Hullo Everybody,
This is to bring you up to date on four important matters:
1) You recently signed the petition to STOP WRECKING THAMES DITTON! Our petition now has well over 1,000 signatures. More than 1,000 is a very large number of people for a small community like Thames Ditton! It shows how strongly so many people object to the amount of uncontrolled and inappropriate dense over-development that is taking place. It is over-development which is entirely disproportionate to the small size of the population of Thames Ditton (and Weston Green) and it is increasingly ruining the quality of this special place where we live. Here is the link to the petition: www.change.org/stopwreckingthamesditton
2) Local Elections in Thames Ditton usually get around 2,000 people who turn out to vote. So having over 1,000 people who have signed this petition on this subject represents a significant body of opinion. Therefore when the time comes to cast your vote in the Local Elections next year, you will have to decide about whether our local political organisations and Elmbridge authorities have been working adequately in our interests to provide enough strong opposition to the developers, and are responding in an at all effective way to our increasing alarm at the over-development and ruination of Thames Ditton.
3) The petition will be forwarded on your behalf to those same local politicians: Dominic Raab, our MP (who is himself a resident of Thames Ditton); the Thames Ditton and Weston Green Residents' Association and its Councillors: Caroline James, Karen Randolph, Tricia Bland, Nigel Haig-Brown,Tannia Shipley, and Janet Turner; the Leader of Elmbridge Council, Stuart Selleck; and the Leader of Surrey County Council, Tim Oliver. The petition will also be sent to the Elmbridge Council Town Planning department. (This is the same Department that receives and processes all residents' objections to individual planning development applications.)
Contact emails are listed on the petition itself, if you would also like to send your views about over-development to these authorities yourself.
4) This online petition must not be just a one-off event. It is really vital that this group we have formed of over 1,000 like-minded people now maintains the strong momentum we have created. So for that reason, we have now set up the STOP WRECKING THAMES DITTON! Group on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/groups/StopWreckingThamesDitton
The purpose of this new Group is to be a discussion forum about planning and over-development issues, an information centre and a meeting place for over 1,000 of us who have signed the petition to maintain pressure and opposition and to keep in touch about this important matter on which we all feel so passionately.
Once you have joined, please click the "Invite" button on your own Facebook page next to your own local contacts on Facebook in order to bring them into the new Group as well! That is really simple to do!
In the last few days we have learned of an appalling new plan at Weston Green to bulldoze one house, "Merrywood", and replace it with 26 new dwellings: www.facebook.com/groups/223528725626321
While over at Summer Road, they battle against 80 proposed new flats plus extra buildings, some on 5 floors: www.facebook.com/groups/327465001249934
If you are not yet on Facebook, please do join it (that is very straightforward) -- and then you will be able to join the rest of us in the new Group.
We look forward to seeing you there and continuing the conversation!
Our petition is staying up indefinitely -- so please keep inviting your neighbours to sign, if they have not yet done so!
Once again, thank you so much for all your support.
With all good wishes,
Tony Charlesworth