Morning. There is a date for Berrylands at last, and it came from one of you rather than from Network Rail. Also: what that notice on Hook Road actually says, and what became of the station car park.

Julian wrote last night. National Rail is offering him trains out of Berrylands from Monday 28 September — platform 1, 06:03, Waterloo at 06:31, £15.30 return, direct. He sent the screenshot. The trains on it are real; the date is his word, because the screen does not show which day he searched.

Every official notice is vaguer. National Rail's engineering page gives the closure as 11 May to Wednesday 30 September. Network Rail says only “late September 2026”, with snagging into November. Neither has announced a reopening day.

So the ticket machine is two days ahead of the paperwork, which usually means the timetable has been loaded — one of the last things to happen before a station opens. It is not a promise. But since May it is the first actual number anybody has seen. Julian says the bunting is going up.

On Friday I asked what the notice at the Thornhill Road bus stops said. Stewart photographed it, so here it is.

From 06:00 Tuesday 15 September until 23:00 Thursday 24 September, routes 71, 465, 671, K4 and N65 go on diversion. Hook Road is partly closed for electrical cable replacement by UK Power Networks.

Where to stand instead. 71, 671, N65 towards Chessington: Upper Brighton Road / Ditton Road, or Hook Road / Elmcroft Drive. 465 towards Dorking: Upper Brighton Road / Ditton Road, or Hook Road / Hook Parade. K4 towards Mansfield Park: Hook Road / Ash Tree Close, or Hook Road / Hook Parade. Buses serve all stops on request while diverted.

Ten days, five routes, and it is on no council roadworks list. That list was updated yesterday. Hook Road is not on it.

Monday. Victoria Road shuts at the Brighton Road junction, twenty-four hours a day, until the 21st. Raised table works. Still no word on whether that is new work or a second go at the ramp built last spring.

Villiers Avenue has two separate UK Power Networks jobs: an emergency repair near Eversley Road to Thursday, then a cable installation near Cheyne Hill from 2 October to 4 November. Ewell Road signals stay to 28 October — the council banner about finishing by 28 August belongs to a different, finished job. And Raeburn Avenue, which Simon reported on Wednesday, is still on no list at all.

Alexandra remembered a consultation about flats on the station car park, with the old ticket office becoming a café. Jonathan found it: surbitonforward.com, which belongs to Solum — Kier Property and Network Rail together.

The scheme was 243 flats, six to seventeen storeys, with a 250-space multi-storey replacing the 446 spaces there today. Three sessions ran between December 2023 and January 2024, and Solum expected to apply that April. It never did. Kingston Labour and the local Conservatives both objected to the tower, and the Kingston upon Thames Society called the massing “entirely inappropriate”. The site still says feedback is being considered. Two and a half years on, that is where it sits.

Charlie sent a poster I should have run yesterday: the Antelope beer festival, 87 Maple Road, is on its last two days. Thirty craft kegs, twenty casks, ten ciders, a barbecue, free entry, live music from 8pm tonight.

Also today: the Seething Village Fete, St Andrew's Square, 1pm to 5pm, free · St Matthew's tower open for Heritage Open Days, 10 to 3, free · Meet the Neighbours on St George's lawn, Hamilton Avenue, Tolworth, 12 to 4 · Warhammer at the library, 2pm · scuba taster at Red Lion Business Park, 4pm, £70 · the Halcyon String Quartet at St Andrew's church on Maple Road — the church, not the square — 7.30, £21.60 · Fossey Tango at the Flyer, 9pm.

Tomorrow: junior parkrun at Alexandra Recreation Ground, 9am, four to fourteen · the allotments at Knollmead want hands, 2pm · the pet service at St Mary's, Long Ditton, 4pm.

Tuesday: Empty Chairs at the Prince of Wales, 7pm, free · Birds of the Horn of Africa at St Matthew's school, 7.30 · drawing at the Lamb, 7.30, £10. Wednesday: a bat walk from St Andrew's Square, 7pm · the Hogsmill talk at Tiffin, 7pm, free · Planning Committee at the Guildhall, 7.30 — two applications, Worcester Park and Kingston Hill, nothing of ours. Thursday: Celebrate Surbiton on the station forecourt, 4.30.

Friday: Namaste Kingston's Nepal flood relief dinner at Hollyfield School, 6.30. Next Saturday: the farmers' market on Maple Road, 9 to 1 — and the trains stop, with the New Malden lines shut all weekend and nothing running Waterloo to Chessington South. The 26th: the Surbiton Festival, 10 to 4, free, more than a hundred stalls, Victoria Road and St Andrew's Road closed to traffic. The parade still has no published time. Fourth time of asking.

Two from Kingston Nub News. Signature on Ewell Road put eight Kingston and Surbiton officers through dementia awareness training this week. And Tilly O'Brien has a Surbiton family made homeless after four years in temporary housing, evicted in March and in budget hotels since — worth your five minutes.

Wendy and Claude both joined this week because a friend forwarded them this email. That is the only way this thing grows, so thank you.

Back tomorrow.

Mike