Welcome to the LOSRA Website
As with any other local neighbourhood, the policies and actions which affect the character and future of Lower Sunbury are generally framed and implemented by a combination of local and national government, along with the vested interests and market forces which operate within those frameworks. Lower Sunbury is by no means unique in being under threat from a creaking infrastructure brought about by rapid urban development, the growth of traffic, and other pressures affecting the quality of life and the character of the area.
Working with the local authorities, we see it as the responsibility of residents’ and amenity groups such as LOSRA to address the underlying issues which fundamentally affect their members’ lives, as well as the minutiae of everyday life with which such groups are often concerned.
Please sign up to receive our regular e-bulletins by subscribing via the facility at the top left hand of this page. It goes without saying that, without your continued support we would cease to function so we urge you to join, or renew your membership now Subscriptions (£5 per household) for 2025 are now payable.
LoSRA AGM - Advanced Notice
Thanks to the pandemic it's now been nearly two years since the Association held its last AGM.
All being well, we will be holding our next annual general meeting in late June at our usual venue, the Riverside Arts Centre.
It will be on the occasion of the AGM that Committee members will be elected or re-elected. We currently hold a number of vacancies and invite nominations before the AGM date arrives.
If you are interested, please get in touch via the 'contact' facility at the very top of the home page.
Matt Telfer With the Terence Collie Trio at the RAC on 6th March
London based saxophonist Matt Telfer has worked with many great artists such as Tony Bennet, Rick Braun, Chuck Leob, Derek Nash, Dave O'Higgins, and Jim Snidero.
Matt has played many of the UK's great venues and festival including, Ronnie Scotts, Pizza Express, Jazz Cafe, Love Supreme Festival, Canary Wharf Jazz Festival and Ealing Jazz Festival.
For tickets and more information, click here
Apps Court Application Approved by Elmbridge Council
Further to the article posted on this site on 31st January, the application by WOW Factor Entertainment Ltd for Apps Court was granted but subjected to highly circumscribed terms and conditions and these are detailed here
Sandbag Distribution - a Call for Volunteers
Spelthorne Borough Council is looking for volunteers to help fill sandbags in the event of a flooding incident.
Due to the geography of Spelthorne, flooding is a year-round threat, and during the winter months this risk increases. The Council recommends that residents take steps to prepare for flooding, installing permanent property-level flood protection wherever possible.
In the event of a flood, some residents may choose to use sandbags to provide some level of protection from floodwater. Whilst the purchase of sandbags remains the responsibility of homeowners, the Council is looking at the possibility of setting up a Community Sandbag Distribution Centre (CSDC) to assist with the provision of sandbags in the event of a major flood.
A CSDC is a location where the Council provide the site, equipment, and framework for volunteers to fill sandbags when major flooding is expected. Residents would then be invited to collect up to 10 sandbags per household.
An exercise was held in December 2021 for local councillors and staff to test the CSDC processes and suggest improvements to the arrangements.
If you would like to volunteer to help at a CSDC in the event of flooding, please email news@spelthorne.gov.uk
For information and advice on the best way to prepare for flooding, visit www.spelthorne.gov.uk/flooding
SUNBURY CC MUSIC NIGHTS Present “SKELETON CREW” on Fri. 25th February
With things starting to get back to something like normal, the Club is delighted to be able to get its 2022 programme of Music Nights at Sunbury Cricket Club under way by welcoming back SKELETON CREW, always one of our most popular bands, who have a big local following. They have appeared at the Club not only at Music Nights but at two of their Beer and Music Festivals.
Their line-up is unchanged from their last couple of appearances - they are led by Paul King, on guitar, mandolin, banjo and squeezebox, an original member of Mungo Jerry, who was voted Evening Standard pub entertainer of the year several years in a row, and was a founder member of the King Earl Boogie Band. On bass is Colin Pattenden, original member of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band in their hit-making days, and now also with Jackie Lynton and the Nashville Teens, plus Chris Bryant on guitar, and drummer/percussionist and cajon player Amber Hough. Also appearing will be various volunteers wielding the zob sticks! (Google it if you don’t know what a zob stick is).
As always, it will be a rollicking evening featuring their distinctive brand of jug band music, blues, skiffle and rock.
Admission is £10.00 on the door, payable by cash or card.
Hot food, prepared by the expert chefs from our resident caterers from the community food redistribution organisation Surplus To Supper, will be available from 7pm, and the band will be on stage about 9.00pm.
London Irish Amateur RFC - Forthcoming Events at the Hazelwood Centre
Please note your calendars for the forthcoming events at the Hazelwood Centre in 2022, the first of which may cause parking problems in the vicinity:More...
