chair of Scrutiny last night, as he tried to bulldoze through his motion, then the theatre would have closed for good in two weeks' time.

The evening had been devoted to scrutinising the Liberal Democrat Executive Committee's decision to back the theatre with a package of measures.

At Kingston the Scrutiny Committee is chaired and run by the Conservative opposition. They were quite right to call in and carry out a forensic examination of all the elements of the package, led by their theatre expert Cllr Nick Kilby.

Indeed, the first three hours of the meeting were spent doing just that. All the key figures from the Rose were present and answered detailed questions about what they would provide in return for further investment.

After the scrutiny process the Committee can either let the original decision stand, or refer it back to Executive with further recommendations. Since that was the expected outcome, an extra Executive meeting had been called for this evening.

A third option, which is rarely used, is to refer the decision to Full Council for debate. The reason why this option is not often taken is because Full Council has no decision-making power on Executive matters, so the decision would have to be referred back to Executive afterwards anyway.

But to our amazement, at the end of the evening the Chair and Leader of the Conservative Opposition, Cllr Howard Jones, proposed to refer the decision to Full Council. He immediately tried to go to a vote, and I had to intevene and ask for someone to spell out the consequences of such an action.

In fact, I had to intervene twice before he allowed the Chair of the Theatre Trust to answer the question. Put bluntly, the theatre would become insolvent if the financial package was not agreed by 31st December.

Cllr Jones looked rather startled. Whatever brinkmanship game he wanted to play, he did not want to be branded as the person who closed the Rose Theatre.

At that point, Lib Dem Cllr Don Jordan offered a sensible solution. He suggested referring the matter back to Executive immediately, and at the same time arranging for a full debate at the next Council.  Cllrs Jones and Kilby looked relieved and called a 5 minute adjournment, muttering something about a negotiation.

5 minutes stretched to 15, and when the Conservative councillors returned it was clear that the Chair had been overruled by the other Conservative members. He now insisted that the matter should go to a special Council meeting. The reason he gave was that it would give an opportunity for all councillors to debate the matter.

And when would the special Council meeting be held? - on Tuesday 23rd December!

Of course, many councillors, of both parties, will be tied up with their families, or away on holiday, on the 23rd, so it hardly gives them a chance to join in the debate.

I also pointed out that Council staff will be forced to work extra hours just before Christmas.

So the theatre is being put through agony at a time of the year when they are exhausted; councillors and council officers are being forced to interrupt their Christmas preparations - for what? Well, so that ten councillors (the maximum allowed) can give their views in a 40 minute debate on something which has already been unpacked in great detail at Scrutiny.

I almost thought I was back in the Rose watching Scrooge dispensing Christmas misery.

Update - Thursday

David Lindsell has written a second report, in which he quotes the Chair of the Theatre Trust, Anthony Simonds-Gooding:

"They [the Conservatives in the council] are taking themselves to the brink. I have done my bit and if the people don't want a theatre, well there we are.

"They would be absolutely mad but there has been madness in the world before."

Now that the new recycling and waste service has started to settle down, the question I am asked most is "What should I do with my old bin?"

A couple of weeks ago, the Informer devoted a double page spread to letters from readers with suggestions.

But if you really don't need a new compost bin, vegetable tub or water butt, then you can simply leave yours out for collection at the end of January.  Bins will be collected in the two week period from 19th January, on the day that your wheelie bin is usually emptied.

You should be getting a leaflet from the Council about this soon, and it includes some yellow stickers to put on your redundant bin. They do say that they will recycle as many of the old bins as possible, so it's a good idea to hose out any dirt first.

Your support is needed, whether you live in Hook or not.

The Mayor for London is giving £4 million in grants to improve London parks.

Ten parks will each receive £400,000.

To our delight, our own King Edward's has been shortlisted.

The process for selecting the winning parks seems to be modelled on X Factor, because you, the public, can vote for the one you want to win.

King Edward's, on the Hook Road, is a pleasant oasis, but is looking rather tired and needs quite a bit spent on it to bring it back to full use.

The flower garden in particular could be a real focus point for the community and bring much pleasure to everyone.

As it is, the design does not encourage people to feel safe and the planting could be greatly improved.

Some of the sports facilities and children's play area also need to be upgraded.

So please, please vote for King Edward's online.

At the end of Clayton Road, just before you get to the bridge over the A3, here is a large area known collectively as Five Acre Farm.

The fields that made up the original farm have now been broken down into several properties. Some of these have been developed unlawfully. Look at the what's going on next to the A3 in this Google photo.

The whole area beyond Oaklands Close lies within the Green Belt, so owners are only allowed to use the land for a limited range of purposes, mainly agricultural or appropriate leisure uses. In some of these cases, a house may be permitted to support the use.

Some of the businesses in the Five Acre Farm area, such as the Equestrian Centre, are acceptable, but other owners have been running commercial and industrial businesses from the land.

The Enforcement team at the Council have been working on a number of these violations for some time, and at last week's Neighbourhood Committee we dealt with some of them.

Anyone living near the area will know that Clayton Road Nursery, which is part of the Five Acre area, has been selling cars since the summer. The cars don't show up on the aerial photo, which must have been taken earlier.

Discussions with the owner have not made a difference, so we have decided to issue an enforcement notice. This gives the owner one month to remove the cars and two months to remove other planning violations such as the gates. The bungalow was given planning permission dependent on the site being used as a nursery, so it will also have to be demolished in 12 months if the site does not revert to an acceptable use (which could include being used as a livery stable)

The Nursery will probably appeal against this decision, so the cars are unlikely to disappear immediately, but we have now got the process started.

Every year Kingston Council applies to Transport for London for funding for roads and transport - this is known as Local Implementation Plan (LIP) funding.

