Morning. Victoria Road was open again by Saturday — the earlier of the two dates, not today's. The buses off Hook Road now have an end date. And on Wednesday the council rewrites the plan that decides which of our roads get mended, for the first time in ten years.

At 7.30 on Wednesday evening at the Guildhall, the Place Committee is asked to adopt a Highway Infrastructure Asset Management Plan — the first full rewrite of how the borough looks after its roads since February 2016.

The report puts a price on what we drive and walk on: the network is the borough's most valuable asset, worth £837.96 million as of 2025 — 341.52km of road, 373.60km of pavement, 20.22km of cycle lane, 15,967 lamp posts, 62 bridges, 14,774 drains. Last year 26 resurfacing projects covered 7.2km of it, and more than 1,400 potholes were filled.

Reactive repair money is being squeezed — about £1m a year, down to £750,000 in 2025/26 — while the £2m-a-year capital pot has grown on government grants. That shift is the whole point: stop chasing the worst road first, and treat roads before they fail. It reckons £1 spent early on a surface saves £10 to £15 on rebuilding later.

Which roads win is set out plainly: work goes first to busy places — schools, shopping streets, town centres, bus routes and mainline stations. There is money riding on it: the Department for Transport hands out repair grants partly on how well a council shows it manages its network.

Public questions are the first item, and the public part of the meeting is open. Seething Wells is item eight the same night: the committee is asked to cut the Surbiton Neighbourhood Committee's updates from three a year to one. When that committee saw it on 8 September, some members worried fewer reports would leave residents less chance to track the site. Officers are also weighing whether a clean-up order on the old pumphouse is worth it: the last one served there was appealed by the owners, and seeing the appeal off cost the council around £30,000.

Stewart wrote in with the best explanation I have had for something this newsletter keeps tripping over: two official sources, two end dates, one hole in the road.

His account: a utility needs a licence from the council to dig and is fined if it over-runs, so it asks for longer than it expects to need — a ten-day licence for a seven-day job. The council publishes the licence date; the utility publishes the date it means to finish. Both are true; they are just not the same number. The padding also swallows surprises — he points to the Hook Road work hitting an old lead pipe that flooded the trench.

He is clear he is not an engineer and has picked this up from officials and papers, and points anyone wanting it first-hand at Councillor Nicola Nardelli. She is the deputy leader and holds the sustainable transport brief — and co-chairs the committee sitting on Wednesday.

On Friday I gave you two end dates and promised to say which stuck. The early one. A reader had the road open on Saturday morning, and this morning TfL's stop listings carry nothing and every local route is running a good service. The 4pm-today date was stale.

The Ace of Spades is still shut to traffic coming off Hook Road. UK Power Networks' page this morning still has the duct work outside the Shell garage running to 28 September, garage access only, diversion by Ditton Road and Ewell Road.

On the buses, the answer was sitting at a bus stop all along. A TfL notice at the Thornhill Road stops — reference PCI4839, photographed this month by Stewart — puts the 71, 465, 671, K4 and N65 on diversion from 6am on Tuesday 15 September to 11pm on Thursday 24 September. Viv had the diversion right. The notice does not say which roads each route takes, so her account is still the only one we have on that, and TfL's website never carried a word of it.

The Chessington-to-Kingston cable is a 10km job UKPN aims to finish by January 2027, and the next stretches are ours. Ewell Road gets its own drop-in on Thursday 1 October, 6 to 8pm, at Surbiton Hill Methodist Church.

The Hook Road drop-in is a week today, 28 September, 6 to 8pm at St Paul's Parish Hall, 224 Hook Road. The Ditton Road session, which a leaflet had down as a Monday in October that did not exist, now has a real date: Wednesday 11 November, 6 to 8pm, at The Maypole. On Villiers Road the joint-bay dig starts today at 71-77 and runs to 28 October, two-way lights and some parking bays suspended.

Nine days left of "the end of September", and that is still the only answer either South Western Railway or National Rail gives for when trains call at Berrylands again. No day, no time. If you walk past and see finished platforms or staff, tell me.

Today: clear and dry, climbing to 22° by late afternoon. Tomorrow is the warm one, up to 24°. Wednesday turns grey and damp, about 20°.

Thursday: Celebrate Surbiton on the station forecourt, 4.30 to 8, free — the last September one, but it runs again on 1 and 8 October. The council's list has Garrison Lane in Chessington shut Thursday and Friday for resurfacing, between Leatherhead Road and Chessington South station.

Friday: Macmillan coffee morning at the Royal British Legion on Hollyfield Road, 11 to 2. Homemade cakes wanted, with an ingredients list.

Saturday: Surbiton Festival, 10 to 4, free, across the town centre. Full run-down nearer the day.

Back tomorrow.

Mike