Over 100 residents of Surbiton requested that the Executive Report to Council of January 2011 should be called in and reviewed by the Scrutiny Committee as it was believed the Executive had:
• Failed to consider alternative sites despite the frequent requests of local residents to do so
• The Council is trying to push through this decision with undue haste and inadequate consultation with local residents
• The environmental concerns of residents have been brushed aside
• The proposal involves the demolition of buildings of townscape merit in a conservation area
• RBK does not own the site and will have to purchase it when other sites within its ownership are available
Planning matters could not be considered as that was for the DC committee on the 3rd March.
A strong case was made by Graham Goldspring, supported by Paul Johnston, Robert Lewis and Alan Manchester, but we fell foul of supposedly sensitive legal information which the committee had before them and which we were not allowed to see. The whole scenario fell into the realms of farce with Councillors not able to speak about “sensitive” matters which fell into the mysterious “part 2”. Apparently some of this sensitive material referred to the NHS’ legal team advice on the covenant question.
The upshot was that the Chairman found there was no case for reference of these items back to the Executive or to the Council as a result of the material they could see but we could not. So much for democracy and open government!
We also tried to have the Liberal Democrats removed from the DC committee and certainly our local representative as they had already made up their minds and had illustrated their support in copies of the Liberal Democrat leaflet, Focus. That was somehow left in the air.
Your OADRA representatives will continue to make their case at the DC meeting on the 3rd March at Guildhall from 7.30pm, but we shall only have 5 minutes to make our case. We need your support at this meeting. Come in your thousands!
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