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On this
page:
Merton's Budget. .
. . Nelson
Hospital . . . . Wimbledon House School . . . . Dundonald Primary
School . . . Emma Hamilton Site
Development . . . .
Supporting a Low Carbon Future . . .
. Development in Merton . . . Wheelie Bins in Merton . . . .Path
through John Innes Park. . . .Local Guardian
Newspaper
Merton's
Budget
Merton set a budget for the financial year
2012/13 on March 7. For more details click here .
Proposals for a Nelson Hospital Local Health Care Centre
Plans have been in preparation
for several years for
Local Care Centres (LCC’s) at the
Nelson Hospital (and other locations). They have suffered
several setbacks but they are still set to proceed.
A planning application was
submitted on February 1
from Sutton and Merton Primary Care Trust.
Public meetings were held in July and October 2011 to outline the
proposals . There is a general concern expressed at both
meetings that the planned parking and transport arrangements were quite
inadequate for the considerable amount of traffic that will be drawn to
the site.
To read about the plans in detail click here . To
read the background click on the Nelson Hospital tab
on the left of your screen.
See also Better Services Better
Value - a review of health services across South West London
being led by GPs, hospital doctors, nurses and other healthcare
professionals. The report presents a frank picture of where
standards of care are falling short and where the safety of patients
may be at risk, with the aim of ‘telling it like it is’ so
that patients, carers and stakeholders understand the need for
change. We read with interest:
"increasingly people are living
past the age of 85 but they are usually much sicker as they have
long term illnesses like diabetes or breathing problems. These
people use health services the most, they account for 4 out of 5 GP
visits and 1 in 3 hospital beds."
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Wimbledon House School
We are pleased to say that
Merton Council completed the sale of Wimbledon House School on 12
April.
The purchasers are
Casterbridge Real Estate Ltd. The operator is Casterbridge
Nurseries Ltd who own and operate 27 Day nurseries and pre-schools
in Greater London, East Anglia and the South
East.They tell us that they
will be extensively refurbishing the property for use as a
nursery. During this time security will be maintained on the
site.Casterbridge hope to open
the nursery in early 2013.Further
information about the company is available on their website
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Wimbledon House School stood
empty for some years and during the winter of 2010/11
the premises were occupied by squatters (for the second time).
Since then the site has been secured with guard dogs permanently
on patrol. In early August 2011 the Council
instructed Quinton Scott estate agents to market the
property.
Wimbledon
House is locally listed and occupies a prime location
within the John Innes (Merton Park) Conservation Area at the entrance
to Merton Park Ward. Your Ward Councillors pressed for the
sale to be completed promptly while ensuring that Merton optimised
the value it derived from the sale.
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Providing
sufficient primary school
places in Merton and Dundonald School
There
has been a consultation on the proposal to double
the size of Dundonald School which lies to the
north of Merton Park Ward. To read the details click here .
On 19 September Merton’s Cabinet approved
plans to expand Dundonald Primary School. They had received
several recommendations from the cross-party Panel for Children and
Young People on how to go about the expansion in the most
advantageous way for the school and the local community. There
will be a pre-planning application consultation on a single layout
option design before a formal planning application is made.
Plans will require a modification to the restrictive covenant on
Dundonald Recreation Ground and possibly to the restrictive covenant
applying to the School site. The plans envisage Dundonald
being a two form entry school from September 2013.
Primary
places in Merton were discussed at the September 2010 meeting
of the MPWRA. To see the background slides
presented by Tom Proctor, LBM Service Manager for Schools
Organisation, click here.
Emma
Hamilton Site Development
We understand that Merton Council are
unlikely to give approval for current plans as they stand to build a
five-storey block of 57 flats on the Emma Hamilton site. The plans
can be viewed in the Planning Explorer section of Merton’s website,
by inserting 12/P0071 in the
Application Number cell. More information can be obtained from
Wimbledon Chase Residents Association
by email
Supporting a
Low Carbon Future and Green Ideas
We all agree we
should work towards a future where we use less energy and cause
less pollution. That future starts now. There are many steps
we can all take. We are collecting links to opportunities,
organisations and ideas to help turn all the talk into
reality. To
learn more, click on the Energy Saving tab
on the
left of your screen - and send us your
own links and
suggestions.
