Morning, Surbiton. Two days ago Steve asked me about the Sainsbury's car park and I said I could not answer it alone. I did not have to — another reader went and found the answer, photographed it and sent it in. That is where we start. Then a warning for anyone who walks a dog near Red Lion Road, a correction I owe you, the roads, and a September that is fuller than I thought.
It is one hour. And the fine is £85. Carmen sent me a cutting from The Good Life along with a photograph of the sign standing inside the store, which reads, in Sainsbury's own words: “To make shopping here easier we have reduced the maximum stay on the car park to 1 hour.”
The Good Life's reporting goes further than the sign does. It says the change halved the maximum stay from two hours to one, that the stated reason was met with widespread derision, and that the real one is closer to home. “The problem,” a supermarket insider told the paper, “is the number of people using the car park to attend gym classes.”
Which means the shoppers are paying for the gym-goers. And the arithmetic is worse than an hour sounds: one regular pointed out that driving in, parking, wading through the first-floor lake and then finding a working lift can take twenty minutes before a single tin lands in a basket. Another was blunter, and I am printing it because it is the best line anyone has given me all week: “Good parking costs less at Sainsbury's.”
So Steve's point stands. One hour is the wrong number for a supermarket that size, and December is coming. If you want it changed, the staff on the floor are not the people to say it to — they have been taking the complaints for months and the decision was not theirs. It came from above them.
One honest caveat. The cutting says the rules changed “last month”, and Carmen remembers it happening around February. I cannot date the article, so I am not going to date the change. What is not in doubt is the limit today, because it is on a sign in the shop.
Steve asked on Wednesday; Carmen answered on Thursday with the cutting and the photograph. That is the whole idea of this thing working properly.
Residents around Red Lion Road are reporting three dead foxes and a cat in the last few days, and they suspect deliberate poisoning. It has been reported to the Metropolitan Police Wildlife Crime Division and to the RSPCA. That is on Radio Jackie this morning, and it is the only Surbiton story anywhere carrying today's date.
I want to be straight about what this is: residents reporting a pattern, one outlet, no confirmed finding. But the precaution costs nothing over a long weekend. Keep dogs on the lead round there and off whatever they find on the ground, and if you see bait put down, do not touch it — photograph it and report it. Laying poison for wildlife is a criminal offence, and only licensed firms may put pest control down at all.
If you live up that end and have seen something — or you have lost a pet recently and wondered why — reply and tell me. One report is a rumour. Several is something I can take to somebody.
Yesterday I told you TfL was reporting the new Ewell Road signals as faulty. That is no longer true, and I am not certain it was ever TfL's word. I went back through the whole road feed this morning — all 126 records — and the word does not appear once. The Ewell Road entry was updated at ten to eleven today and now reads “there are no reported delays”. Either it was fixed or I gave you a description that was not theirs to give. Either way, take the warning back: the lights are working.
The works themselves are still there, still on temporary signals between St Marks Hill and Lamberts Road. It is UK Power Networks replacing a 33kV cable. On the end date the two official sources disagree: the council's list says the job finishes today, TfL says Wednesday 2 September. TfL's record is fifty-five minutes old and the council's page has not been touched since 21 August, so I would plan around Wednesday and be pleasantly surprised.
The K4 is due home at 6pm tonight. As of midday it was still diverting via Lingfield Avenue, Maple Road and Claremont Road, missing Cheyne Hill to Surbiton Station one way and St Mark's Church to Cheyne Hill the other. The permit ends at six. I will tell you on Monday whether it actually did.
New this morning, and it lasts the whole weekend: the K3. A burst water main on Church Road in Claygate has put it on diversion via Hare Lane and Oaken Lane, missing every stop between St Leonard's Road and Claygate Village Hall in both directions. It started at twenty to ten this morning and runs to 6pm on Friday 4 September. If your bank holiday involves Claygate or Esher, that is the one to know.
And a bus stop is shut. The Ditton Road stop is closed until 6pm on Monday — that is six routes at once: the 465, 671, 71, K1, K4 and N65. Use the stop before or after. It goes with the Thames Water signals on Upper Brighton Road, which come off at the same time.
Trains, confirmed properly this time. Saturday, buses replace trains between Surbiton and Effingham Junction via Cobham, with one train an hour from Effingham to Guildford — and the Waterloo–Guildford trains divert after Surbiton and terminate at Hampton Court. Sunday it widens: buses all the way Surbiton to Guildford, extra buses Leatherhead to Guildford. Monday the Cobham line is back to normal.
The main line to Waterloo is untouched all three days, half-hourly as usual, no bus legs — I checked the actual timetable rather than the notices. The Tolworth and Chessington branch is completely clean too: normal service Saturday, Sunday and Monday. And the A3 at Tolworth and Hook has no closures at all this weekend; the next one is late Tuesday night.
Berrylands, as ever: trains still run through without stopping, buses from the station forecourt, and don't tap in or out at Berrylands. Reopening is still officially “late September”. That is now close enough that I am going to start asking for a date.
Yesterday I told you Monday was the best day of the weekend. I am taking that back — it is Sunday. The forecast has moved overnight, which is what forecasts do four days out, and I would rather say so than quietly print a different answer.
Today. Dry from now until about four, 22.7°C at one o'clock, and then a damp evening rather than a wet one — the chance peaks at 68 per cent around six but there is only a fifth of a millimetre in the whole day. Dry again by eleven. Sunset 7.56pm.
Saturday is the wet one, and it is not close. A hundred per cent, 7mm, 20.5°C, raining from about eleven to seven with the heaviest burst at eleven in the morning. Every model agrees. That is the Legion open day; see below, and see the bit about the bar being indoors.