Appeal for Foot/cycle Bridge Funding Fails - For Now
This may take a bit of time so please persevere to the end:
Those readers who have been following the progress of our campaign for the construction of a foot/cycle bridge connecting Lower Sunbury to Walton (See top of Home Page) will be aware of our recent application to YFS (Your Fund Surrey) to bring the campaign to fruition.
It is therefore disappointing to receive the following from the YFS Project advisor: "Regrettably, Your ideas submission has been assessed against the criteria and requirements for the fund and unfortunately does not meet the requirements to be shortlisted to progress to the full submission stage...."
All does not appear to be lost as the advisor continues: "However, whilst this project is not suitable for YFS at this time, the Lower Sunbury Crossing has been added by SCC to the Surrey Infrastructure Plan which was reviewed at Cabinet on 26th October....
"The Lower Sunbury Crossing is designated a Category 2 project within the Surrey Infrastructure Plan Cabinet Report Annex 2 (pg198), noting that further feasibility work will be required and without a specific funding commitment at this time.
"I realise that this is not the information which you would have wished to receive, but I hope that the above information is helpful and that we can work together regarding the feasibility of this project as an infrastructure project as we move forward".
Coincidentally, and quite separately, the following Council notice has hit our inboxes and offers another medium through which we can make our views and preferences known:
"Surrey’s 2050 Place Ambition presents a long-term ambition and priorities for Surrey local authorities and their strategic partners. The priorities and implementation framework set out what we want collectively to achieve over the next 30 years in terms of “good growth” and how we intend to deliver it.
"There are real opportunities for Surrey to grow and become even more attractive as a place to live and work, but this needs to be done in a way that helps address the challenges around climate change, doesn’t put excessive pressure on our infrastructure, improves the overall quality of our environment and enables our economy to grow sustainably.
"The Place Ambition has been developed by the Surrey Future partnership and is informed by, and will be implemented through, various local and countywide plans and strategies including district and borough local plans, climate change strategies, economic strategies, and the local transport plan. It does not replace any local proposals and priorities but is intended to promote a long term, co-ordinated and cross boundary approach to planning and managing the impacts of growth. The Place Ambition will be used to help shape projects we are working on together as well as seek the support of our wider sub-national partners and Government, particularly in relation to accessing additional funding and investment opportunities for infrastructure and to support a zero-carbon future".
To maintain the momentum please make your views on the footbridge known by visiting and completing this easy to follow questionnaire and, in particular, questions 3, 4 & 6 at:
https://www.surreysays.co.uk/environment-and-infrastructure/placeambition/
Closing date 4th March
Thames Street Petition
The Association has a long history when it comes to the speed of vehicles driving through Thames Street.
Over the years our entreaties to the Highways Authority have been rewarded with the introduction of traffic calming measures and the 20 mph speed limit.
For residents living in the Street, the practical effect of these measures are limited with drivers of speeding vehicles continuing to disregard them.
Unsurprisingly a Thames Street resident believes there is more that can be done and has started a petition which he invites you to sign.
The petition can be found on the website change.org/ThamesStreet
Proposal for 5G Mast in Thames Street - Our Response
The Association has received a number of emails querying why we have remained silent over the proposed 5G Mask in Thames Street. To put the record straight, we reproduce below the representation made by the Chairman on 17th December 2021:
Subject: FW: SPN20391-Planning pre-consultation enquiry for proposed new telecommunications mast on Thames Street, Sunbury-on-Thames,Spelthorne, Surrey,TW16 5QH
Dear Sirs
I am writing on behalf of the Lower Sunbury Residents Association.
May I firstly welcome the introduction and expansion of the 5G network as this is widely seen to be essential to the future of technical communications.
The proposal states that ‘As per the extract from the Spelthorne Borough Council Plan we note that this site is not located within a designated Conservation Area.’. This is wrong. We’ve plotted the proposed mast site on Spelthorne’s own map which shows the outline of the Lower Sunbury Conservation Area; it is well within it. This would also exclude it from all of Sunbury Park , Orchard Meadow , the Walled Garden and the two car parks.
The proposal rightly rejects other possible sites within the ‘Nomination Point’ circle – in The Avenue, Kingsmead Avenue and Saxonbury Avenue – as being ‘Residential street’ and/or ‘overlooked by residential properties’, and yet the proposed location in Thames Street is also a residential street and additionally places the mast and its antennae adjacent to two multi-story blocks of flats and close to a primary school? This is surely wrong?
It also hardly seems sensible to have such a tall mast and its attendant large cabinets taking up space on a pedestrian pavement on a busy street.
There are a number of points we would like clarification on, please:
In terms of services the mast obviously needs power – and we also note from the specification that it is only receiving transmission data from the fibre network. Does this mean that it has therefore to be located on a pavement above a fibre network route, or can it be installed at an alternative location with a new separate fibre feed routed to it?
