Tim Crowther

Tim Crowther

Tim Crowther has been a Liberal Democrat councillor for Weybridge North for ten years.  He plays a prominent role in Elmbridge borough Council, particularly in Town Planning matters, promoting affordable housing, and as Chairman of the Community Affairs Overview and Scrutiny committee. He also has a strong interest in open spaces, and is a trustee of the Open Spaces Society.

Tim was first elected to the council in May 1999 and re-elected in 2000, 2003 and 2007. He regards the two Weybridge wards as the most diverse and interesting area of Elmbridge. With an electorate of 6200 the two wards include town centre shops businesses and public buildings, churches, schools, a great variety of housing and wide areas of public open space.  

With a career background in housing, property and planning, Tim has been an active member of the West Area Planning subcommittee for the past nine years.  With meetings and site visits every three weeks this is a demanding commitment.  With the introduction of public speaking at planning meetings and with all planning applications available on the internet, there is now much more public involvement in the planning process.  Applications have to be considered on their individual planning merits, there are no precedents in planning, but there have been many occasions over the years when Tim has been able to support residents’ objections both at planning meetings and at planning appeals.  The standard of development now being undertaken is higher than it used to be.  Public involvement in the planning process can take some credit for this, Tim says, but members of planning committees have had an input too.    

Open spaces

Tim also takes a special interest in open space issues, commons and rights of way. He is a trustee of the Open Spaces Society, Britain’s oldest national conservation body, as well as being a member of the Surrey Countryside Access Forum and the Thames Landscape Strategy member review group.  He is enthusiastic about the council’s programme of heathland restoration, a scheme which fuelled such controversy a few years ago but which is now widely supported by the public. Tim now wants to see the introduction of grazing on common land in Elmbridge.  

Affordable housing

Until recently, Tim was a member of the Surrey Supporting People Commissioning Body which has an annual budget of some £18m for helping vulnerable people live independently in their own homes.  “Experience on this committee was an eye-opener for me”, Tim says, “and I was enormously impressed by the achievements yet only too well aware that much more needed to be done.”    We have a housing crisis in the borough. The current need for good quality affordable (subsidised) housing is desperate, yet provision is woefully inadequate and looks like remaining so for a good while to come. 

Tim is chairman of the Affordable Housing Member Panel of the council.  It is a frustrating situation, Tim says. The council draws up policies to ensure that 40 per cent of new housing is in the affordable category and developers make sure that they find ways of circumventing the rules.  The result is that new housing is designed (not always successfully) to meet market demands rather than real housing needs. The council has accumulated a £1.3m fund specifically for affordable housing provision but the decision making processes for spending this money do not exist. The recession was thought to provide real opportunities for tackling homelessness but house building of any kind  now appears to have ground to a halt.  Government housing targets, which caused such uproar locally, are now irrelevant. Tim is a founder trustee of Elmbridge Rentstart, a charity set up in 2001 alleviate homelessness in the borough amongst single people and childless couples on low incomes.  

Chairman of Community Affairs Overview & Scrutiny

Tim is chairman of the community affairs overview and scrutiny committee, one of the three O+S committees of the council. The main function of O+S committees is holding the cabinet to account, monitoring council performance and reviewing and developing policy.  It is a challenging role, Tim says, and we are only just beginning to realise the potential potential. Our remit covers housing, social affairs leisure and culture but we are not confined to council responsibilities. We can scrutinize external organisations too and are there to reflect the voice and concerns of the public. There are growing numbers of examples where the O+S committees have been able to influence council decisions.  

Tim and Rosemary have lived in Weybridge for over 35 years.  They one daughter and three sons – a nutritionist, an aeronautical engineer, a computer programmer and a countryside ranger - and five grandchildren.