Epsom town centre to be spruced up by Surrey County Council

5.37.00pm GMT Mon 8th Dec 2008

A number of areas in Epsom High Street are in need of care and attention

Epsom town centre is to get a £60,000 spruce up, thanks to the borough's five county councillors.

When Surrey County Council "found" an additional £5 million in July for additional pre-election highways improvements, £266,000 of this went to Epsom and Ewell. Our local county councillors decided to allocate £60,000 of it to Epsom town centre, where a recent report to Epsom and Ewell Borough Council had highlighted a number of the areas that local people know are in need of care and attention.

The number of road signs causing clutter will be reduced by getting rid of signs that are no longer needed. The number of posts will be further reduced by moving some signs onto other existing signposts. Railings between the pavement and the road will be repaired, along with some road signs.

Around the Spread Eagle junction the bodies of the illuminated 'keep left' bollards are to be replaced with heritage-style equivalents more in keeping with the area's historic character.

Many residents cycle into Epsom and cyclists can look forward to more cycle stands, especially near the station and around the market place.

This puddle by the bus stop was caused by poor supervision when the brick paving was laid in 2003

Some of the paving will be repaired, especially in locations where puddles form when it rains.

Lib Dem county councillor Colin Taylor is particularly pleased that action will be taken at last to deal with the puddles that form near the bus stops in the market place. "I have been trying to get the RA councillors to agree to this for the last five years, after the two councils jointly made such a mess when the brick paving was installed in 2003", he said. "Let's hope the borough council joins in by removing the heap of disused frames for market stalls."

"We all know that these highways improvements, along with the recent flurry of road repairs, are due to concern amongst the Conservatives running County Hall that they will lose votes next June due to their failure to maintain Surrey's roads properly", he added, "but we have been glad to cooperate in pointing out the roads most in need of repair and the other highways works needing attention, like the market place".

It is hoped that all of this work will be done by the end of March. The council also plans to repaint some of the railings and lamp columns but will probably not do this until April or May when the weather is better.