We heard a couple of weeks ago that Kingston has been given £3.9 million for 2009-2010. That may sound like a lot, but we actually asked for £8.2 million to deal with all the improvements needed for drivers, cyclist and pedestrians.

South of the Borough Neighbourhood has been successful in getting the funds needed to do these projects:

• Bridge strengthening over the culvert in Filby Road
• Safety schemes for Hook Road (the Tolworth end), Moor Lane, Cox Lane (on the industrial estate), Bridge Road
• Improvment sofr cyclists in Bridge Road, near the junction with Marston Ave
• Completion of the improvements to Tolworth Broadway
• Creation of an area travel plan for Chessington Industrial Estate, ie to encourage businesses to develop travel plans for their employees and suppliers.

That is all welcome, but we're disappointed that we didn't get any funding for roads in Chessington Hill Park and Clayton Road, improvements for cyclists in Cox Lane, Moor Lane and Clayton Road, or to make the journey to school safer for pupils at Chessington Community College, Ellingham, Lovelace or St Mary's. We also failed in our bid to improve things for pedestrians in Red Lion Road and Tolworth Town Centre.

In the Neighbourhood we do also get some benefit from Borough-wide schemes, such as road safety campaigns and training, all the school-based projects like 'Walk to School' week plus campaigns to raise awareness of green ways of travelling.

We went to see A Christmas Carol at the Rose last night.

It's wonderful seasonal entertainment - Victorian costumes, cute children, ghosts and lots of carols.

The last were a bit of surprise, but shouldn't really have been, given the title. About a dozen well known carols were integrated naturally into the script, which was otherwise very faithful to Dickens' text.

The set is delightful, evoking creaky old houses. At the centre hangs a manic clock. Look up and spot the dozens of lamps providing period charm.

At the heart of this story lies Dickens' lifelong campaign to recognise and eradicate poverty in our cities. His other novels focus on institutional callousness; in this book he challenges us each individually to become part of the solution, by doing what we can to create happiness around us, and to inspire social change.

But don't get the impression that it is all very worthy - this production is such fun right from the beginning. An excellent cast, both professionals and children, keep the action fizzing. My favourite character was the Ghost of Christmas Present, who looked just like the Saint Nicholas figure that takes pride of place every Christmas at home.

If you haven't booked yet then don't leave it too late.

Do you have any problems that you'd like to discuss in confidence with the local police? The Safer Neighbourhood teams for the two Chessington wards are holding a drop-in surgery at the Hook Centre on 18th December from 4-5pm.

If it can't wait until then, call them on 8721 2001 at any time. You may have to leave a message but they will get back to you. Of course, for emergencies you should always dial 999.

At the Chessington Safer Neighbourhood Team public meeting today we heard that crime has fallen in both wards.

In Chessington North & Hook reported crime has dropped by a massive 30% in comparison with the same quarter last year. There were only two burglaries - the lowest number in the Borough, and probably the lowest across the whole of London (unless you know differently, of course...)

Most of the reported problems have been with vehicle crime. The police gave some good advice. Don't leave anything valuable on show in your car. Remove your sat nav, and it's cradle, when you leave a car - an empty cradle is a sure sign that the sat nav has been stored under the driver's seat or in the glove compartment.  Even if you have taken the device with you, thieves may still break into the car to search for it.

What with jet lag, Council meetings and other projects I'm only just catching up on the week's news.

I haven't yet commented on Haringey and the Baby P case. At the time I found it very distressing.

I also couldn't believe the behaviour of the senior management at Haringey Council and wondered if there were any extenuating circumstances. The media were on a witch-hunt and it is all to easy to blame social workers, so I did wait before passing judgement.

At the time the story broke, my immediate gut reaction was that two people should resign immediately - the Director of Children's Services and the Cabinet member for Children's Services. But they didn't until they were pushed this week.

A few years ago I held the latter role (referred to in Kingston as Executive member). I knew that if ever Kingston had a serious case of child abuse that could have been prevented, then I would resign, and so would the Director. The buck stopped with us.

Serious case reviews are undertaken whenever a child dies in suspect circumstances, and we did have one during my time of office. The review was carried out promptly and showed that no concerns about the family had been expressed by any professionals or members of the public before the tragic incident. Some lessons were learned, and acted on, about how information was exchanged after the child had died, but there were no failings in the child protection system.

The latest news in the disgraceful saga of incompetence at Haringey, is that the Council officers falsified the data that it gave to Ofsted, resulting in an unwarranted assessment of 'good' for its child protection processes last year.

I'm not gloating - that would be a devastating reaction to this revelation - but Kingston's child protection system is recognised as being amongst the best in the country. Our Director of Learning and Children's Services is often asked to provide guidance on best practice to other local authorities. For him, complacency is never an option.

Lynne Featherstone is the MP for Hornsey and Wood Green which lies within Haringey Borough. She gives a thoughtful appraisal of events in the New Statesman, although I don't agree with her scepticism about merging children's socal services and education - it has had very positive outcomes here.

So there I was yesterday chatting to some green monkeys in Barbados.

Apparently 70% of the polio vaccines in the world are derived from these monkeys - I really don't want to know how. They can be a bit of a nuisance to farmers, but they are captured carefully and either passed to the animal reserve where I saw them, or to laboratories.

After all these years I can't get over the oddity of travelling. One afternoon I'm in the sunshine surrounded by tropical plants (like the magnificent ginger in the picture), animals and birds, then I go to sleep and wake up to one of those beautiful winter days with a clear pale light and mist over the frosty fields.

No-one can really understand cultural differences until they've experienced the dislocation of travel, and the 'otherness' of foreign places. That's why the statistics which show, for example, that the majority of Americans don't own a passport (including, until recently, Sarah Palin) are rather worrying.