Sutton Council Meetings and a useful Local Campaigners Participation Toolkit

Meetings and Resources

As well as now having Labour Councillors again in Sutton, Labour Party Activists regularly attend Council Meetings and Local Committee Meetings.

Below is a useful 10 point toolkit to make the most of your engagement with the Council and other local public bodies.

You can also view all forthcoming Sutton Council Committee Meetings here.

A few key types of meeting and their forthcoming dates are at the links below:

• Full Council meetings here.

• Strategy and Resources Committee meetings here.

• Planning Committee meetings here.

• Sutton Local Committee meetings here.

• Cheam North and Worcester Park Local Committee meetings here.

• Sutton South, Cheam and Belmont Local Committee meetings here.

You can also read the Sutton Council Forward Plan of decisions here.

You can furthermore search for planning applications here and the Sutton Local Plan which sets out policies that you can quote if making a formal objection can be read here.

Local Campaigners Participation Toolkit

Local residents and Local Labour campaigners may find the information on the following Council and other public body contact details and public engagement processes useful. It is broken down into 10 points and written in broad sequential order so if you are campaigning for local change you can use it to escalate a local issue higher if you are not satisfied with the outcome at each stage.

Some useful general campaign planning advice from the Trade Union Congress (TUC) is here along with other online global social change sites here and here.

If there any other organisations we should add to the local list below do let us know.

1. Check what your MP is up to with They Work for You.

2. Contact your MP, London Assembly Representative of Local Councillor with Write To Them.

3. Report a local issue directly to Sutton Council’s Contact Forms page  or by using Fix My Street. Other forms of contact by phone or post are here.

4. Other large organisations with a local connection contact details are here:

• Sutton Housing Partnership who are responsible for Sutton Council Housing

• Encompass who provide housing aid services in Sutton.

• Veolia who provide waste collection services in Sutton.

• Viridor who are responsible for running the Beddington Incinerator.

• idverde Sutton who provide parks and grounds maintenance services in Sutton

• Everyone Active who run Leisure Centres in Sutton.

• Sutton Police Safer Neighbourhood Teams and Sutton Police in general. For complaints against the Police there is the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

• Epsom & St Helier NHS Trust for NHS Hospital and Acute Services.

• NHS South West London for GP and Primary Care Services. Also Sutton Primary Care Network and Sutton GP Surgery Contact List.

• Sutton Healthwatch can be sent feedback over issues relating to Health and Social Care in Sutton.

• Transport for London for Tube, DLR, Tram and Bus services & cycling provision. For railway services the key three local ones are Southern Rail, South Western Rail and Thameslink Rail. For complaints over transport services London Travelwatch is a statutory independent transport watchdog who use evidence to campaign to improve journeys, and advocate for all people travelling in London.

• Greater London Authority which includes the Mayor or London and London Assembly

• Government Departments and Non-Departmental Public Bodies – a list of 24 Government Departments and 583 other public bodies.

5. Sutton Citizen Advice Bureau and South West London Law Centres may be of use if you are referring a person for more detailed advice over an issue. If it is employment related it will likely be better for them to join a trade union and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) Trade Union Finder can help.

6. If you want to start an e-petition to the Council you can do so here.

7. If you want to present a Petition on any local issue, establish a Deputation of 10 people to speak on an agenda item, speak on a planning application that impacts on you or wish to ask an oral or written question this link provides initial information. We can advise in more detail as to what exactly works best. If you want to ask an oral question at a Council meeting or submit a written question you can do so here.

8. If you want to submit a Freedom of Information (FOI) Request, this link is a very useful online system to do that.

9. If you wish to make a formal complaint about a Council Service you need to go through a formal 3 stage process and at all times describe the issue as a “formal complaint” under the “3 stage complaints process”, otherwise the Council may consider the issue to only be a “comment” if you don’t describe it yourself as a complaint. This link sets out the process. Other Complaints services for Police, Health & Social Care and Transport are also listed above. You can then only subsequently go to the Parliamentary Ombudsman to make a relevant complaint to them if you have exhausted the Council’s and other organisations Complaints processes. The Ombudsman sets out how they handle complaints here.

10. At some point you may want to use the local media and we can advise further. Local Media covering our area includes:

Websites/Newspapers

• Sutton Guardian – contact here.

• My London (Formerly the Croydon Advertiser Group) – contact here.

• Inside Croydon – contact here.

• Evening Standard – contact here.

Radio

• Radio Jackie – contact here.

• LBC Radio – contact here.

• BBC Radio London – contact here.

TV

• London Live – contact here.