Morning, and happy bank holiday. Two of you wrote in over the weekend from Berrylands asking the same question — when do the roadworks at Ditton Road actually finish — so I have gone and got you a date, and you are not going to enjoy it. Then the answer I promised you on Friday about the K4, a Post Office closing a day earlier than anyone has printed, and Margaret's car boot sales, at last. It is a longer one than usual — three days of bank holiday and a whole week ahead to get through — so skim the headings and take what you need.
Ian called them “never-ending”. Mark called the Ditton Road and Ewell Road junction “a nightmare”. They wrote separately, hours apart, without knowing the other had. So here is the council's own line, off their roadworks list:
“Ditton Road, Hollyfield Road and Kingsdowne Road, Surbiton — multi way signals and road closures at the junctions with Ewell Road. 21 July 2026 to 25 January 2027.”
Six more months, and it is not a slip. I checked that date four ways — the roadworks list, the council's own cycle routes programme, the national permit register and the live roadworks map — and they all say 25 January 2027. The permit was granted on 10 June already carrying that date. Six months was the plan before a single cone went out.
It is the Cycleway 29 build, and the phase has a name: Beaconsfield Road to Hollyfield Road. It is also the last dated phase for the whole Ewell Road route. Kingston Cycling Campaign, who have been watching it closely, wrote this month that it is “one of the most complicated junctions on the Cycleway” — and that when it is done, cyclists should get separate signals of their own crossing towards Surbiton. That is their reading, not the council's.
And here is the thing I think is actually causing the fury. It is not one endless job. It is three, on top of each other, and nobody has ever laid them out side by side.
1. The cycleway junctions — Ditton, Kingsdowne and Hollyfield where they meet Ewell Road. Kingston Council. 27 July 2026 to 25 January 2027.
2. The power cable — two-way signals round the clock on Ewell Road, St Marks Hill up to almost Hollyfield Road, while UK Power Networks lay a 33kV cable. 12 January to 28 October 2026. A different company, a different job, about a kilometre up the road.
3. The emergency repair — Ewell Road at Lamberts Road, also UK Power Networks. 12 to 28 August. That one is finished; see the K4, below.
Three promoters, three permits, three end dates, one stretch of road. If it has felt like the works never stop, that is because one has been ending as the next began since January.
If you want to say all this to somebody's face, you can. UK Power Networks are holding two public meetings, and I have not seen either advertised anywhere locally:
Ewell Road — Thursday 1 October, 6 to 8pm, Surbiton Hill Methodist Church, 39 Ewell Road KT6 6AF.
Ditton Road — Wednesday 11 November, 6 to 8pm, The Maypole, 2 Hook Road KT6 5BH. For the council's side of it, that is cycleroutes@kingston.gov.uk.
Two more things you are owed, both awkward. The council's own scheme page still says the route is “expected to be completed in 2026” — it contradicts their roadworks list and their programme page, and it has not been updated. And January is not the end of the digging: UK Power Networks already hold a permit to close Ditton Road again from 18 October to 29 November this year, with more two-way signals on Ewell Road through October and November.
I am sorry it is not better news. But you asked for a date, and a real one you can plan around beats another six months of wondering. If it moves, you will hear it here that morning. Meanwhile Sir Ed Davey said this morning that he has “good news” on the roadworks plaguing Kingston — I have read the piece twice and it never says what the good news is. When somebody tells me what he actually announced, you will get it.
On Friday I said I would tell you today whether the K4 actually came home at six o'clock. It did. The emergency job that pushed it off Ewell Road finished on Friday as scheduled.
I checked three ways, because Friday's two official sources disagreed and I did not want to guess twice. The council's roadworks list has the UK Power Networks job running 12 to 28 August. The national permit register agrees — both permits expired late on Friday night, and crucially neither was extended. And the live roadworks map shows nothing on Ewell Road, Lamberts Road or St Mark's Hill today.
One warning, so it does not catch you out. TfL's own feed has not caught up. The K4 is still flagged “Special Service” this morning and their road entry still carries an end date of Wednesday 2 September — while the diversion notice sitting inside that same record says, in their words, “until 18:00 on Friday 28 August”. So if your app tells you the K4 is diverted today, that is a stale flag rather than a bus going the long way round.
Still genuinely out, though: the K3, on diversion via Hare Lane both ways for the burst main on Church Road in Claygate, missing every stop from St Leonard's Road to Claygate Village Hall. That now runs to 8pm on Friday 4 September — two hours later than the time I gave you on Friday, which they have since changed. And the Ditton Road bus stop is still closed as I write; use the stop before or after. Every other local route — the K1, K2, 71, 281, 406, 418, 465, 671 and N65 — is running a good service.
Ending today: the Thames Water signals on Upper Brighton Road, listed 19 to 31 August. And one for the diary: Claremont Road closes between Maple Road and Victoria Road for resurfacing, nightly 8pm to 5am from Monday 7 to Thursday 10 September.
