Langley Vale Village Hall was full on Friday evening for a meeting with Inspector Clifton-Sinclair Borough Police Commander and Tom Sammes, General Manager at Epsom Racecourse about the serious public order incidents which occurred ahead of the 2024 Debry Festival and the arrangements for the 2025 event.

The meeting had been convened by the Woodcote (Epsom) Residents Society and the three Woodcote and Langley Vale Ward Councillors who are also members of the Epsom & Walton Downs Conservators – Bernice Frost, Liz Frost and Steven McCormick. The 5 of them were joined on the panel at the meeting by Helen Maguire, our new MP and Shanice Gladman, Nonsuch RA Councillor who is also Chair of the Crime and Disorder Committee.

The Borough Police Commander and Mr Sammes spent an hour and a half answering questions about what the residents’ saw as the failings of the police response to the serious incidents that took place and the security arrangements more generally for the 2024 Derby.  A question was also asked about what action the Conservators could take under the Act of Parliament to mitigate the risks to the local residents of the travellers encampment.  A number of suggestions were made about how the security arrangements could be tightened up and extended and everyone agreed that communication with the village needed to improve.

The Police, the Racecourse and the Epsom & Downs Conservators all committed to take account in their review of the 2024 Festival of the very real concerns of residents had about their safety and their requests for changes to the arrangements for 2025.

It was agreed there would be further meetings with residents in September/October to consult on the proposed plans for 2025 before the arrangements were finalised and again in March/April 2025 ahead of the festival.

The demolition work is complete.

Notes from the farm

In late June we managed to bale and safely store the first batch of our hay crop. As we have lost the barns at Langley Vale, we now have a much longer journey to other barns we have managed to rent writes Michael Jelley. This has significantly increased our costs and made what were long days into much longer days, working well into the night. However, the first batch yielded well and appears to be of good quality. June hay always smells and looks so much better than August hay.

Lambing went well this year, with most of the ewes that lambed producing twins. We were disappointed with the performance of one of our rams as he only managed to produce lambs from three of the twenty ewes he visited. However, the lambs we have are all growing well and enjoying the summer sunshine. We will wean them at the end of the summer and they will then graze the Woodland Trust’s meadows during the winter.

Our wheat at Langley Vale is just starting to die off, leading up to harvest in early August. You may have seen a large patch of purple weed in the field below the village – this is brome grass, a weed that is very difficult to control and will affect the quality of grain we have to sell. Hopefully we will be able to clean most of it out with the combine harvester as milling wheat is going to be in high demand this year, hopefully commanding a premium over wheat for animal feed. The fields will then be rested over winter before we sow malting barley in the spring. These winter months are used to control weeds, such as the brome and correct any nutrient levels in the soil.

Epsom Common Discovery Day – Sunday 7 July 10.00 am – 4.30 pm

Guided walks to find out about the flora and fauna of the Common. Booking is advisable.

Booking details can be found on www.epsomcommon.org.uk.

Langley Vale Village Hall -12 July 7pm

Representatives of Epsom & Ewell Borough Council, the Jockey Club and the Police Borough Commander will be at the Langley Vale Village Hall on the evening of July to hear about the concerns Langley Vale residents have about events in the run up to the 2024 Derby Festival.

If you plan to attend please let Bernice Froud know by email on bfroud@epsom-ewell.gov.uk

Ewell Village Fair – Saturday 13 July – St Mary’s Church & Grounds

St Mary’s Church is holding its annual Ewell Village Day, This year is really special as we are teaming up with 135 Geographic Squadron (Reserves), whose Barracks are in our Parish, and Epsom and Ewell Council, along with the Royal British Legion Epsom and Ewell to celebrate some of the wonderful aspects of Ewell Village’s life and history. 

St Mary’s is celebrating 175 years of the Church being in our “new” building, and the Squadron are celebrating 75 years since their formation and the 25^th anniversary of them being granted the Freedom of the Borough.

As part of the celebrations , from 10.00am the Squadron and Military band will be marching from the Barracks in Welbeck Close to Bourne Hall, the St Mary’s Morris Men and other teams will be dancing on London Road and the Church will be hosting many musical events through the day, up until 4.00pm.

Surrey Residents’ Association and Independents Group

If you are interested in getting involved in independent politics in Surrey please come along on 27 July 2024. We would love to see you.

Demolition works continue and the scaffolding of the tall chimney is now complete ready for the top half of the chimney to be removed by hand. This work will start on 11 June.

Demolition of Farm now speeding up. The first grain silo has been destroyed – but our whitethroats, stonechats and owl are hanging in there for now.