Council Postpones Public Meeting

At the eleventh hour and for no specific reason, the council has decided to postpone the Public Meeting arranged for 29th April. Lib Dem councillors did not agree with the decision.

Cllr Julie Morris, who has organised the meeting with ward councillors David Buxton and David Morgan said "we see this as going back on a promise to keep local residents informed but we will, of course, continue to support the objectives of the public meeting if it does finally take place on the rearranged date of 8th June"

Some residents in Livingstone Park have already received a letter from the Interim Chief Executive of Epsom & Ewell Borough Council (who has personally written to every Livingstone Park resident), explaining why the council has decided to postpone the meeting, but residents elsewhere who have heard about it will probably only find out when they turn up for the meeting. The council has been asked to have a member of staff there to explain.

L & Q Housing Trust, who had dithered about their own consultation, have now decided to hold their own public exhibition on 6th May between 4.30pm and 7.30pm at Southfield Park Primary School about the Water Tower proposal. They had refused to take part in the meeting on 29th April but this was not the reason for postponing the meeting. A variety of reasons were put forward for postponement but Cllr Morris feels that none of them really necessitated cancelling the meeting on 29th April. "I'm really not sure what went on behind the scenes" she said "and can only assume that certain other parties were unhappy about the initiative taken by the ward councillors and county councillor Colin Taylor. The fact is that local residents have been promised this public meeting since early in September last year and it was long overdue. Backtracking again is simply dreadful publicity for the Residents' Party in control of the borough council."