With regard to the map shown as Figure1 on p2 of the Site Detail Sheet document, just above the ‘blue circle’ map what does the ‘green marker’ refer to?
We would like to propose that you, the surveying company, or 5G company, talk to LoSRA directly and for us potentially to understand more clearly what the constraints are, and suggest/discuss where any mast might sensibly go. It seems to us that a location away from housing and schools and not on a pavement would make more sense. Within the proposer’s Nomination point circle there might be some less obtrusive alternatives.
Finally, we should like to know why the specification is showing the use of Huawei 5G equipment when that has, we believe, now been banned by the UK Government?
Paul Thompson
Hon Chairman
LoSRA
The Avenue - Tree Preservation Order (TPO) Successful Prosecution
Spelthorne Borough Council successfully prosecuted a man for the breach of a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) for cutting the roots of a Horse Chestnut Tree in The Avenue without the authority of the Council.
The Avenue is arguably the most iconic residential thoroughfare in the Borough largely due to the linear arrangement of mature horse chestnut trees which have framed the detached houses for generations. Indeed, we were inspired to adopt the horse chestnut tree as our emblematic logo at the Association's inception 50 years ago.
It therefore comes as a great disappointment to read that a resident has been found guilty at Guildford Magistrates' Court of cutting the roots of a protected horse chestnut, presumably to end its viability as a living mature tree. He has found himself over £1,500 lighter in the pocket as a result. (A breach can lead to an unlimited fine if it is likely to result in the tree being destroyed, otherwise up to £2,500).
As an Association we have frequently pressed for the enforcement of the legal requirement to replace trees which, through disease, have been granted permission to fell and we will continue to do so.
Apps Court - Spelthorne's Environmental Health Officer Joins the Fray
Further to our notice (scroll down to 17th January) we can report that a significant number of residents have made known their opposition to the granting of this licence. The Senior Environmental Health Officer for Spelthorne has sent the following very helpful email to the ward councillors of Lower Sunbury:
Dear Councillors,
I want to make you aware of this licence application as it will have a significant impact on our residents if its permitted to go through. The first information I want to give is that Environmental Health has made representation on this licence application to Elmbridge Borough Council Licensing team. We also believe some 20 of our residents may also have submitted representations to Elmbridge Borough Council. You may therefore have already been approached by residents, or you might be in the future.
Elmbridge Borough Council has received a licencing application for Apps Court farm which is on the Elmbridge side of the River Thames opposite Sunbury Park (see map attached for your reference). The application is for 29 events per year and includes every type of event possible covered by the tick-boxed on the application form, and include up to 6 music festivals which could facilitate up to 50,000 attendees, with some events continuing overnight until 5am in the morning. The applicants state this would be similar to Greenfields https://www.
As you know our side of the River Thames in Lower Sunbury is a quiet location, especially at night. Events are already held at Apps Court Farm (although not at the scale being proposed) and even at this smaller scale we occasionally receive noise complaints from our residents about the events already held at Apps Court Farm. So this, along with the scale of the application convinces us that should this licence application if granted it will have a significant impact on our residents.
Our Environmental Health team have joined forces with Elmbridge Borough Council’s Environmental Health team in respect of this Licensing Application as they too have similar concerns. Elmbridge and Spelthorne’s EH teams have also jointly engaged the services of expert licensing and noise consultations to assist us in challenging this application. Both Spelthorne’s and Elmbridge’s EH teams have submitted representations to Elmbridge’s Licensing team and the application will be going to a Licensing hearing at EBC. If refused it is most likely the applicants will appeal to the Courts for a review of the decision.
I will continue to provide you with information as this licence application progresses. If you have any questions please do drop me an email.
Kind Regards,
Tracey
Tracey Willmott-French, CEnvH, MCIEH
Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner
Senior Environmental Health Manager
Spelthorne Borough Council
Lester Brown / Paul Silver Quintet at the RAC on 6th February
Lester Brown, the British trumpet and flugelhorn player joins Paul Silver on saxophone with the Terrence Collie Trio at the Riverside Arts Centre on Sunday 6th February at 8pm.
2022 Subscriptions Now Due
Now that we're well into the new year it's timely for a tactful reminder that our 2022 subscriptions became due on 1st January.
New or existing members may join or renew via the Home Page of this site.
The annual membership of £5 (about the price of a pint of beer or two coffees) has remained unaltered for16 years and we continue to be run by a highly professional Committee of local residents who give up their time freely.
There are no paid members and all monies go towards printing costs, room hire and the like; in addition to maintaining a reserve fund for legal advice when required.
Please help us to help you by subscribing today. Thank you.
Network Rail Iron Bridge Replacement. Impact on traffic in Staines
Before driving to Staines in the coming months, and to avoid disappointment, you should be aware of the forthcoming Iron Bridge replacement.
Network Rail has forwarded the following briefing note