The rain has already been and gone. The couple of millimetres in today's forecast fell before ten this morning. From now to midnight every model has nothing measurable in it — the sky will look like it means business through the afternoon, with the chance peaking around two thirds at four o'clock, but the rain itself is not there. About 20°C, easing to 18°C by nine.
The week: Tuesday and Wednesday both dry and about 21°C. Thursday, the first day back at school, 22°C and probably dry — three of the four models say nothing, one says otherwise, so take a coat for the gate. Friday is the one: 25°C and the warmest day we have had in a while.
Chessington Community Fun Day, 12.30pm to 6.30pm, Sir Francis Barker Rec on Leatherhead Road. Free, no booking. Fair rides, a football match, stalls, street food and live music, raising money to rebuild the cricket club's clubhouse. I checked six listings sources on Friday and it was the only thing happening in the whole patch today — which turns out not to be quite true, because of the next item.
And tonight, the Waggon & Horses quiz on Surbiton Hill Road, 8pm, £2 a head for a £50 prize — the first of seven quizzes this town runs in a week, which is a story for Wednesday.
Margaret wrote in last week asking for two things this newsletter has never once covered: car boot sales, and Christmas markets nearer the time. The Christmas ones will keep. The car boots I have gone and done properly, and the first thing to say is the awkward bit.
There is no car boot sale in Surbiton. Nor in Tolworth, Kingston, New Malden, Worcester Park or Chessington. Not one. And it got worse this year: the two next-nearest both stopped — Raynes Park finished its season on 12 July, and Priest Hill at East Ewell has confirmed there are none there at all this year. Every directory you will find on Google still lists both as running in September. They are wrong.
What you actually have is one good one, just under three miles away — and it is on today.
Hook Road Arena, Epsom KT19 8QG — the junction of Hook Road and Chessington Road. Every Sunday and every bank holiday Monday, right through to November. Gates at 7am. In before 8.30 costs £2, after 8.30 it is £1. Selling: £15 a car or a car-sized van, £20 a van, £30 for a Luton or a motorhome, £5 on top for a trailer. No booking — turn up about seven. Bring coins; they cannot change a twenty. If the weather looks bad, ring 07788 132977 before you set off.
Today's has been running since seven, so you would be going late — but it is a pound in after half eight, and there is another one next Sunday, and the one after that.
The rest of the round: Apps Court Farm at Walton, about four miles, Sundays, £2 a car on the way out — ring 01932 244 822 first. Shepperton on Saturdays, £1 from half eight. Carshalton on Wednesdays, the only midweek one within reach. And Sunday 13 September, Queen Mary's Hospital at Roehampton: free in, a pound to park, pitches from a fiver for a blanket.
Hook Road prices and dates read off the organiser's own site this morning — I had them wrong from a listings directory first time round, which is a good argument for going to the source. Nothing runs on a Friday anywhere within range.
Every report you will have read says Surbiton Post Office closes on Sunday 4 October. It does not. It closes at 4pm on Saturday 3 October.
I went and read Post Office Limited's own letter this morning, dated 29 July and signed by their corporate account manager. Its words, not mine: the branch “will now close slightly earlier on Saturday 03 October 2026 at 16:00”. That letter has been sitting on the consultation website for a month, and the 4 October date has gone on being printed since — including in coverage published twelve days after the letter was written.
It is one day. But it is the day you were counting on for the last passport check, the last parcel, the last bit of banking — and a Saturday 4pm cut-off is a good deal tighter than all day Sunday. So put Saturday 3 October in the diary instead, and go earlier than you think.
Where you go afterwards. The letter names two. Alexandra Drive Post Office, 104 Alexandra Drive KT5 9AG, about 1.4 miles, and the useful one because it opens Sundays 9am to 6pm. And Thames Ditton Post Office, 31 High Street, about 1.5 miles, Saturdays 9am to 1pm and closed Sundays.
And one thing to ignore. The consultation page carries a date of 23 October — that is the end of the notification period, not the closure, and the page says so itself. Whether anyone has taken the branch on, I genuinely do not know; the vacancy is not showing today, but nor are others from the same batch. If you hear, tell me.
Post Office Ltd updated information letter, 29 July 2026, read in full this morning. The branch is the one inside Morrisons on Victoria Road.
On Friday I told you residents were reporting dead foxes and a cat around Red Lion Road, and I asked whether anyone else had seen anything. Nobody has written in. That is the best result available, and I am glad to report it.
Two things have moved, and one of them is a correction to me. In the community groups a second resident says they have reported a suspected poisoning in the Tolworth area to the Met's Wildlife Crime Team and been given a crime reference number. I have not seen the number and the Met have not confirmed it, so take it as what it is: a neighbour saying so in public.
