Welcome to the discussion forum of the Strawberry Hill Residents' Association.

Our website is at http://www.shra.org.uk

Committee members will regularly respond to topics raised.

Thank you to whomever for the time in setting this up. Great idea.

Can anyone shed any light on what is happening about the controlled parking zone discussions that seem to have been going on for a while?

Thanks

Just to second Richard Given's comment on resident's parking, esp with regard to Popes Avenue. I'm opposed as everyone else I know is. And yet it continues to rumble on. Is there anything to report?

Much to the chagrin of SHRA, the CPZ debate has dragged on tfor two years. Local Cllr Claire Head shares your pique at the delay (cllr.chead@richmond.gov.uk) No decision is in sight. In the meantime, LRUTmay be changing its policy. The two heavyweights who decide these matters should be contacted by you direct. They are Cllr Mark Kreling in charge of Transport (cllr.mkreling@richmond.gov.uk) and Council leader Tony Arbour (cllr.tarbour@richmond.gov.uk)

LATE TRAINS from Waterloo. Has anyone noticed the crowd that descends on the 11.02pm every night? is there a feeling amongst "US" that SW Trains should be offering us trains well after midnight making the current last train at 11.37pm the penultimate. If a show finishes at 10.00pm or later, there is no point in trying to eat afterwards! I feel SWTrains should be responding to the clear market!

What's the news on the playing field on Wellesley Rd, next to the golf club? It was fenced off over a year ago, and now that the flood prevention work is complete I would like the fence removed. I understand that it is designated 'Metropolitan Open Land' - well it doesn't seem very open to me. Is it true that the land has been given over to the Council of Westminster?

No idea, I'm afraid.

John Naish

Has anyone living in Waldegrave Park observed the two speeding motor cyclists, one red and one black, in the road? I called the police two weeks ago and they sent a patrol car half an hour later but of course the culprits kept out of sight. I think the red one is based in the flats opposite the main site of Newland House School. The road badly needs speed bumps as it's so straight and tempting for speed maniacs.

Edited by author 11-29-2004 04:55 PM
wellesley road- wrote to Cllr recently. It seems council have no intention of allowing public access to the playing fields ever and I think fence round it is like a prison.The kids playground should have more space.

Trains: the reduction of trains to two hourly (4 trains but each leave within a few minutes every half hour) is why we should never believe 'improvements in service' Typical that the railways tried to hide the changes - another example of poor service and ever increasing prices

Mr Parsons: I note your comments on the notice board. Could you let me know which local Cllr you wrote to and when regarding Wellesely Road playing fields.

Regarding the train times: in recent weeks SHRA has addressed this problem in several ways:
one is in lodging our objections with SWT, London Transport Users Group and by involving St Mary's College;
the second is by inviting to our meeting last night the area manager responsible for Strawberry Hill station - thought beyond being a conduit to SWT senior management, there is little he can do;
the third is by drawing it to everyone's attention through the Bulletin.
Following our meeting last night, SHRA Transport sub cttee will be lodging an appeal and we shall be writing to other influential groups.

We are also preparing a more active campaign of protest which may involve collecting signatures for a petition and more direct action.

Any views you may have about bringing pressure on SWT, or actions you might propose, are welcome. Not least, you might like to assist us in future action.

I am copying this to Arthur Tarrant (chair of the sub ctte) and Joe Brett, who are leading the protest for SHRA and will be interested in your views.
I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,
Eugene Bacot
Chairman, SHRA



on 11/29/04 9:53 PM, QT - quentin parsons at
qtopic+26-7sLCKqW2h229H@quicktopic.com wrote:

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Unfortunately 'The Bulletin' was delivered to me too late for me to comment on the Train Times article before the 29th. November. Friankly I cannot see the point in complaining about these time changes since Strawberry Hill trains have to fit in with the rest of the Network and in any case the principle route to London is clearly via Richmond.

The vast majority of people who travel from Strawberry Hill I would presume use Travel Cards and these give such flexibility that users shoudl start to think TRANSPORT and not TRAIN. As an example I travelled with my wife recently to the Royal Albert Hall. We were too early for the train so we caught an R70 to Richmond and were on the Underground 10 minutes before the Strawberry Hill Train was due to arrive at Richmond.

The Travel Cards also give great flexibility since you can hop on and off the buses at will. Our return journey home was via No. 9 bus to Hammersmith, Ealing Broadway Train to Turnham Green where the next train took us to Richmond. With 15 monutes to wait for a train to Strawberry Hill we caught H22 to Heath Road and a following R70 home. Journey time door to door 50 minutes thanks to bus lanes.

How many commuters who park every day at Strawberry Hill have travel cards and could catch a bus from their home area to either Twickenham or Richmond using their travel card.