Sites and Polices Development Plan
Document
This paper contains detailed planning
policies to help assess planning applications in Merton. It also
allocates sites for redevelopment between 2013 and 2023. Related
documents update town centre boundaries, areas of open space and
nature conservation, shopping frontages, industrial areas
and show sites allocated for specific developments.
Its impact will be far-reaching. It was the
subject of consultation until 23 March 2012. We discussed its
implications at our March meeting with a speaker from Merton
Council.
To view the documents, click here .
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Background item: Development in Merton - how
does it work?
Frankly, development in Merton is an
enormous topic. But it is guided by four key
documents:
Merton's Core Planning Strategy 2011
- this sets the overall framework for regeneration and
development.
The South London Waste Plan 2012 -
this is a joint Development Plan Document drawn up by Merton and the
three neighbouring boroughs of Kingston, Croydon and Sutton.
It is due to be adopted in early 2012 and contains detailed planning
policies to guide planning applications for waste facilities and
identifies specific areas as suitable for new waste
facilities. (You can read more about SWLP on their website
.)
The Mayor of London's Plan
2011 - guides all London boroughs on issues for the
benefit of the whole of London such as the
number of new homes to be built
in London, the size of town cnntres and transport
issues.
Merton's Unitary Development Plan (UDP)
2003 and adopted Proposals Map 2003 - these contain detailed
planning policies and allocate
sites for specific uses. Some UDP policies
have been superseded by the three other documents listed
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Wheelie Bins in
Merton
Merton
Council's Cabinet referred the
entire issue of the use of Wheelie Bins to the Sustainable Communities
Scrutiny Panel. A Task Group chaired by Cllr John
Sargeantreported in mid 2011. It concluded that
Merton should retain the current system of using black sacks for
household refuse and boxes for recyclables. The report can be
read in full on the council's
website. The Labour Cabinet noted the
report but asked officers to look further into the issue. Their response came in September. It accepted nearly all
the recommendations. The next steps
are to be discussed at the next meeting of the
Sustainable Communities Srutiny Panel on 26 January
2012.
(In
late
2010 we
ran a survey so you could get the details and have your
say.
To see the
results, click on theWheelie Bin Survey
link on the
left
.)
Partial Closure of Path through John Innes Park
separating two parts of Rutlish School
On 16 January 2012 Merton’s Cabinet finally
came to a decision on the path that runs between the John Innes Park
and the John Innes Recreation Ground, effectively dividing the site
of Rutlish School into two parts. The School had wanted the
path to be closed during school hours to protect students and staff
from intruders.
Under the agreed solution, the
path will be kept open at all times. There will be a
pedestrian access gate alongside the main gates to the school sites
on either side of the path. This can be locked remotely by the
school to secure the perimeter as necessary, either to keep
intruders out or to detain them on site. Pupils can move
freely between the two sites under normal circumstances but be
controlled if necessary. The public will continue to have
unimpeded access between the recreation ground and the
park.
In their discussions, the Cabinet noted there is
a balance of risk to be drawn. Pupils and staff face a risk
from keeping the path open with the site perimeter secured.
Park users would experience risk if forced to detour via Watery Lane
when the path was closed or, on the Mostyn Road side, found
themselves left with no alternative exit if challenged. This
was one of the points which your Independent Ward Councillors made
in their own submission to the consultation conducted a year ago.
While it has been
a long time coming, we are pleased with Cabinet's decision and
believe it represents a fair balance between the concerns of the
School and the amenities of residents. It may only be a short path,
but the fact that 412 residents took the trouble to respond to the
consultation shows how important it is to our community in Merton
Park.
(Merton Council
conducted a consultation in late 2010 on the proposed partial
closure of the path separating the school sites.
Your Independent Ward
Councillors were primarily concerned that local residents should be
aware of the consultation and understand the situation so they could
respond with their views. However, they did have their own views
which they witheld to avoid unduly influencing residents' responses.
But before the consultation closed they made their own submission.
To read it, click
here . )
Local Guardian
Newspaper
The newspaper is delivered each week.
You may not always receive your copy or you may want to search
previous editions. To read the Wimbledon Guardian click here. For the Mitcham & Morden
edition, click here.
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