Elmbridge Women in Business - Event25 August 2010

Elmbridge Women In Business, a not-for-profit group committed to supporting women in business, is hosting a business advice evening for female professionals at the Ship Hotel in Weybridge on Thursday 16th September. This networking event, open to members and non-members from all industries and companies of all sizes based in Elmbridge and surrounding areas will include a session with a panel of local business experts giving free sales, marketing and general business advice to local buinesswomen looking to increase their profitability in these difficult economic times. The panel will comprise:

Emma Wimhurst, self-made millionaire and business coach, speaker and author www.emmawimhurst.co.uk

Fiona Humberstone, marketing, design and branding guru www.flourishstudios.co.uk

Amanda Fisackerly, sales, marketing and business operations consultant www.fizz-biz.com

Sandy Scott, mind, body and soul coach and chairman of Elmbridge Women in Business www.viveutvitas.co.uk

Chair Sandy Scott explains: "We thought it would be a great idea to get experts together in one room for local businesswomen to put questions to them. This event will be useful for any woman looking for some new ways to remain profitable. We encourage everyone to bring plenty of questions along – this is an invaluable opportunity to get free business advice."

A networking and buffet supper will be available from 6.30pm with the panel event starting at 7.45pm. For further information and to book online at £10 for members and £25 for non-members, please visit the web site of Elmbridge Women In Business

What to do about local noise problems22 August 2010

Summer is the time for parties and music, from local fétes to pop concerts at larger venues. They give pleasure to the many attending but cause distress to some residents who live close by, especially when the noise is beyond reasonable bounds, extends into antisocial hours or occurs too frequently. On occasion noise may therefore be monitored by the Elmbridge Environmental Health team in real time to ensure that it is within agreed limits. If not, the organisers can be contacted by Elmbridge immediately and adjustments made.

If you are being disturbed by noise you can contact the Environmental Health Division at EBC by telephoning 013724 74474 . An officer will give you advice and log any noise complaint you may have. If, as so often is the case, you are suffering from antisocial noise in the evening or week-ends there is an 'Out of Hours' facility on 013724 66114. Note that if action is to be stimulated then it is essential that you make your complaint to duty officials at Elmbridge. The number of complaints is noted and likely to affect the zeal with which officers act. Make a note of the time you complained and the person to whom you spoke. Follow up with a Nuisance/Noise Record sheet and/or submit your complaint via EBC's online form. Do separately keep your Residents' Association councillors notified of the complaints you make to officials. Their contacting details are on our contacts page. Notifying a councillor is not a substitute for contacting Elmbridge officials but enables our councillors to keep track of a developing situation and if necessary stimulate longer-term action to resolve a persistent problem e.g. by reviewing licensing conditions or prompting issue of abatement orders.

EBC’s website also has an informative section giving advice on noise related problems. There is a Noise Homepage listing a variety of issues and there is also a copy of the "Code of Practice and Guidance for Control of Noise from Outdoor Activities" available for residents to read.

Key bus services from Thames Ditton reprieved3 August 2010

After Surrey reviewed the response to their plans last year to axe many bus services around the county, we are pleased to report that the many bus users of Thames Ditton are vindicated. The 514 Service (Kingston-Surbiton-Lovelace Gardens-Long Ditton-Winters Bridge-Thames Ditton-Imber Court-East Molesey-Molesey Park Road-Beauchamp Road-West Molesey-Field Common-Hersham) will continue its hourly service, Mondays to Saturdays except evenings, with no change to the route. The 515 Service (Kingston-Surbiton-Portsmouth Road-Winters Bridge-Thames Ditton-Imber Court-Lower Green-Esher-Cobham-Wisley-Ripley-Burnt Common-Burpham-Guildford) will actually be increased to hourly on Sundays and on that day will run between Esher and Kingston via Lower Green, Imber Court and Hampton Court, rather than along Portsmouth Road and through Surbiton as currently.

Congratulations and thanks to all who joined with our Association in opposing these cuts.

Alas the school bus services are not so sure: the intention is to cut the service to Tiffin Girls school among others.

Foley Boxing Club revival27 May 2010

Foley Boxing Club would like to thank everyone who has supported them especially during the last year which has seen the club recover from the fear of having to close, to opening a new gym and seeing the membership flourish. The Club will be holding an End of Season BBQ on July 3, at the gym's HQ in Weston Green Sports Club. Tickets will be available from the club or on the door on the day. A family day not just for the club but also the local community.

Mind That Child! - ingenious speedwatch events20 May 2010

The first School Speedwatch event took place in Elmbridge yesterday, at Long Ditton St Mary's School.

The Police worked with Year 6 children on Sugden Road (at the jct with Scott Farm Close) and 24 drivers were stopped and spoken to by the children, between 9.30am and 1.00pm (excluding a short break at 11.00am and lunch.) The speed limit along here is 30mph and the highest speeds recorded were 42mph. One group of children were also positioned on the opposite side of the road, at the entrance to Surbiton Hockey Club, but nobody was caught speeding in this direction (which is good news, although the children were very disappointed!)

Other speed watches will be following as and when they can be arrranged

Neil Evans, Plumber11 May 2010

Another new addition to our local business index is Neil Evans. A Thames Ditton resident and qualified Plumber - bathroom & shower design and installation. Replacement shower pumps and parts, and all general plumbing problems. No Call Out Fees. Available weekends. C.I.T.B and CIPHE Registered. Fully Insured.

tel : 07906 412 170 or 0208 398 4259 and check out his website here.