Sunday is the one to be outside. Warmest of the three at 22°C and genuinely dry from six in the morning to one in the afternoon. Showers creep in mid-afternoon. If you are picking one day, take Sunday morning.
Monday, honestly, nobody knows. 20°C. The four forecast models are as far apart as I have seen them — one says nine millimetres, another says none — and the probability never gets above 44 per cent. So I am not giving you a number. Showery around the middle of the day, brightening late afternoon, and ask me again on Sunday night.
Saturday, 12pm to 5pm: the Royal British Legion open day on Hollyfield Road. BBQ, local craft stalls, candy floss, a fully stocked bar, and The Paperback Writers playing from 4pm. Jane sent me the poster and I have now read the times off it properly: twelve to five, not later. It will rain most of that. The bar is indoors.
Saturday, 9pm: Average Joe at the Surbiton Flyer, free, walk in. That is the last Saturday of the Flyer's August line-up and the music runs every Saturday at nine.
Sunday, 9am: junior parkrun at Alexandra Rec on King Charles Road — two kilometres, ages four to fourteen, free, start by the cricket pavilion. It is in the dry window. Sunday, 2pm: the Knollmead allotments on the Sunray estate want volunteers; just turn up.
Bank holiday Monday, 12.30pm to 6.30pm: Chessington Community Fun Day, Sir Francis Barker Rec on Leatherhead Road, free. I will be straight with you: I checked six separate listings sources and this is the only thing happening anywhere in Surbiton, Tolworth, Berrylands, Long Ditton or Hook on Monday. It is raising money to rebuild the cricket club's clubhouse.
Also today, if you are quick: chair yoga at St Mary's church hall in Long Ditton, 2pm, free. And the Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament at Surbiton Library, 4pm to 7pm, free, over-fives, starter packs provided.
Danni sent me a poster last night with the words “happening in Surbiton on various dates”. It turned out to be the whole of September on one page, and two of them are new in here. So, the diary — and I would write these down.
Every Thursday in September — Celebrate Surbiton, on the station forecourt, 4.30pm to 8pm, free. Street food traders and entertainment, with the forecourt closed to traffic for it. The 3rd, 10th, 17th and 24th. Four of them.
Saturday 12 September — Seething Village Fête, St Andrew's Square, 1pm to 5pm, free. Local traders, a charity bar, music, crafters, live demonstrations, talks and face painting.
Saturday 19 September — the Farmers' Market, Maple Road, 9am to 1pm. The usual third Saturday.
Saturday 26 September — Surbiton Festival, 10am to 4pm, free, spread across spaces around the town including Victoria Road. That is the big one, and it is a month away.
Two more that came to me the same way, from people who took the trouble to write in. Friday 25 September, 11am to 2pm: the Macmillan coffee morning at the Royal British Legion on Hollyfield Road — Laurel passed it on. Cake donations are welcome if they are homemade, and they ask that you include a list of ingredients. And Friday 4 September, 11am to 2pm: a free Wellbeing Day at Queen Mary Hall on Cambridge Gardens. That one is in Kingston rather than Surbiton, and I am telling you anyway, because what is on offer is free health checks, foot care, haircuts, clothes, toiletries, benefits and quit-smoking advice, employment support, bike repairs, and soup and cake. If that is useful to you or to somebody you know, it is worth the bus.
The week after the bank holiday has more in it than I can fit here — the History of Seething Wells at the cornerHOUSE on Tuesday, life drawing at the Lamb the same night, comedy at Alcheme on Friday, wrestling in Long Ditton village hall on Saturday and a free walking tour of the town from the station on Sunday morning. Those all run in full next week, on the day.
The Olive Tree on Hook Road — and I got a detail wrong yesterday. I told you the outdoor seating application was on the council's planning search. It is not: it is a pavement licence, which is a different list and has no planning reference number. What matters more is the bit I did not have. Objections close on Tuesday 1 September. The application is for twelve removable chairs and four removable tables on the pavement in front of the decking, three metres back from the road, 8.30am to 4pm Monday to Saturday and 9am to 4pm on Sunday. The cafe's own note says the premises had similar tables under the previous owners. If you have a view either way, it is on the council's “view and comment on current applications” page, and you have until Tuesday.
And one that is still missing. Two licensing decisions were heard on 13 August — the KFC on North Parade in Chessington, and Pepe's Piri Piri on Tolworth Broadway, which no one has reported at all. Fifteen days later neither decision has been published: no minutes on the meeting page, nothing on either agenda, nothing in the delegated-decisions register. For the KFC, 141 addresses were consulted and 15 people objected. Those fifteen people still do not know what happened. I will keep asking.
Margaret wrote in asking for two things I have never once covered: local car boot sales, and Christmas markets when we get nearer to it. Both noted, both going in, and if you know a reliable car boot within reach of Surbiton, tell me — that is exactly the kind of thing no listings page has and every neighbour does.
Welcome to Elyanne and to Richard, both new this week. Richard asked for small local happenings that get the kids out of the house — that is the fun day on Monday, the library on a Friday afternoon, and the fête on the 12th.
And a standing request, because it keeps working. Most of the September diary up there did not come from a listings site — it came from Danni, from Laurel, from Jane, and from Richard at the Flyer, all of whom simply sent me a photograph of a poster. If you run something social, charitable or community lead, or you are helping somebody who does, do that. A picture of the poster is genuinely enough, and it is the quickest way to put your event in front of every one of us.
Have a good bank holiday. Take Sunday morning.
Mike
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