And the timescale I gave you was tighter than the original. I wrote “in the last few days”, following the radio report; the resident whose post started all this said over the last few weeks. That changes it from something happening right now to something that has been going on quietly for a while. Neither the Met nor the RSPCA has said anything publicly.
If you find something: don't touch the animal or the bait, photograph it where it lies, and ring the RSPCA's cruelty line on 0300 1234 999. Wildlife crime goes to the Met.
And a second reason to watch your dog this week, unrelated. The blue-green algae in the Thames has not gone away — the advice not to enter the water between Ham and Kingston has now been running over a week, the bloom has been identified across the reach from Sunbury Lock to Teddington Lock, which takes in our stretch, and the Port of London Authority has since found a separate bloom at Richmond Lock. Dogs out of the river for now. It can make them very ill.
Poisoning: community posts, uncorroborated. Algae: Environment Agency and Port of London Authority via Radio Jackie, 28 August.
I said I would keep asking about the two licensing decisions heard on 13 August — the KFC on North Parade in Chessington and Pepe's Piri Piri on Tolworth Broadway. I looked in four places this morning and found nothing; the council's licensing register is down altogether.
Here is what makes that worth saying out loud. The 13 August sitting is the only Licensing Sub-Committee meeting all year with no minutes published — every other one, seven of them since April, has both agenda and minutes. The day after the hearing the local paper reported the decision was coming “in the coming days”. That was eighteen days ago. A hundred and forty-one households were consulted about the KFC and fifteen objected. They are entitled to know. The committee sits again on 8 September.
Kingston's community schools go back on Thursday 3 September, and the autumn term runs to 23 October. Academies and church schools set their own dates and some do not start until Monday the 7th, so check yours. One thing to ignore: if you see “term starts 14 September” anywhere, that is the adult education timetable, not your children's.
Tomorrow, and it is your last chance. Objections to the Olive Tree's pavement licence on Hook Road close on Tuesday 1 September — twelve chairs and four tables out front, 8.30am to 4pm most days. It has to be in writing with your full postal address, to licensing@kingston.gov.uk. Also tomorrow: the History of Seething Wells at the cornerHOUSE, talk at 7.30pm with the bar open from 7, £4 — two years spent looking for the spring this district is named after. And life drawing at the Lamb, 7.30pm, £10, model and materials provided, just turn up.
Wednesday there is nothing on at all. I checked five separate sources and every one of them came back empty. Enjoy the quietest evening of the month.
Thursday, first day back, and Celebrate Surbiton starts — the station forecourt closed to traffic, street food and entertainment, 4.30pm to 8pm, free. It runs every Thursday through September. Good timing for a first-day-back tea that nobody has to cook.
Friday is the free Wellbeing Day at Queen Mary Hall on Cambridge Gardens, 11am to 2pm — health checks, haircuts, clothes, bike repairs, benefits and energy advice, soup and cake. That is in Kingston, not Surbiton, and I am telling you anyway. Then comedy at Alcheme on Brighton Road: bar at 7, first act at 8, £16.96 for three comedians.
The weekend. Saturday: Simply Stitching at Surbiton Library, 10.30am, free and all abilities; poetry at the cornerHOUSE, 10am, £5; the Repair Café at Kingston Library, 10.30am to 1pm, free, last slot half twelve — bring the broken thing; the East and South East Asian Culture Festival in Kingston Market Place from 11am, free; and wrestling in Long Ditton village hall, doors 6.30, £13.50 in advance and £20 on the door. Sunday: junior parkrun at Alexandra Rec, 9am, ages four to fourteen; the Long Ditton litter pick, 10am by the big tree on Fleece Road, kit provided and a hot drink after at the hockey club; and a free walking tour of Surbiton from the station at 11am — that one you do have to book.
Steve, who started the Sainsbury's car park business, has read the answer and is not mollified: “it makes sense, but the 1 hour for shoppers is ridiculous still.” Quite.
Welcome to Denise, to Ian and Mark in Berrylands, to David over by Lovelace, and to Nick, who between them asked for roadworks end dates, new pubs and restaurants, general events and pub quizzes. Nick — there are seven pub quizzes a week in this town, one of them tonight at the Waggon & Horses, £2 in for a £50 prize. A reader called Sat once mapped the lot, and I am running the whole map on Wednesday, because Wednesday is the day with nothing else on. Ian, the new-restaurants one I owe you properly — it is coming.
And a small correction of manners. On Friday I named the reader who sent in the Macmillan coffee morning at the Legion. She has asked me not to, and she is quite right that I should have checked first. So: the coffee morning is on Friday 25 September, 11am to 2pm, at the Royal British Legion on Hollyfield Road, cake donations welcome if they are homemade and come with a list of ingredients — and the person who told me about it would like to remain the person who told me about it. Noted permanently, with an apology.
Back tomorrow. Enjoy the last one.
Mike
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