Decision time for Molesey Hospital

Philippe Bassett, Peter Szanto and Debi Oliver at the consultation

THE governing body of Surrey Downs Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) meets next Friday to decide whether or not to close Molesey Hospital.
The crunchtime meeting will be held in open public, at Leatherhead Leisure Centre in Guildford Road, KT22 9BL, from 1pm. We encourage you to go along and join us in showing support for keeping Molesey Hospital open.
Why is closure even being considered? The CCG came into being in 2013 and decided to undertake a review into how services will be provided across the five community hospitals it runs. This review included a 14-week public consultation with events across the CCG catchment area including one at Mole Hall (pictured) which was well attended.
Should Molesey Hospital close then its 12 hospital beds would transfer to Cobham Hospital, which is a newer facility but poorly very served by public transport. We estimate it would take an hour from West Molesey to Cobham by bus and about £30 return by taxi. As well as the beds, the outpatient services would also be "relocated" to the community. This is incredibly worrying giving the strain on existing GP surgeries in Molesey such as Glenlyn.
James Blythe, Director of Commissioning and Strategy at Surrey Downs CCG admitted that NHS Property Services could sell the hospital site if it were found to be surplus to requirements.
Click here for our interview with the CCG's James Blythe.

Will Molesey RA councillors listen to residents over parking?

Peter Szanto in Wolsey Road with lead petitioners

MORE than 350 East Molesey households and 52 retailers backed the Molesey Conservative petitions for parking controls earlier this year.
We have been calling on Surrey County Council (SCC) to introduce a weekday morning one hour period of residents only parking in Wolsey Road, Palace Road and other streets in the vicinity of Hampton Court Station.
This would encourage rail commuters to use the near-empty station car park instead of blocking the spaces in East Molesey residential streets. It would stop drivers hurtling dangerously around these streets looking for spaces, improve safety for people exiting driveways and would benefit Bridge Road retailers by creating parking capacity during the day for shoppers.
The petitions and supporting evidence were submitted by former Molesey councillor Peter Szanto and will be considered as part of the County Council's review of parking in Molesey.
Peter and colleague Steve Bax have respectively campaigned on the issue of commuter parking in streets close to Hampton Court Station and had intended to steer it to a successful conclusion if they had been elected in May. But now it will be for Molesey's Residents Association councillors to help bring about changes or stand in change's way.
Peter is sceptical given their past opposition, and said: “The RA councillors have opposed any parking controls. The question being asked now is whether they will listen to their constituents this time, in light of the safety concerns and supporting local businesses.
“We petitioned over 430 households and received support from well over 80%. Out of 59 traders and retailers 88% were supportive, so there is clearly strong local support for these measured proposals."
If the petitions are deemed by Surrey CC as worthy of acting upon, they would form part of a range of proposals to be debated by Borough and County Councillors at the Elmbridge Local Committee on October 3rd.

Green light given to new secondary school for Molesey and Walton

Shortly before he stepped down as Prime Minister, David Cameron gave the go ahead for 31 new free schools - including one for the Molesey and Walton areas.
ElmWey Learning Trust, who run Heathside School in Weybridge, submitted a bid to the Government for funding to open a free school by September 2019. Their business plan was accepted and the next stage is to find a suitable location for the school of up to 900 students aged 11-16.
This could be in either Molesey or Walton but the fact the new school will be called Heathside Walton-on-Thames rather suggests that Walton is the preferred choice. So far the shortlist (if there is one) has yet to be made public.
We do know that the new school will be able to call on existing expertise at Heathside Weybridge, it's sister school, which is rated Good by Ofsted and Outstanding for leadership. Conservative MP for Esher & Walton, Dominic Raab, is also supportive and has promised to work with ElmWey and Surrey County Council to help the new school get established.
Molesey Conservatives' Steve Bax has been outspoken about the need for a new secondary school and welcomed the recent announcement: “This is great news for Molesey," he said. "Few things matter more than giving children the best start in life and a good quality education. I hope a suitable site can be found soon and we'll be keen to see if we can help.”

Lloyds bank closing in East Molesey

Lloyds bank is pulling out of Molesey on Monday (July 25) when its branch in Walton Road is due to close.
The decision to quit is being blamed on a lack of footfall with the ridiculously low figure of "28 personal and business customers" said to be visiting the branch each week, now that that the majority of transactions are now carried out over the internet and smartphones.
Lloyds said branch visits had declined by 19% reduction since last year as 73% of East Molesey based non-business customers use other branches or the internet.
We discussed the situation with David Jupp, chairman of Molesey Business Network (MBA), who is worried that the bank's demise w
ill have a detrimental effect on the town centre.
He said: “When Tesco built the Hurst Park store I predicted then that it would be the first nail in the coffin of the shops along the Walton Road.
"When Barclays in West Molesey closed about 2 years ago, at that time questions were asked of Lloyds if closure was planned. When Saturday opening was suspended last year I again asked if this was a prelude to closure and again a negative was received. However, I now disbelieve the statements that were provided to MP Dominic Raab as I feel plans were in place some time ago.
The statement we received from Lloyds Bank reads: "The East Molesey branch will close on 25th July. We have made the difficult decision to close this branch because of the changing way customers choose to bank with us, which has resulted in customers using it less often.
"The way customers fulfil their banking needs is continuing to change and we have seen a significant decline in customers using this branch.
"Customers can continue to use any other branches in our network, such as Walton on Thames branch, and the local post office is a short distance away where customers can manage their day-to-day banking needs. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause customers.”

Thoughts on the recent Borough Council elections in Molesey

Steve Bax and Debi Oliver with MP Dominic Raab on polling day.

