The next Music Night at Sunbury CC comes round pretty quickly and is Friday 31st January, the Club welcomes back THE ROBIN BIBI BAND, who haven’t done a show at the club here for nearly two years, although Robin has played here a couple of times with The ‘60s All Stars.

Robin is one of the UK’s most respected blues/rock performers, and something of a legend on the club and festival circuit, as a guitarist/singer/songwriter who has played with the likes of The Pretty Things, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and Ben E. King, and has shared the bill with B.B. King, Van Morrison and Chuck Berry. He has released a dozen critically acclaimed albums since 1997, and plays with his band all over Europe, as well as also performing as a member of The ‘60s All Stars and The Eel Pie All Stars.

 He is joined for this gig by Tony Marten, formerly with George Michael, on bass, and drummer Wez Johnson, a colleague of contemporary US blues rockers Kirk Fletcher and Ariel Posen.  A top class night of blues/rock in the classic tradition of Sunbury Music Nights is guaranteed.

There’s more information at https://robinbibiband.co.uk/, including links to some great videos on YouTube.

Admission is £10.00 on the door, payable by cash or card. Hot food, prepared by the expert chefs from our resident caterers from the community food distribution organisation Surplus To Supper, will be available from 7pm.

Following the Extraordinary Council Meeting on 6 June 2023 a motion was agreed to pause the remainder of the Local Plan examination hearings, the Chief Executive wrote to the Planning Inspector to put forward this request on behalf of the Council.

After what seems like an eternity, the 'Pause' will be over on 28th January, some 18 months later. The hearings are open to all to observe, but only those who previously made representations relevant to the matters being considered in response to previous consultations on the plan, and who registered a request to participate, will be allowed to speak.

The program has now been published here

Of particular interest is Main Matter 9 – Green Belt, Main Matter 16 – Infrastructure & Delivery – see in particular the representation from Riverside Residents, and Main Matter 17 Allocations Years1-5 – see in particular the representation from Redrow re Kempton Park.

LOSRA Committee members will be attending on a number of the relevant dates.

The first Music Night of the New Year at Sunbury Cricket Club comes round very quickly, and falls on Friday 10th January, when the Club welcomes back THE NASHVILLE TEENS in their traditional January slot to blow away the January blues.

THE NASHVILLE TEENS are one of the great names from the ‘60s who had two memorable Top Ten hits in 1964 with “Tobacco Road” and “Google Eye”, and have played storming gigs for the Club over many years. The line-up features their original lead singer Ray Phillips, who has had an unbroken half-century career with the band, as well as making solo records and performing with other line-ups like the British Invasion All-Stars with members of The Yardbirds, Creation and Downliners Sect.

With him in the current Nashville Teens is their established line-up of seasoned performers, including on bass Colin Pattenden, member of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band when they had their big hits back in the 70s, plus  Simon Spratley of The Ian Campbell Blues Band on keyboards, Ken Osborn from Levee Camp Moan on guitar and Adrian ‘Spud’ Metcalf on drums. It will be another night of classic ‘60s R&B, featuring in Ray one of the great voices of the beat era. There’s more information at www.Nashville-Teens.com.

Hot food, prepared by resident caterers Surplus To Supper, will be available as usual from about 6.30pm, with the band on stage around 8.30 pm or soon after, so the Club hopes you can make it down to get this year’s Music Nights off to a cracking start and looks forward to seeing you next week. In the meantime, may we wish you all the best for 2025 – we will try to make sure there’s some fine entertainment at the Cricket Club during the year.

Admission is £10.00 on the door, payable by cash or card.

The Chairman and Committee extend best wishes to all our readers for a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

To keep abreast of all that is going on, you will find the print copy of our New Year Newsletter circulated with the next edition of Sunbury Matters and may be viewed by clicking here

The Council has announced the long-awaited resumption of the Local Plan examination:

Hearings for the Local Plan were originally held in May 2023 before an Extraordinary meeting of the Council in June 2023 resolved to ask the Inspector to pause the Examination Hearings, a request which was agreed by Independent Inspector, Jameson Bridgwater PGDipTP MRTPI. A further pause was also granted following a second request from the Council in September 2023. 

