Mole Valley's Liberal Democrat administration have agreed to cut grant funding to the Gatwick Greenspace Partnership from January 2025.
Gatwick Greenspace Partnership is an important community project that works to protect people, wildlife and the countryside in and around Dorking and Horley. They look after the woodlands and sites of special scientific interest at Glover's Wood, Edolph's Copse and Hammond's Copse with the help of hardworking volunteers, which is home to newts, dragonflies and 27 ancient woodland indicator species. They also advise parish councils on protecting local wildlife sites and work with the environment agency on brooks and streams.
We believe that for all the talk Mole Valley Liberal Democrats like to give around looking the environment, it is an incredibly short sighted measure that will only save residents £5,000 in 2024/25, which is 5.7p per resident. The savings could be much better made if the Liberal Democrat administration stopped funding vanity projects such as the £6.1million spent on Dorking Halls refurbishment but, disappointingly, they have decided to cut grant funding to a community project that looks after the countryside in Mole Valley.
Helyn Clack, Surrey County Councillor for Dorking Rural says: "Speaking to local district councillors, unbelievably, they say they were unaware of this decision, which they agreed in the February budget but which has only just come to light. We get little enough from Gatwick Airport which lies in the County of Sussex, so that all their valuable business rates go to Crawley, but we get all the disbenefits such as congested rural roads which damage our local infrastructure and noise day and night from overflying. Surely by rejecting this partnership with Gatwick, Mole Valley Liberal Democrats are once again turning their backs on the villages in the rural south."
Marisa Heath, Conservative Parliamentary Spokesperson for Dorking & Horley says: "There is a lot of talk about environmental leadership from the Liberal Democrat councillors but this indicates it is just talk and they are not putting our green spaces and nature at the forefront of their decision making. It is a small sum of money but it speaks volumes about how they view these community projects and the volunteers who all give up so much time to look after nature. As an environmentalist I am deeply disappointed in this decision."
