Encouraging Response To Upper High Street Meetings

The Council ran two "workshops" on 19th January to discuss the Upper High Street development area. They received such an encouraging response that the doors had to be closed at the 3.00 pm session. Those who couldn't get in were asked to attend the evening meeting instead. This too was packed out, with standing room only. Cllr Julie Morris, a member of the Council's working party that set up this event said "The turn-out was really tremendous. The Council should learn from this and in future automatically arrange similar events for all major development sites in Epsom and Ewell".

The idea of the workshops was for local residents to have their say. The development area includes the site of the rejected planning application by Helical Bar for a large food store, described by neighbours at the time as a "hypermarket". This is currently the subject of an appeal. The council has so far refused to sell Helical Bar the land necessary to build it.

The workshops were facilitated by an outside organisation specialising in local consultation. Besides a much smaller food store, ideas coming forward from local residents included further retail units, a green open space, artisan workshops, car parking and a wish to see housing built on the site. The full results of the workshops were recorded. They will be summarised and presented to the council's Environment Committee in March in the form of a detailed analysis and report. The final Development Brief will then inform all future planning applications relating to the site.

All three Town Ward Lib Dem councillors were present to hear people's views on the future of this part of their ward. Upper High Street is also a major shopping venue for residents of College ward. It was disappointing that none of the College ward RA councillors attended, but this may have been because only one of them lives locally.

The Lib Dems had been concerned at the lateness and limited distribution of publicity for the event, but were pleased at the way the event turned out and the eventual attendance, after Cllr Morris personally distributed additional "flyers" for the meetings.

Summing up, Cllr Colin Taylor said "The success of this event shows that local residents really do want to get involved with local issues. If the council had given more advance notice so the event could receive the advance publicity it deserved, they would have needed a far larger hall. They should learn from this and in future arrange larger venues for Public Consultations of this sort."