Author: Stu Bevan

After an extended review the Parish Council has reluctantly decided that it can no longer afford to operate the Village Hall and so it will close at the end of the year.

The Village Hall has been making a growing loss for a long time and whilst the Parish Council was happy to subsidise these losses, the situation is no longer sustainable.  Combined with statutory and other commitments, continuing the subsidy would have made the long term financial position of the Council untenable - in short we would have run out of money.

The increase in losses has been driven by a number of factors:

• Bookings have never returned to pre-covid levels and we do not believe we could recover them even if we did we have the resources to mount a sustained campaign
• Costs have increased significantly.   We have taken aggressive action to reduce all expenses and do not believe that they can be reduced further
• Our commitments elsewhere have grown (in particular those associated with maintenance) and to reduce those to make the costs of running the hall acceptable would, we believe, require actions that would be even more unpalatable to parishioners

The historical use of the building and its position in village life have made this a hard decision but it is one we believe the Parish Council have had to take.

We would like to thank all the people who have used it over the years and also to extend our apologies to those long term renters for whom this will undoubtedly create a problem.

Following the upgrading of the level crossings on the Guildford Reigate line we received some further information which may answers some questions being raised by parishioners - in particular why are the waiting times longer?

Many thanks for your email. I’ve attached the below as a narrative about the level crossing barrier down time at following our recent upgrades on the North Downs Line. Regarding your point about level crossings working in tandem, I can confirm all the crossings on this route operate independently from each other.

Tangley, Brook and Burrows level crossing used to use an Automatic Half Barrier system which operated using 1970s striking point technology. When a train reached a designated point on the railway, an alarm sounds and the barriers (which only cover half the road) were lowered, only rising when the train has cleared the crossing. This process occured without any intervention or visual confirmation by our signallers. These crossings were ranked as some of the riskiest on the Wessex route.

The AHB crossings could not continue to exist in their current form. To prevent Network Rail shutting the crossings entirely, they have been upgraded to either a Manually Controlled Full Barrier Crossing using CCTV in the case of Tangley, or a Manually Controlled Full Barrier Crossing using Obstacle Detection in the case of Brook and Burrows.

Now at Tangley, when a train approaches a new crossing, a signaller in the Guildford Area Signalling Centre will monitor the crossing remotely, lowering the barriers when safe to do so. At Brooks and Burrows, the barriers will begin to close as before, while a radar continuously scans the crossing to make sure nothing has been trapped in between the barriers. All three crossings now have barriers that fully block the road.

The new crossings have been designed to be easier to maintain, and our analysis shows the work will decrease the risk of an incident by 97%.

This operation has led to longer wait times at the crossing, in this case the average barrier time has increased post our commissioning works in September. This new time is in line with our national barrier down time standards. The increased barrier down time is to make sure the crossing is and remains clear during the entirety of its operation. The table below details the changes:

Crossing	Existing Down Time	Forecast Down Time
Tangley (AHB to MCB-CCTV)	45 seconds	155-180 seconds
Chilworth (MCB-CCTV to MCB-CCTV)	105-165 seconds	125-165 seconds
Brook (AHB to MCB-OD)	40 seconds	149-172 seconds
Burrows Lane (AHB to MCB-OD)	40 seconds	110-165 seconds

We have a legal responsibility to reduce risk on the railway, this involves upgrading AHB crossings where the risk to all users is at an unacceptable level, and our teams will continue to strike a balance between running the railway and being a responsible neighbour to the local community.

As ever if you have any further questions please do not hesitate to let me know.

Kind regards,

Harry Riley (He/Him/His)
Public Affairs Manager
Southern: Wessex

Another notification of roadworks - traffic calming measure works on The Street, Shalford - starting on Monday 6th Oct. 

Safety Improvement Works

13 Oct

For 4 Weeks

See below for a map for the extents of our works – works will be carried out from Tillingbourne River Bridge to the junction with Kings Road.

Sometimes our plans must change, often due to bad weather or problems on other works in the same programme which can have a knock-on effect. If anything changes with the details of these works, we will let you know.

You and your residents can also find up to date details of the works on www.surreycc.gov.uk/roadworks