Claire Coutinho News Update – February 2025

We are delighted to announce that Claire welcomed her son, Rafael Peter Hawksbee, into the world on 17th January. While she takes some well-deserved rest, Claire’s team is working as normal and we are ready to help you with anything you need. Please feel free to continue to contact us on claire.coutinho.mp@parliament.uk if there is anything we might be able to help with.

While Claire is on maternity leave we still want to provide residents with an update on what we are working on locally and what has been happening in Parliament each month.

The Chancellor’s speech on growth in February contained a commitment to a third runway at Heathrow, but stopped short of giving a firm commitment on potential expansion of Gatwick. The airport is acutely important to the lives and livelihoods of those who rely on Gatwick for their jobs – either directly or indirectly. We have started reaching out to local campaigners to ascertain what mitigating measures they would most like to see introduced if expansion is approved, and how we can work together to find solutions for residents who will be affected by flight path changes, increased capacity and construction disruption in the short to medium term.

We will be pushing for a number of measures including an increase in noise monitors across the constituency to gather accurate, reliable data on how flight paths are affecting residents, better noise mitigation for local residents who will be affected by any construction work and flights, improvements to sewage treatment works, better car parking on-site and better traffic monitoring.

The Government has also decided to cancel this year’s local elections. This is being done to pave the way for the abolition of district and county councils, which will be replaced with larger, single-tier ‘unitary’ local authorities. Councils are currently drafting their proposals for an interim plan, which is due by 21st March, with the Secretary of State Angela Rayner then making a decision after the submission of a full proposal by 9th May. There is no national public consultation, but our local District and Borough Councils will be looking to run consultations between 21st March and 9th May.

In the House of Commons, the Opposition has forced a vote in both Houses on cancelling the elections – something that the Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission has raised concerns about. We are clear that local government restructuring should not be imposed by top-down Whitehall diktat – the Government have been rushing this decision, and there has been a severe lack of effort to gather consensus within two-tier areas across the country.

We believe that more time should be taken to understand how these changes will affect the structure of local government, and to give residents an opportunity to share their views. In East Surrey, representatives of the district and borough councils and Surrey County Council are meeting regularly to discuss the proposal that will be submitted to the Secretary of State by 21st March, and particularly what should happen with the significant debts accrued by Woking Borough Council. We will keep residents updated as developments take place.

It is disappointing that Lloyds Bank has confirmed the closure of their branch in Caterham. Cash Access, who have confirmed they will be opening a Banking Hub in Caterham to maintain services for residents, and in a meeting they confirmed that Lloyds will not be able to close until the Banking Hub is open. An out-of-hours cash point has also been recommended. For more information on the services they will be providing, please visit www.clairecoutinho.com/news or send an email to claire.coutinho.mp@parliament.uk.

Finally, as Network Rail and GTR were considering changes to the next rail timetable, we created an East Surrey Rail Survey to offer residents a platform to share their ideas. Over 500 people got in touch to share their views, which, at the time of writing, we are currently processing. We will be meeting with Network Rail and GTR in the next few weeks to go through residents’ feedback, with the aim of reviewing and adjusting the timetable to better suit the needs of local residents.

-Team Claire