The public transport we have in this area is excellent but I believe people are too set in their ways and blinkered to use it properly. With a travel card for example my bus to Richmond is not just the R70. It can equally be 281 or 267 to Twickenham changing at adjacent bus stops for 490, R68, H22, 33 or R70. With so many to choose from there is usually little or no waiting time.

JAMES LOCK

I apologise for intruding, but wonder if your Eugene Bacot is the same person who had been one of my journalistic colleagues in the business magazine Industry Week.

It can be a small world - sometimes.

regards,

Peter Robson
(rory@robsonp.demon.co.uk)

Dear Mr Robson: thank you for your enquiry. I regret to say that I am related to the miscreant Eugene Bacot. He is non other than my twin brother. Our parents, sensing that life might lead us down some of the more louche byways of the world, wisely gave us the same first names as a ruse to deceive creditors. I have not seen my twin brother since the was thrown out of the seminary for practices which are best not discussed over the internet. You will, no doubt, recall his short-lived religious conversion during those golden days at Industry Week. Why, I seem to recall that you too were tempted to embrace the cloth during a mass lunchhour conversion in the City Golf Club.
Suffice it to say, there are several people keen to speak to him; not least the Misses Gloria and Honey Clutchbukket...
He was last heard of leading an expedition down the Orinoco in pursuit of a hot tip - and a commission from the News of the World - on the whereabouts of Lord Lucan.

He has brought disgrace upon the name of Bacot, ignomimy to his parents, and the occasional wry chuckle to the gin-moistened lips of his aunt Euphemia. Should you encounter him, please remind him that he owes me &#A3;5 which I was unwisely persuaded to borrow from the poor box of the church.

I remain Sir, The Very Rev. Eugene Bacot (not that one; the other one)


on 7/15/05 1:00 PM, QT - Peter Robson at
qtopic+26-7sLCKqW2h229H@quicktopic.com wrote:

< replied-to message removed by QT >

Is anybody else aware that St Mary's College has applied to extend their drinking and dancing license? It will be open until 1am Fridays and Saturdays. This will mean that anybody living in Waldegrave Park on the side facing the college, or nearby can forget any idea of sleeping until at least 1.30 given the noise... Please submit objections, on the grounds of 'public nuisance' to the council on licensing@richmond.gov.uk - unfortunately I only saw the sign last week so it's very late in the day - 1st September is the deadline. Is there any reason the SHRA haven't cottoned onto this?
Thanks
Sarah

Sarah: A few questions:
1. are you and your neighbours usually bothered by noise under the current college licensing hours?
2. how many neighbours would join you in opposing this application?
In order to make a proper objection, it is important to be able to show that a significant number of people will be inconvenienced by the opening hours.
We would also approach the College to ask what they plan to do to minimise nuisance.

As to notification to SHRA, the Council does not notify us of this kind of application; you are the only person to draw it to our attention. When the new licensing regulations were proposed, SHRA was asked for observations. We made a general reply indicating that we opposed extension hours to pubs in residential neighbourhoods.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,
Eugene Bacot
Chairman SHRA

on 8/31/05 9:59 AM, QT - Sarah Mumford at
qtopic+26-7sLCKqW2h229H@quicktopic.com wrote:

< replied-to message removed by QT >

Hi Eugene - apologies for the time it has taken to respond to this.

I can't talk for the neighbours but I'm not generally disturbed by the noise no. However, on one or two occasions I have been, to the extent that I have had to sleep on my sofa as that is at the front of the house and my bedrooms are at the back.

On one occasion there was a ball going on so that was not a major issue as I believed it to be a one off and I would certainly not have kept the noise down at my graduation ball! However, on a couple of other occasions it has been extremely loud music emanating from the students union, followed on by a lot of noise on their way home. My concern is that, as the license is later, clearly the students (who are, let's face it generally extremely well behaved) are going to drink more and if the music is loud until 1am then it will certainly disturb many people.

I think that in a such a strongly residential and quiet area, that people I believe even move into because of the peace and quiet, a 1am license for a students' union is too much.

In answer to your second question, we have a residents meeting in our building next week and so will gauge the level of support at that meeting.
Thanks for your interest.
Kind regards.
Sarah

Dear Sarah Mumford,

I saw your email of 31st August to the SHRA (in which you said that St Mary's had applied to extend their drinking and dancing licence to 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays), and in the few hours that remained before 1st September, I sent in an objection to the licensing authority whose address you gave. As a result, I have been invited to attend the hearing next Thursday. Thanks for the timely information.

In your email of 15th September below, you say you are gauging support. Like you, I am not too worried by the application, but I am aware that many of the students leaving the union at 1 a.m. will head for the Clive residences, which are now doubled in capacity to about 1000 students , and lie behind the houses on the north side of Clive Road. It will not be fun if a summer of unrelenting heavy machinery is followed by a winter of 1 a.m. disturbance at weekends.

