We recognise that there may be other issues or options we have not considered that you would like to raise. If there are we would like to hear these and consider them as part for this consultation. Please use this space to write anything else you would like us to consider.
Hinchley Wood Residents' Association (HWRA) represents residents' interests in the local area, including through sponsorship of two councillors on Elmbridge Borough Council. Our subscription income and the numbers voting for our candidates demonstrate that HWRA has the support of the great majority of our residents.
HWRA contests the requirement to find space for 9,500 new dwellings in Elmbridge over the next 20 years. The infrastructure in Elmbridge and surrounding areas is already near breaking point. Massive investment would be needed to cope with development on the scale envisaged, and there is no evidence that this would be forthcoming.
Strategic considerations:
We fully understand pressure for more housing and related infrastructure in the South East and nationally. For many years Elmbridge has played its part in dealing with the problem by accommodating increments to its housing stock, but has seen little in the way of infrastructure improvements to compensate. As a result, we are approaching a tipping point, after which further housing provision is likely to cause the Borough to seize up. Far from being a spur to growth, implementing plans to attract more residents to the area runs the risk of reversing past gains.
We do not believe that targets dictated by national government for individual local authorities, regardless of local circumstances, are the answer to alleviating the current chronic national housing shortage. The government should be seeking to deliver attractive surroundings (houses, employment and infrastructure) in all regions rather than exacerbating what is an already overheated South East. At a national level this should include job creation, rehabilitating empty houses before building new ones, and encouraging occupiers to free up under-occupied dwellings.
Elmbridge has already absorbed enormous development in recent years. The borough’s population has grown from 112,400 in 1981 to 132,769 in 2014 – an increase of 18% in a period when the UK population has grown by 15%. In the last four years alone (2011 to 2015), the number of households has increased from 52,900 to 56,715, an increase of 7%.
The growth in housing has not been matched by investment in infrastructure, so we are now at bursting point. The Surrey infrastructure gap to 2030 is estimated at £161m, with no indication where funding for investment on this scale is going to come from. Residents have never been adequately compensated for past development and now are paying too much for past policy failures.
The pressures are particularly felt in the north-eastern part of the borough, which abuts London and which is more densely-populated. They affect:
• Schools. Schools have been closed and the buildings and playing fields sold for housing. Senior school places are over-subscribed: children living more than 1km away from Hinchley Wood senior school are denied places and have to travel to other parts of the Borough, contributing to the vicious circle of road congestion. The junior school is bulging: a single form entry has had to increase to three forms. Across the borough it has been estimated that three new junior schools and two senior schools would be needed for cater for the 9,500 extra dwellings envisaged, but where would these be put?
• Roads. The last strategic investment in the area's trunk roads was the building of the A3 Esher bypass (opened December 1976) and the Chertsey section of the M25 (opened December 1983). Walton Bridge opened in July 2013. There are 66% more cars on Surrey's roads than in the national average. Chronic under-investment in local roads and junctions means public transport is in a self-fulfilling, downward spiral as it cannot compete, thereby driving further car use. Road journey times are extended and growing, with congestion estimated to be costing the local economy £550m p.a. The knock-on effects of an M25 closure can, and do, impact large parts of the borough significantly, on a regular and increasing basis. Neighbouring areas are impacted negatively by the activities of Elmbridge residents passing through (mainly by car) and vice versa.
• Trains. Despite investment, rush hour trains and stations continue to operate beyond capacity. Station entries at Surbiton (not the same as train passengers passing through) have doubled in the last twenty years, resulting in rush-hour entry restrictions, a situation which will only get worse if yet more pressure is added by more passengers travelling through the station to and from Elmbridge.
• Health services. There are no general hospitals in Elmbridge, so residents have to travel to Chertsey (8.7 miles – at best 27 minutes by car), Epsom (7.2 miles – at best 20 minutes by car), or Kingston (5.5 miles – at best 21 minutes by car). At certain times of the day, a journey to any one of them from Esher could take an hour each way. The only route with a bus connection is Esher to Kingston (scheduled journey time 44 minutes). Healthcare facilities cannot support existing numbers of residents: GP surgeries are unable to take on new patients or see the ones they have, and dentists decline to provide services under the NHS.
• Drainage/flooding. Flood defences and drainage systems are regularly exposed as being inadequate, resulting in, for example, flooding in Thames Ditton in the winter of 2015 and at Hinchley Park in June 2016. Concreting over further large areas for housing and related infrastructure can only exacerbate the problem.
