Still No Progress on Horton Chapel

Ten years on (or maybe more), the borough council has been forced to admit that there's still been little progress on the future of Horton Chapel.

In response to a written question put at a council meeting on 17th July, RA Councillor Neil Dallen was forced to admit that there has been virtually no progress on the creation of a Community Development Trust. Lib Dem councillors had high hopes that Horton Chapel, restored and refurbished, could have provided a useful venue for organisations being displaced from the Lintons Lane community centre in Epsom, which is expected to be sold by the county council early in 2013. An organisation using the Lintons centre is currently petitioning the county council, seeking some security after they are evicted in December this year.

The Liberal Democrats say that one of the main concerns with the Chapel is parking. There is land around it which is not owned by the council but which has been retained by the previous owners - the NHS. The parking question urgently needs sorting out because there simply isn't sufficient parking capacity for the Chapel to be used for anything much at all! The council was hoping that the NHS would provide some additional unused land. To say this whole issue is moving at a snail's pace would grossly overstate the speed of progress.

Lib Dem councillor Julie Morris says "It's just another example of how the ruling RA councillors give very little priority to issues that are not geographically situated in their own wards. Epsom & Ewell's RA councillors comprise the majority of the borough's 38 councillors and most of them represent wards in Ewell.