Strategy of Claygate Parish Council
Over the past 12 months the Parish Council has made progress in re-establishing many of its basic services. We have also started to add value in other areas which were not part of the council’s traditional remit, thanks to the establishment of an adequate budget able to cover the key basic services—see page 8—as well as the organisation and hard work by the newly formed council in working with Claygate residents and Elmbridge Borough Council on new initiatives.
I am the first to argue that the Council does much more than look after hanging baskets, troughs and tubs, and that it contributes to the village in many other ways, such as reviewing and feeding back to Elmbridge on planning applications and responding to local needs and services, including the recent concerns about the Claygate Centre—see page 12.
But I was well aware that we needed to re-establish our basic services before we could move on to broader topics, such as leading the Claygate: The Way Forward work in consultation with residents of the village. So it is good to see that services we used to run have been re-established, with a great full time Clerk, a new contract for maintenance of highway garden sites, the return of the Claygate Courier, restoring the Claygate village sign, planning for Remembrance Day—including soldier biographies attached to the silhouettes—and re-starting the successful Claygate litter picks.
With this in place, we can move forward, focusing on strategic topics such as the consultation on the changes to the National Planning Policy Framework proposed by the new government.
We also recently started a campaign regarding weeds and detritus on our roads and have written to Surrey County Council and presented on this subject at a recent Surrey Association of Local Clerks meeting—see page 6.
We will continue to defend our Green Belt and had an input to the Local Plan—a subject that is going to cause strain in Claygate and the wider borough, given the new national housing targets and proposed reclassification of some Green Belt land as “Grey Belt”, which would be subject to fewer building restrictions. This is in addition to the questions the inspectorate has raised regarding the current Draft Local Plan—see pages 1 and 3.
Also, thanks to having been entrusted by the Claygate Village Association with managing Claygate: The Way Forward, we will now be addressing such important topics as health, wellbeing, housing, environment, transport, parking, and shops and businesses with a new governance structure that involves many local volunteers in a set of working groups. These will drive forward our responses to our village needs and our work with Elmbridge and Surrey County Council. See the Way Forward article on pages 4 and 5.
Anyone keen to become involved in any of these areas should email Dawn Lacey, Parish Clerk, at clerk@claygateparishcouncil.gov.uk or visit the Parish Council website to subscribe to email updates via the Contact Form.
We face a busy two years and the focus needs to remain on core services while also adding value in more strategic ways through the Claygate: The Way Forward initiative and other important areas. Here’s to building a positive future for our village.