Travel and other new info for the county now available on SCC's website9 February 2010

The Surrey County Council website now has a section for of real-time travel information which may help you to get around Surrey more easily. In particular it carries information on:

• congestion and incidents
• roadwork hotspots
• car park availability
• train and bus departures
• and a facility to report back on traffic signal faults

irst sight the section looks genuinely useful. There is also an online questionnaire concerning future development of the section, which we urge you to complete once you've had a look at what's on offer. You might, for example, suggest the addition of a real-time route planner using bus and train timetables.

In particular, you could reinforce a suggestion we've made that online fault reporting should be more thoroughly extended to highways faults such as potholes, street lights, overgrown hedging etc. The current situation is that residents can report these faults elsewhere on the website but they don't know whether the fault has already been reported by someone else. This leads to duplication and irritation. It also wastes officer time as well as yours. Equally, there is no indication of what action is being/has been taken and by which officers. This leads to repeated telephone calls by members of the public - usually complaining. That also ties up officer time as well as residents' time. How much easier and more economical it would be if, online, you could see whether a fault has been reported, report it if it has not, and then see what action was being taken and the estimated time to fixing it. The 'Fix My Street' independent public website offers this functionality: it could be adopted by Surrey.

Please note that in addition there's a new page of FAQs regarding the county-wide streetlights replacement programme on the Highways website.

Thanks to Cllr. Peter Hickman for drawing these new county facilities to our attention. They will be added to our links (resources) page.

Help safeguard the setting of Hampton Court Palace - online petition3 February 2010

If you value the Palace and its immediate visual context then please support the e-petition that architect Keith Garner has started with the Downing Street e-petitions website. Over 800 signatures in its first week. It reads:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to intervene to prevent the proposed development of the Jolly Boatman and Hampton Court Station sites, and to take steps to have the Jolly Boatman site acquired in the national interest to protect key views of Hampton Court Palace. [click through to petition website]

Natural justice - make 'em work, make 'em pay21 August 2009

Community Payback:

Offenders, supervised by the probation service, undertake reparation work in the community. This can be picking up litter, cleaning graffiti off and repainting surfaces as necessary, cutting back vegetation or repainting or repairing a community building.

If you wish to propose a location or specific project, contact Elmbridge Community Safety Partnership (manager Peter Kipps), telephone 01372 47 4399 / 4398.

If you see anyone in the course of committing the offence of tagging or graffiting - ring 999.

Community Cashback:

A new scheme in England and Wales which gives local people a say in how £4 million of recovered criminal assets (for example confiscated cash or property) should be spent in their communities. This is only about two percent of the total to be recovered, but nevertheless it is not to be sneezed at. This past year, Surrey had a target of £1,750,000 to be confiscated and managed to collect £324,453.12 (we love the meticulous 12p at the end there!).

There are no real restrictions on the type of projects can be put forward. For example:

• Crime reduction and community safety: You might want to see money spent on improvements which would make your neighbourhood safer or help reduce crime
• Support for victims of crime: You could also suggest projects to provide better local information, facilities or services for victims of crime and/or anti-social behaviour in your area
• Restoration and renovation projects: The money might be used to restore a local communal area damaged by crime e.g. removing graffiti; putting right other damage; clearing an overgrown area
renovating a community centre or facility or "doing up" a run-down building to provide an area where communities can come together or use shared services
• New spaces or activities: The cash could be used to provide new or improved facilities or activities for young people on Friday or Saturday nights to keep them out of trouble and stop them becoming involved in anti-social behaviour or criminal activity
• More and better information about justice outcomes: You might want to see money spent keeping your community informed about what happened in particular cases of concern or what services you can expect from your local crime and justice organisations, through an improved newsletter, local website or other information service
• Getting communities involved: you might have an idea about encouraging more people in your area to get involved in preventing and repairing harm in their neighbourhoods, giving them a say in the running or selection of other local crime and justice services; setting up community panels or advisory groups where they do not already exist and local training for community members to help them contribute to tackling local issues and making their communities safer

You can do this by making individual suggestions, and there's provision for you to endorse some other person's suggestion online; but we feel that there is a better chance of getting a result if residents co-ordinate to support a proposal so do let us have your ideas too (and we may be able to find other funds or supporters).

For more info visit Surrey Community Cashback

Planning Alerts

Planning Alerts is a free nationwide service set up by civic-minded and independent volunteers on the web. It is hosted by mysociety.org, who host many of the democracy-minded web sites including Fix My Street (formerly Neighbourhood Fixit) where you can report faults in local infrastructure, No. 10 Petitions, and They Work For You, where you can read objective information about every Member of Parliament. Excellent. We've incorporated a Planning Alerts page on this website - link from the resources menu.

Planning Alerts automatically searches local authority planning websites (including Elmbridge) and emails you details of applications near you as it finds them. You can limit the range to within 200m of your home or as far as 2km, by postcode. In many areas, as their introduction says: "You'd probably know if your next door neighbour was going to knock their house down (you'd get a letter through the door telling you they had applied for planning permission and asking you what you thought about it). But you probably never find out if the old cinema or pub 5 streets away is going to be converted into luxury flats until the bulldozers turned up." Hereabouts, you would find out: the Residents' Association has been alerting residents for decades and will continue to do so - but this new service means you can be notified even more quickly and helps us, too.

Get your local business listed

Six in every ten people search online for local information every month. Over fifty percent of local searches are for a restaurant or some other entertainment, and most of the rest are searching specifically for a business phone number or address. People searching online locally are also motivated to take action. Studies indicate that nearly forty percent of searchers then contact a business online, while just over forty percent then make contact with it offline. You can get your local business listed in our new business directory free if you have advertising in Thames Ditton Today; or for a mere £10 (payable to the RA) if you don't. The more businesses are listed there, the more it will be used.