It is evident that Surrey County Council is not very keen to communicate about what is happening and their proposals for Claremont Lane!

Ever since cars started parking on the A244 approach to Esher Town Centre hundreds of residents, and those passing through, have been contacting Surrey County Council to point out the dangers and the increasing delays that the parked cars are causing. Rumours abound as to what is going to be done. But at the Esher Residents Association AGM on 21st October our recently elected Residents Association Surrey County Councillor, Nigel Cooper, assured us that he had that very day been assured by Mr Apicella, a Surrey County Council highways officer, that it was the Council’s intention to put down double yellow lines.

Traffic orders would be posted in December with the first lines being painted in January provided there are no objections by the public. As there will inevitably be objections, presumably at least from those parkers, a more realistic date will be March or April 2010. And
of course we do not yet know the extent of these yellow lines. That in itself could be very controversial – are they the solution we were
seeking?

In the meantime, after daily bumps, scrape and wing mirror removals, we have had the first bad accident on the morning of Tuesday 6th October luckily there were no serious injuries this time but the police were there in force and the jam went from Hillbrow Road to Meadway. In the last week a massive articulated lorry from
Oxshott joined the parked cars thinking it was a tail back (not the first time this has happened). Cars immediately pulled up behind and by the time the driver realised, he was penned in. A constant stream of traffic in the opposite direction did not aid his dilemma and an
extremely difficult manoeuvre was necessary which caused considerable delays.

The increased delays and dangers that have been created are intolerable and Surrey must be urged to take emergency action as they did for the Hampton Court Flower Show (see ERA
Newsletter No 79 at page 2)!