*URGENT NEWS**

Mobile Mast

We have a suspicion that T mobile are going to try to put the Sandown Road mast up on Phoenix House this weekend (Sat -Sun). Please join our protest & park your car, particularly Sunday am from 6am.
CWRA Chairman , David Rothberg

A View from the Top of The Hill

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View of Cane Hill Hospital

The next three years?
Are the next three years a time of unprecedented opportunity or just very uncertain times for the future of Coulsdon? There are some definites - there will be a new Sainsbury's on the Pinewood site. It is highly likely there will be large developments on the Cane Hill site (housing, commercial and possibly some leisure) and on the Lion Green Road site (new Waitrose, housing, leisure centre with pool and dry facilities, maybe even a badly-needed library with increased facilities). So will this all produce a vibrant, attractive town centre? Well the problem is the many uncertainties; - Will we the public be able to influence what happens in a meaningful way? How do TfL, the Council and developers plan to do this? - How much car parking will there be and where? - Will the changes being funded by TfL mainly (Phase 2) and due to start within 12 months make sense in logistical and financial terms? - What is going to happen to the Red Lion site, current Waitrose site (if Waitrose move to Lion Green), library site (if we get a new library on Lion Green) and to the roads around the centre with the increased vehicular and pedestrian traffic. - Where is the centre of the town centre going to be, indeed do we really need a town square to give us an identity now that so much more is likely to happen than we could have conceived of 3 years ago? Does it even matter to have a centre? Banstead is thriving without one. We all need to press our local councillors to take a lead. Although it is some time off, the Coulsdon West Residents' Association AGM is to be held on Tuesday, 3 June, 7.45pm at Coulsdon Community Centre when we will have them and also the Council Leader Mike Fisher and many of the other key players reporting back to us, your opportunity to ask questions and influence events. Don't miss it!
CWRA Chairman , David Rothberg

The Planning Application is Now In

127 Brighton Road (Sainsbury’s)
Demolition of existing buildings; erection of seven-storey building to comprise a retail unit, 28 two-bedroom flats, 9 one-bedroom flats, 2 three-bedroom and 1 four-bedroom flats and 253 parking spaces; formation of vehicular access onto Station Road.

Money Available for Local Causes

Due largely to good housekeeping, the success of the advertising in our Newsletter and the discontinuation of the Rubbish Run we have amassed some money which we would like to put to good use locally.
Therefore we are asking you to come along to our AGM on June 3th when we would like you to tell us of any loca lproject that you think we should support. If you are unable to attend please contact one of the committee members who will be pleased to put your case for you.
All suggestions can then be put to the vote and acted upon.
CWRA Hon Treasurer, Carole Constable

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Can we learn the lessons from our past and can we do our sums?
In Coulsdon, we would like a shop that sells menswear, ladieswear, music, haberdashery, cycles, furniture; and a cinema, etc. etc. We have had all of these and they are no longer there. I hear it nearly every day, we miss our local bookshop and regret its passing, but if we had given it enough business would it have gone? We lost our cinema because a newer and bigger one opened in Caterham, that one closed because of a better one opening in Purley, and where is the Purley cinema now? How much business do our shops and businesses in Coulsdon need? Let's look at reality, the facts and the figures. When we spend £1 in our shops, the retailer has had to spend between 50p and 90p on the item that we have purchased, small shops buy fewer items and get smaller discounts from wholesalers than huge supermarkets - this is a fact of life and we have to deal with it! In order to sell that item, he has had to pay a rent of approaching £1000 per month for the shop premises, he has had to pay Council Tax, another £500 to £800 per month, he has had to pay staff, minimum pay £5.52 per hour for anyone aged 22 or over, he has to pay them that when they are at work, when they are on holiday (and the government is now increasing the number of days holiday that employees have to be paid for each year) and when they are sick and then he has to pay just a little bit more to the government for the privilege of removing someone from the government's unemployment listing, the Employer's National Insurance Contributions. If you pay for just one member of staff, that employee gets no lunch-breaks without the shop closing and cannot be ill or take any holidays, so you have to have at least two members of staff - total cost of employing two full-time staff members is around £2000 per month at minimum pay. Using these figures (and based on a shop being open 6 days per week, 52 weeks per year, without any bank holidays), a shop needs to make a gross profit in excess of £150 per day, which means that more than £600 has to go into the till every day, and the same is true for every single shop in Coulsdon. Anything over that figure will help to pay for electricity, gas, insurances, property maintenance, stock lost to theft or accidental damage - the list of their expenses go on and on. At this level our shop owner doesn't actually make a single penny! How much do you contribute to the maintenance of our shops in Coulsdon? The answer … if we want shops in Coulsdon, then we must give them our custom and so our money!
CWRA Committee Rep , Peter Appleford

Note from the Webmaster

Well, I have finally updated the website on 18th May and the CWRA site is now back up to date (well, almost!). And in the nick of time as well, as we face into one of the biggest challenges that faces Coulsdon. The sheer amount of regeneration , new stores, car parks, swimming pools and such being planned means a lot of change, which of course must be for the good of the people of Coulsdon.
That's where the CWRA can come into play. We will take Croydon Council, TFL and any other stakeholders to task, but to do this, we need your views. Please contact any member of the CWRA committee, and get involved in the regeneration of Coulsdon! If there any features you would like to see on the site, please also drop us a line! Richard Thurbon, Webmaster