Politics is a funny old business. Sometimes you're up, other times you're down. For the Molesey Conservatives the 2016 Borough Council elections were definitely a low point, though we are determined to rebuild and return stronger.
For anyone who hasn't seen the results, they are posted here. In summary though, our political opponents the Molesey Residents Association won all six of the Molesey seats in the new 48-member Elmbridge Borough Council. Myself (Steve Bax) and my hard working and effective colleague Peter Szanto lost our bids for re-election, and our ability to deliver on the important causes we have championed for our residents - from parking controls to Heathrow noise - will now be much more difficult.
This year's elections were the first to be fought along the new wards drawn up by the Boundary Commission. They agreed to a Conservative proposal to reduce number of councillors from 60 to 48, a more appropriate number for today's council, and redrew all the wards. In Molesey the old North, East and South wards were replaced by Molesey East and West, but around 1,500 former Molesey East voters were moved into Thames Ditton - the Molesey Conservatives wrote to the Commission opposing this illogical and unsatisfactory move and warned voters would be disenfranchised. They went ahead anyway.
In Molesey West our three local candidates, Richard Doxford, Philippe Bassett and Inna Spektor, fought on a strong Molesey manifesto with proposals for saving the Hospital, improving Molesey Heath and to press for a local secondary school. They put up a good fight but clearly the MRA is still very entrenched in West Molesey and the Conservatives have a lot of work to do to win hearts and minds.

West Molesey champions Inna Spektor and Philippe Bassett.

Most disappointing was the result in Molesey East where the MRA topped the poll with 1,576 votes, 1,517 and 1,437. Steve Bax finished fourth with 1,159, Peter in fifth with 925 votes and Debi sixth with 888. The unusual situation this year where everyone had 3 votes appears to have benefitted Labour and the Greens who picked up votes, though UKIP was in last place and suffered a poor result which was mirrored across Elmbridge.
After the shock of the result - we expected a close fight with the MRA but not to be hundreds of votes adrift - I spoke to the Surrey Advertiser after the result. I said: "I'm really proud that I was able to represent the people of Molesey East for the last two years. It was an amazing privilege and a really fulfilling part of my life. I hope I can be back one day but at the moment I don't really know where we go from here."
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what went wrong in East ward this year, but to my mind there were three main factors: first that national factors played a part, government unpopularity and the rows over Brexit badly affected the Conservatives across Elmbridge; second the boundary changes which stacked the deck heavily in the MRA favour by moving 3,600 voters from the former West Molesey wards where they dominated, into East ward which the Conservatives won in the last two years; and third a nasty, negative eve of poll letter from the MRA highlighting that Peter, Debi and I live outside of the ward that will have damaged us with East's new voters.
It is a huge disappointment and deeply frustrating to see all of the gains from the last two years wiped out in one stroke, especially as Peter and I had been making such good progress. We now know the political lay of the land and the nature of the challenge. Our task is to consolidate our existing supporters and win supporters in the new roads that have joined the ward. We believe this work is in Molesey's interests as we are providing a democratic alternative to MRA unhealthy one-party rule in Molesey.

Molesey Conservatives welcome secondary school plan

Molesey parents may be interested to know that an application has been made a for a new secondary school to serve the needs of our area.

ElmWey Learning Trust, which operates Heathside School in Weybridge, has submitted a bid to the Department for Education for funding to open a free school. If it gets the go ahead, the search would be on for a suitable school location in Molesey or Walton. The school is planned to open with its first 150 students in September 2019.

The Molesey Conservatives have long argued that our town needs its own secondary school to meet the local demand and avoid the need for children to travel by bus or car to Esher or Walton. So we welcome this proposal and look forward to hearing more of the detail and helping to move things in a positive direction as much as possible. Councillors Steve Bax and Peter Szanto recently spoke to the Surrey Comet about the proposals - see here.

Speak up to save Molesey Hospital from closure

Steve Bax & Peter Szanto outside the hospital

As we advised in the October 2015 edition of the Molesey News, the future of Molesey Hospital is hanging by a thread. It is now vital that residents make their voices heard in the consultation process.
Surrey Downs Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has been evaluating the future of our community hospitals. Public consultation is well advanced. It started on 28th January and ends on 5th May.
The consultation is on the four options recommended in their report in September last year. Two of the four options involve the “transfer of Molesey inpatient services to Cobham Hospital and transfer of outpatient services to suitable location(s) within East Elmbridge locality”….ie the closure of the hospital.
Your Molesey local Conservative team has been actively fighting Molesey Hospital’s case. It delivers healthcare and rehabilitation to the people of Molesey on their doorstep, whereas Cobham is not easy to get to by public transport.
Councillor, Dr Peter Szanto (whose wife is a retired doctor) has met with the Director of Clinical Services, visited the hospital and staff, attended the consultation launch event on 2nd February at Molesey Community Centre, provided input to the consultation process and advertised details on Twitter and Facebook.
We have been fighting for the future of in and outpatient services at our hospital, but it will be an uphill battle since Cobham has more beds and is a newer facility. Hence it is vital for you to speak up in the consultation process.

Peter with residents at the consultation event in February

We published the contact details for providing your input back in our October edition; we make no apologies for repeating them again:
You can comment by filling in the online survey at the Surrey Downs CCG website at www.surreydownsccg.nhs.uk/get-informed/our-projects/community-hospital-services/
Or email contactus.surreydownsccg@nhs.net or write to FREEPOST RTEY-LSGG-UHBE, Surrey Downs Clinical Commissioning Group, Cedar Court, Guildford Road, Leatherhead, Surrey, KT22 9AE. Contacting by SMS through textphone on 07912 998809 (please note this is a text only service for the deaf, or hard of hearing).
For 120 years Molesey Hospital has supported and cared for residents in their time of need, now our hospital needs us. Please make your voice heard to keep the hospital open.