New Friends Group Attracts Over 100

A meeting designed to launch a Friends of Epsom group has been an unqualified success.

Organised by the Liberal Democrats, the meeting was advertised as being open to all and attracted members from the Labour party, the Conservatives, the Residents Association and the Lib Dems.

"This is the point at which the politicians bow out" said Cllr Julie Morris, who chaired the meeting. "Friends of Epsom will be run by local residents and will be entirely non political. A local resident has offered to organise a first meeting at which FoE will decide how it is to operate and elect its own officers. My continued interest is a hope that FoE will decide it wants to become a key consultee on all town centre issues, particularly those which involve the local council"

Maria Johnson has taken up the mantle of organising a first meeting and said "We were really pleased to see well over 100 people come along to the meeting, many of whom have signed up to become involved in Friends of Epsom. It was clear there are some very positive ideas about how to take Epsom forward among the attendees, and good to see plenty of common themes amongst these ideas".

"There were some really good proposals - involving the University for the Creative Arts more in town centre issues, publicising what's on in the Market Place and Epsom generally having a tighter control on development. I've volunteered to set up a first meeting of Friends of Epsom and we'll decide how it's going to be organised and interface with the council at that meeting. We need a Chairman and a Secretary to start with. Anyone who couldn't come to the meeting and is interested can contact me on mjohnson.FOE@hotmail.co.uk ."