We at the Lower Sunbury Residents’ Association were extremely disappointed to be told that, contrary to expectation, we will not have the opportunity to contribute to the new Sunbury monthly magazine that is being established following the closure of Monica Jones’s ‘Sunbury Matters’.
LOSRA was a regular contributor to Sunbury Matters for many years, covering a wide range of issues that have been of significance to Lower Sunbury. In this article, which we had originally submitted to TW (the ‘replacement’ publisher) for the first edition of its successor magazine, we are highlighting some of the current challenges that our village faces and which we will continue to review and question on behalf of our residents.
Planning issues inevitably represent a considerable proportion of those challenges, and these increasingly involve threats to the valuable areas of Green Belt land in Sunbury. We fought the application to build a large industrial Battery Energy Storage System off Charlton Lane, only to see Spelthorne Council’s planning refusal overturned on appeal by an appallingly inadequate Planning Inspectorate judgement. Housing is now the main initiator of Green Belt applications, with major proposals for both Kempton Park and Stratton Road; we have already set up a separate LOSRA sub-committee to focus on them.
We also contributed to the Scoping Consultation phase for the new Spelthorne Local Plan. This is not timetabled for submission until March 2028 and will thus transfer to the responsibility of the new West Surrey Council that formally comes into being on 1 April 2027. We support the development of new Neighbourhood Area Committees to ensure that our residents can continue to be key stakeholders in local decision-making, despite the loss of borough councils.
Many of these decisions must focus on the deteriorating quality of our area’s infrastructure. Whilst it is good news that the Lower Sunbury Local Street Improvement Scheme will receive £2.9m of funding from Active Travel England’s Consolidated Active Travel Fund, other threats are coming from both the air and the water that require our ongoing diligence. While Heathrow Airport is now actively developing its plans for a third runway, the use of airspace around the airport for departing and arriving aircraft is also being re-designed. Both of these initiatives will potentially have an adverse effect on Lower Sunbury’s environment.
On the river side the River Thames Scheme for flood relief may currently be in limbo but it has not been stopped. We remain concerned at the impact on river levels in Lower Sunbury and we will continue to monitor this scheme closely. This and the other concerns noted above will certainly continue to feature in future LOSRA articles to come, to be published on our website, e-bulletin and tri-annual printed Newsletters.