Not that, as you say, there will necessarily be any disturbance. But I do think it is not a bad idea to fire a shot across the college bows at this juncture. It will make it more likely that college authorities will impress on students the importance of not upsetting the neighbours.

I have the email addresses of a number of Clive Road residents, and if you like, in the interests of gauging opinion, I will forward to them this email and yours below. Let me know if you think this would help.

Ray Waddington-Jones
16 Clive Road

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Thanks for your response Roy, that would be great, but actually I have now begun to think that the situation could be worse than we thought and I really think we need to start mounting an opposition.

Last night, as I'm sure you are all aware, the noise coming from the colleage was pretty horrific. Normally I would have been happy to sleep on my sofa for a one-off event, but on a weeknight, when I am working horrendous hours, I find it a bit much that they were granted a late license. (I did telephone the council to complain about that point by the way).

In addition to this, I heard and saw plenty of kids screaming around the front of Waldegrave Park last night and saw many kids when I was on my way home at 9pm, who were going to this event, many of whome were clearly not students.

My main concern now is that if a late license is granted, unless it is extremely closely policed by the college (and given last night's events, I strongly doubt this), it will invite an element of visitors to the area, of the kind that is seen often in Richmond, who are attracted by the ability to drink late. That will lead to the end of Strawberry Hill's reputation as a quiet enclave....

Also, the music was so loud last night that it was impossible to sleep, and if they are granted a late license, what guarantee is there that the music (specifically the bass which was absolutely horrendous) will be controlled? Regardless of the day of the week, we all need our sleep and I expect that residents with children will be even more keen to oppose this license.

I'm new to all of this but would be keen to get involved if we have support. Eugene, do you have any ideas what we can do? I think the evidence of last night will give us a head start?
Look forward to hearing from you. I'm extremely busy at work right now so I don't get to get into this site much so if anybody has any suggestions, please could you copy my hotmail address which is, mumford_sarah@hotmail.com
Thanks and regards.
Sarah

Too late!

I am going to the licensing session in York House today (Thursday)at 12.30, being the only person invited to make a 5-minute representation. I can only refer to my individual objection officially, but after I had emailed it I wrote down what I would say to the licensing committee, passed it round Clive Road, and within hours every available person had signed it, except two who work in the college. So I shall try to describe myself as a representative.

I doubt if it wil have much effect, but we will see. Document attached. But for your email we wouldn't have got this far, of course, so thanks.
Ray Waddington-Jones


< replied-to message removed by QT >

I don't think my attachment got through, so here it is unattached.
Ray Waddington-Jones

Meeting of the Licensing Sub-Committee in York House, Thursday 22nd September at 12.30 p.m.

Submission by Mr R. and Mrs B. Waddington-Jones, 16 Clive Road.

We apologise for the lateness of this objection to St MaryÂ’s application for a drinking and entertainment licence until 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and until midnight on the other days of the week, rather than 11 p.m. until now. We registered an objection on our own behalf just in time, but since then we have consulted with residents of the north side of Clive Road and now ask the committee to regard it as a group objection rather than an individual one. There is no objection to the other sections of the application.

I quote a sentence from Planning Committee last April when it considered the expansion of the halls of residence, now completed: “Members’ chief concern was over the proximity of the southernmost hall to residential properties near the south-east corner of the site”. Those properties are in Clive Road.
Clive Road is quite close to the Union bar, but you will know that noise is not a problem in a bar so much as outside it when clients leave. Few students will head for public transport after 1 a.m., or for cars if they have been drinking until that hour; the late licence will attract those who only have to head for the halls of residence, now doubled in size and capacity, across the college fields.

In Clive Road we are well accustomed to occasional outbursts of shouts, shrieks and merriment between 11 am and midnight. We are not killjoys and donÂ’t make serious objection. But it seems that in future there will be twice as many students crossing the field, and any disturbance will be between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. on two days, and after midnight the rest of the week, if the application succeeds. This is an entirely different matter.
Not many students are aware that there are houses with people, including children, sleeping in them only yards away. We think dancing and drinking to the early hours twice a week is inappropriate in a residential area. Anyone who wants late night activity at the weekend can find plenty in Richmond and other nearby towns.

We urge the sub-committee to amend the application and end the licence at 11 p.m. on every day of the week as at present.

Signed by residents of Clive Road:

Thanks for this Roy. I'm sorry to have been so useful. Work commitments I'm afraid so thanks for making such an effort. I guess if they get the license we will just have to monitor noise and hope that it doesn't get too bad.
Regards.
Sarah

I meant to say useless - as clearly I haven't been terribly useful on this!

