OPINIONS on Surrey being split into unitary authorities are being sought at a public gathering arranged by Woking Debates on Wednesday April 9.
Our aim is to achieve a local consensus on the Government’s intention to replace the county council and 11 borough and district councils with single-tier local government.
The Woking Debates committee is seeking to widen interest and involve more people in its discussion events. We are trying out a new venue and a different day of the week and time. Previously, debates were on Saturday mornings at Woking United Reformed Church.
The April 9 debate is being held in the lounge at Woking Football Club’s stadium in Kingfield, from 7.30pm to 9pm.
“Until now, we have held debates at which different viewpoints have been put forward, with speakers and the public having their say, but no conclusions have been reached,” said Woking Debates chairman Keith Scott.
“We want to refresh the format into something like a citizens’ assembly, achieving a view on a subject that is of importance to the public.”
The intention to establish two or three unitary authorities for Surrey will be debated. Unitary councils take on most local government services, from road maintenance to social housing.
They have already been established for neighbouring Berkshire, much of the North, in Greater London and for many big city communities.
Surrey is one of the first counties to be targeted by the Government for creating new unitaries in England. It is consulting on the proposals, which it says will save money and be more efficient than the two-tier system.
Woking Borough Council leader Anne-Marie Barker will be one of the panel members and we aim to have other local politicians putting the views to the audience.
“Come along to find out more about this process, how it affects you and give your opinions to the people involved in carrying this out,” said Keith. “Of special interest is where Woking will fit in with a unitary authority, and what will happen to the borough’s massive debt.
“Everyone with an interest what is done with their council tax will be welcomed, and it would be great if young people attend. It’s their future as taxpaying individuals and those who receive local authority services that is being settled, and they should have a say in what happens to our councils.”
There is no need to book a place – just turn up and have your say.
MEMBERS of Woking Action for Peace – the local branch of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament – and their friends in Woking Debates commemorated the first use of nuclear weapons in war last August.
The 2024 event was be on the actual anniversary of the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima in Japan, Tuesday, August 6. People gathered in the evening on the towpath of the Wey Navigation at Send to remember the hundreds of thousands of people who died in Hiroshima and then Nagasaki in 1945.
Estimates of total deaths in Hiroshima range from 100,000 to 180,000, out of a population of 350,000. Casualties from Nagasaki are thought to be between 50,000 and 100,000. By 1950, more than 340,000 people had died as a result and generations were poisoned by radiation.
It is important to remind people of the horrors of nuclear weapons – and the thousands of weapons that exist today that are many times more powerful than the bombs that fell on the Japanese cities.
Evidence is mounting that the United States Air Force is preparing to site some of its nuclear weapons in the UK, specifically at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. The airbase previously hosted US nuclear weapons for more than five decades, from 1954. Following years of protests by CND and others, the weapons were removed in 2008, but not before nuclear accidents endangered the local community.
During our commemoration, tealights in half grapefruit and orange skins were floated on the canal, in a traditional Japanese ceremony that commemorates the dead. We will be holding a similar ceremony in August 2025.