In July 2024, Chair of the Environment and Sustainability Committee, Cllr Malcolm Beecher, wrote to the Planning Inspector requesting resumption of the Local Plan examination, and in October the Environment Agency and the Council signed a Statement of Common Ground.   

The hearings will be held in person at Spelthorne Council's offices with arrangements in place for virtual participation where required. Those who made representations will have the opportunity to appear at the hearings and speak directly to the Inspector.

The dates for the hearings are as follows, starting at 10am each day:

• Monday 27 January 2025 - Friday 31 January 2025
• Monday 10 February 2025 - Friday 14 February 2025
• Monday 17 February 2025 - Friday 21 February 2025

The sessions will be held at the Council Offices, Knowle Green, Staines-upon-Thames TW18 1XB. Details regarding participation and specific discussion topics for each date will be confirmed closer to the opening of the hearings. Arrangements will be made for people to observe the hearing sessions in person.

Visit www.spelthornelocalplan.info/ for full details and to check any changes or updates to the programme. All relevant documents will also be available here.

Tommaso Starace – Alto and Tenor – stunning saxophonist – think bebop – very much in the style of Cannonball Adderley – with a bleusy swagger – and lots of Passion!

Tommaso has played at all of the top Clubs and Festivals including London Jazz Festival, Brecon Jazz Festival, Pizza Express Soho, Blue Note Milano, Oxford Jazz Festival etc.

He swings magnificently, playing alto and soprano saxophone with impressive post Parker felicity and Italian flair. He has performed with some of the most respected jazz musicians including Billy Cobham, David Liebman, Kenny Wheeler, Stan Sulzmann, Jim Mullen, Jonathan Gee, Paolo Pellegatti, Gianni Giudici.

In 2023 Surrey County Council assumed responsibility for verge maintenance from all the borough and district councils, ending the agreement which had been in place since 2008. However, throughout this transition many residents voiced frustration with the decline in service levels and quality of cut which was leaving many areas looking untidy.

After determined lobbying by our Council, the responsibility for verge maintenance will be returned to Spelthorne, where it rightly belongs!

Sunbury Cricket Club's last Music Night of 2024 is on Friday 6^th December, when the Club returns to its traditional tried and tested party formula to kick off the Christmas party season as they once again feature THE LIVERPOOL ECHOES. They are led by Yanni Tsamplakos, who is a great supporter of our Music Nights and has appeared at many of the Christmas party shows with his band The Mersey Legends, and the Club is delighted to welcome him back once more with his new line-up, with whom he appeared for the first time last year.

As always, they will give us a rip-roaring evening, performing a non-stop selection of wall-to-wall beat era classics, with Yanni on guitar and vocals, Billy Allan on guitar, John Joce on bass and Rick Daniow on drums. We can guarantee that it will be a great party night to kick off the festive season in style, so get a gang of friends together and come along for a proper rave-up.

There’s more info at www.liverpoolechoes.co.uk.

Hot food, prepared by our resident caterers Surplus To Supper, will be available as usual from about 6.30pm, with the band on stage around 8.30 pm or soon after, so we hope you can make it. We look forward to seeing you there – get there early if you want to grab a table for your group, as it will  be  busy.

 Admission is £10.00 on the door, payable by cash or card.

As in previous years, the Christmas Market, organised by volunteers from the Lower Sunbury Business Community, will run from 5 - 8pm.

LoSRA will, as usual, have a stall staffed by our Committee members.

Do pay a visit!

On 14 October we published an article about the re-submitted planning application for a Battery Energy Storage System on Green Belt land adjacent to the Charlton Lane Eco Park.  We advised that the applicant, Sunbury BESS Limited, had requested separate meetings with the local Residents’ Associations but that we had proposed instead a single meeting with representatives of those RAs.

This meeting took place in the Riverside Arts Centre in Lower Sunbury on Friday 25 October.  Five committee members from the Charlton Village, Lower Sunbury and Shepperton RAs met with four representatives of Sunbury BESS Limited (the ‘Applicant’) and its agent DWD.  It was a useful meeting, at which we were able to explain the various concerns of local residents and query, discuss and clarify aspects of the revised application.  Following the meeting we have re-assessed our objections to the scheme accordingly.

To see our full report of this meeting, click here

To see our objections to this revised application, click here