I am one of the councillors for South Twickenham. I have just been given this address and read your comments. If you want to email me personally I am on cllr.chead@richmond.gov.uk.
Regarding licensing I am speaking on behalf of some residents in Hampton Road when the Prince Albert comes up for renewal on Thursday 29th September.
I am also holding a public meeting on Transport issues in Strawberry Hill on Monday October 17th at 8 pm. I am trying to organise the venue in one of the rooms in St. Mary's.
Also you might like to come along to the Area Consultation Meeting at St. Mary's College on Weds Nov 2nd when there will be a more general agenda. The agenda is decided in advance by you! So do email me and I will arrange it.
We could, for example, arrange to have a Licensing Officer to explain how you can organise opposition to establishments with (in your opinion) inappropriate timings for opening and selling alcohol. Or if you want to speak to me just ring on 020 8977 7789. Look forward to hearing from you. Clare

Thanks very much Clare. I have been out of the country so only just read your message. I will contact you by email when I'm back in the office.
Kind regards.

Can someone update the website with the outcome of the St Mary's late licence application?

Thanks

Richard, I'm fairly sure it was rejected. I have certainly heard no noice and I live very close to the college. There was a list of those licences awarded published in the Evening Standard and there were none in Teddington and very few in Twickenham. I can't remember the statistics, but the number of licence applications received in Richmond was, not surprisingly very large compared to those which were granted....

Do you love babies and toddlers or know someone who does ?
Someone local, retired or a teenager who likes babies ?

I hope this is an appropriate place; but I am looking for someone, who would enjoy playing with twin babies (that I am expecting in December) OR my sweet little three year old daughther Eva ??
( I am quite a strict and old-fashioned a mother, so she is always well-behaved, and says her 'please's and 'thank you's )

I do not work, and so I would be doing ALL the work like feeds and nappy changes.... so aomeone else can do just do PLAYING and having fun ?
 
Just one hour a week, or as much as you want.
Apologies if this is not a suitable place for this kind of message, but I'd like to find a local person/neighbour to us, as we live in Strawberry Hill.

Was anybody else kept awake by the horrendous noise coming from the College last night? I have written to the Council complaining about a late licence being granted on a Monday but we have received a letter from the President of the Union (usual stuff, they will deal with the noise and respect the neighbours but frankly last year it was pretty bad on numerous occasions)and I'm worried that she specifically talks about Monday nights and the effort she will make to keep the noise down - has anyone else got issues with this??

I was very fustrated to discover this week that the Wellesley Rd playground had been vandalised over the weekend. I take both my young children to this playground every day as my eldest goes to St.James school, which is adjacent. In this fantastic weather many families use the facility every day, especially at end of school. I left the playground in horror on Monday as my 18mnth old baby attempted to pick up a used condom. all the equipment and available floor space had been covered in graffiti and there was broken glass (gin bottles) and rubbish everywhere. I phoned the council and the police to report this (the only one apparently) and to their credit the playground was cleaned up the next day. I am concerned though about why this is happening and what we can do as a community to help occupy some teenagers who have apparently nothing better to do than create wanton vandalism?

I was disappointed to read the latest Bulletin article about the St James's Church extension application. It presented only the viewpoint of a few residents who are opposed to the plans, not that of the many residents who attend the church and the benefits that the proposed extension would bring to the parish and the community. The planned extension would bring the church itself into compliance with numerous building codes, provide a social space for the parish after services and a safe place to hold Sunday school during services. Most of the outnon-parish users of the current hall could use the new, improved hall on the church site instead. The parish does not really need a space of that size and there are numerous other drafty old church halls in Twickenham that can be hired if this one is rendered unavailable. It is my understanding that several of the most vocal objectors are parish members who are using the planning objection procedure because they are opposed to the parish selling off one of its only two solid assets. The planning department is no place for that dispute.

If you would like to present both sides of this issue, I am sure Father Ulick would be happy to speak to you or write something for the newsletter.

Things are getting worse at Strawberry Hill station; at least three times in the last month the ticket office has been unmanned on a weekday morning. The queues at the solitary ticket machine have in consequence been enormous and passengers have either missed their train or boarded without a ticket, trusting to the goodwill of SWT staff (a rare commodity).

Why on earth SWT can't send one of the many mobile ticket staff who hover sround Twickenham station down? And when are we getting the promised second machine?

Can SHRA do any lobbying with SWT?

SHRA will take Mr Rankin's Complaints up with SWT. Will advise the outcome.

SWT apologize for the problems encountered by passengers wishing to buy tickets on Tuesday 20 November when the booking office was closed during the morning rush hour. They are well aware of the problems caused by closure at this time of day and do all they can to avoid it. If it should recur please could you let me know how it is handled. Joe.Brett@shra.org.uk