Our campaigns

Chris Grayling and the Conservative team have been active in a number of important local campaigns.

Save 57 Salisbury Road from Demolition

Conservatives in Cuddington are spearheading a letter writing campaign to save 57 Salisbury Road (the "White House") from demolition. Property developers recently gave notice of their intention to demolish the building (scheduled for 1st April) in a cynical attempt to ease through future planning applications.

Please help by writing to the Secretary of State asking him to intervene by granting the building Grade II listed status at:

Save Epsom Hospital

Chris and other campaigners for Epsom Hospital have committed to continue the fight to secure the hospital's future following the decision to downgrade it and relocate emergency services to a new hospital at St Helier. This development followed the intervention by the Secretary of State Patricia Hewitt, who over-ruled the original plan to build at Sutton.

The NHS is currently working on the details of its proposals, and will publish its financial projections in about a year's time. But in the meantime, the NHS is reviewing its services locally and may start to downgrade Epsom well before any new hospital is built."

"We are actively exploring alternative options for Epsom," says Chris, and are determined not to give up the battle. I remain convinced that the NHS has got it wrong, and has come up with a project it can neither afford nor deliver. Equally the plan to have our main hospital at St Helier is completely unacceptable to residents in Surrey. For more information about local efforts on Epsom Hospital, please visit www.epsomhospital.com.

Help Us Stop Aldi's Proposed Development

Aldi, the German supermarket chain, have resurrected their plan to build a supermarket behind the Ruxley Lane / Kingston Road shopping parade. Only four months after local Conservatives forced them to withdraw their initial planning application, this looks like a cynical move to catch residents unaware.

However, their move has failed as we are ready and willing to put up a fight!

Click here for more details.

Help fight the housing threat

The Epsom and Ewell area could see more than 4,000 new houses built over the next twenty years if Government plans for the South East come into effect. Only a small proportion of these would come from the remaining construction due to take place on the two old mental hospital sites still to be developed - West Park and St Ebba's.

Councils in the South East have been trying to resist pressure from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to accept a much higher level of new building than has been the case in the past few years.

Chris Grayling warned that the proposals will have a real impact on the area if they are allowed to go ahead.

"What this means is more and more infill development, with gardens disappearing to be replaced by cul-de-sacs. But even then I think the risk is that we will lose some of our remaining open spaces to housing estates.

"I think it's completely mad, particularly as the Government itself admits that there is going to be a huge surge in immigration that will cause much of this pressure. That must be prevented from happening. We simply don't have the infrastructure to cope - not enough school places, hospital beds, roads and space on the trains. It must be stopped."

Our local councillors are doing what they can to resist over-development, and Chris Grayling has made representations about the issue to the Government. For more information, please email us at office@epsomconservatives.com.

We are continuing our efforts to secure a better deal for our local police. Chris Grayling has made regular representations to the Home Secretary to protest about the continuing poor funding of police in Surrey and we have mounted regular campaigns about the issue in the past couple of years.

"Surrey receives the lowest police grant in the country by some margin. We get £86 per head of population from the Government - almost half the level in other areas and well below the next lowest county, Dorset, which receives £94 a head. Yet we have to provide police support for the M25, Gatwick and Heathrow airports, quite apart from the cost of major investigations in recent years."

"In recent years Epsom has lost its local superintendent, its 24 hour a day front desk at the local police station, its full-time custody suite. Now we could face still more cutbacks. It's just not good enough he says. I meet too many people who have suffered from antisocial behaviour and crime locally. Too often the police are overstretched when they try to respond. It's time the Government realised that if you cut back policing in low crime areas, they will just become higher crime areas."