Working For The Young - from your County Councillor
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| with help from Guy Salmon staff, Rainbows and Brownies wash cars to raise money |
Residents are concerned about much more than planning applications and potholes, bins and drains. Having a Residents' representative on the County Council has offered some prospects of advancing worthwhile local improvements for youth and parents. I've made that one of my priorities since you elected me to the Council.A tiny minority of our youths may seem bent on dissipation, despoilation and destruction, but of course the great majority of them as are lively and constructive as they ever were. Around the Dittons and Weston Green there are some excellent sporting clubs, school facilities and other activities for the young. Knowing local needs, I use my vantage point on the Council to find opportunities to help them.
Councillors have a small budget for local projects - too small to go very far, but this allocation enables me to be supportive in a very positive way by channelling the bulk of it towards good projects for the benefit of young people in our local community. Scouting, Guiding and Youth clubs provide fine, constructive activities for our youngsters with the involvement of parents and others. These are mostly of charitable status but they tend to attract fewer funds and perhaps less sympathy than charities for the disadvantaged. Instead, they rely on hard work to raise funds through local activities and events which themselves add much to our local pleasures. I enjoy being able to support these groups in a modest way. For example:
- Helping Ajax Sea Scouts to modernise their galley kitchen to meet modern standards for health and hygiene. It has greatly improved their role as an approved Royal Yachting Association training centre. Ajax, at Winters' Bridge, run an increasing number of courses for scouts from Surrey and all over the country.
- Helping Thames Ditton Guides to fund the immediate problem of replacing the leaking flat roof that threatened the future of the Guide Hut in Church Walk. Other funds are still required to fix the main roof and meet modern standards, stretching way beyond my allocation, but they are working hard to raise them with your help. Guiding is popular in the area and the refurbished Hut will also be available for non-profit use by some other community groups.
- Funding secure storage for equipment of the very active youth project in Long Ditton, entirely run by dedicated and keen volunteers. This enabled them to relocate to St Mary's School where there are no storage facilities. The weekly sessions for young people from the Dittons give them the space of their own that they want. Unfortunately the former Youth Club in what is now Thames Ditton Hall was never re-started after it closed some years ago, before the wrangling over the building's future. Is there anyone in the village who would like to take this on, re-open and run a Youth Centre there?
We are lucky to have good schools in the Dittons and Weston Green. I take a lively interest in them, too. I'm one of the Governors of Esher College, one of three state schools in our community that merited a truly outstanding report from the Inspectors this year. I was able to help the Junior School parents fund the new 'Trim Trail' playground facility at the school that will be enjoyed by hundreds of youngsters letting off their energy and getting fitter. Currently, the friends of Cranmere School need to provide new resources and furniture for the school library, for use by children and parents alike. I am able to find some funds to help this materialise. With other Councillors, I'm also supporting 'Love of Learning,' a project to be run in some Elmbridge Schools, where a local artist works with parent and child in a workshop: one of the aims is to raise the children's confidence and self- esteem.
I've been very concerned with issues of safety. I have pressed officials hard for a constructive approach to safety at the school crossing near Thames Ditton Station, the subject of a large petition earlier this year when nobody volunteered to take on the position of lollipop person. After a long tortuous process the Highways Department came up with a scheme to improve the visibility of the crossing but I was told "there is no money for this". So again I have had to provide from my small allocation some funds to buy red tarmac.
Committee work is no less gratifying: remember a substantial part of your council tax is spent on children in care, fostered or adopted children, children with special educational needs, and children at risk. I have become involved with the Council's Children and Families Select Committee, where I want to help improve a section of council activity where I think performance has often been poor.
Last but by no means least, I think the County authorities have probably been too complacent about forward strategies for providing school places where they are needed. The result is that an unacceptable number of young children have to be transported to schools a rather long way from their home. Where I can, I lobby the Council to focus harder on the need to predict school population growth and build classroom provision in good time.
Peter Hickman
Residents' Association County Councillor for the Dittons and Weston Green.