Next Monday the new bus service to Hinchley Wood School will finally start, after three years of untiring campaigning by the parents.

I've written about this before, and how they had to involve me as they were getting nowhere. I found that communication with Transport for London was dire, so brought in Edward Davey MP, and Caroline Pigeon, who chairs the Transport Committee on Greater London Assembly.

Finally we managed to cut through all the nonsense, and TfL accepted that there was a business case for a new bus route.

So every school day, morning and afternoon, the 467 route will be diverted at the Ace to go down to the roundabout near the school. There's even a convenient, disused bus layby in just the right spot.

£58,000 is sitting in the Grassroots Fund for voluntary organisations in Kingston, and the money must be distributed before September. Anything not used reverts to the Government - and we wouldn't want that, would we?

One of the Chessington-based charities that I am involved with has successfully bid for a grant, and it is pretty simple to apply, with up to £5,000 on offer. The Grassroots Fund is administered in Kingston by Thames Community Foundation.

You can read everything you need to know here, but I thought I would entice you to apply with a quick summary.

To be eligible, your group does not have to be a registered charity, but it must:

• Be a small not-for-profit, third sector voluntary or community group, active in their local community for not less than twelve months before the date of your application.
• Have income of less than £30,000 per year taken as an average over the last three years.
• Be volunteer-led
• Be connected with and/or meeting the needs of the local community
• Have a governing document (constitution or a set of rules).

They can't fund schools, police, national organisations, party political or religious activity, or organisations that solely benefit animals or plants. But that still leaves a lot of small local organisations and clubs who could benefit. So please pass this information on to anyone who you think might be interested in applying.

Just to report that yesterday evening we gave planning permission for 6 flats to be built on the St Mary's Church Hall site in Church Lane.

This is the old building between the British Legion and St Mary's School.

The church has now taken over the old Youth Club premises between the British Legion and the church itself, and has renamed it the St Mary's Centre. The old hall is now no longer needed, and is not in good shape anyway, so the development will help to fund the new school building and the St Mary's Centre.

When I first got into politics back in the 1970s the buzz word among Liberals (as we then were) was 'pavement politics'. This cleverly referred both to the issues we should be concentrating on, and our method of campaigning. Indeed, Focus was born back then, and was a radical approach to doing politics on a micro-local scale.

I mention that because at South of the Borough Neighbourhood last night we were talking about - pavements.

The Committee had just £104,900 to spend in 2010-2011 on relaying roads and pavements across the whole Neighbourhood. That amount does not go far. Road resurfacing costs anything from £10,000 for a short stretch of road, up to £100,000 or more for a long road. Pavements, oddly enough, can be even more expensive.

We decided to put the whole sum towards pavements. The highways officers had carried out a complete assessment of all the pavements, and had gone back again after the bad weather. They had ranked the pavements in order of priority.

The outcome is that only the four stretches of pavement which emerged as most in need of replacement will be treated. They are Frimley Road (evens from 18 to 86), Gilders Road (between Filby and Billockby), Frimley Road(between 19 and 63) and Stormont Way (both sides).

It doesn't mean that roads themselves will not be repaired.

This fund was for 'planned highways maintenance' that is, for pre-planned large scale projects. There is also a fund for 'responsive highways maintenance' which deals with all the repairs, potholes etc. In another part of the agenda we also agreed to transfer the Neighbourhood's budget underspend of £37,400 to responsive maintenance so that it could be used immediately to deal with problems caused by the snow and ice.

The Spar shop at the garage at the top of Somerset Avenue applied some months ago for an off-licence. I'm pleased to say that councillors in Kingston turned it down.

Then Spar appealed against the decision. Unlike planning decisions, the appeal is heard in the local magistrates' court.

One of the people who lives in Somerset Avenue went along as a witness on behalf of the local residents, who don't want an off-licence nearby. He was very disappointed when the appeal was allowed; in other words, the garage will be selling alcohol in the future.

Apart from the madness of mixing alcohol and driving, the shop will undoubtedly attract new customers who will just be picking up their beers and alcopops.

I'm not against sensible drinking - I do it myself! - but we don't need an off-licence here.

What really annoys me is that once again we have an example of local democracy being over-ruled. Why on earth did the Government pass responsibility for licensing to local Councils a few years ago, if their decisions can be overturned by others?

Someone in Hook has warned me about a scam.

A few days ago, I got one of those charity collection bags through the letterbox. I threw it away without looking at it because I always take my old stuff to the Debra shop in Hook Parade. But someone locally took the trouble of checking one.

Now some of those charity collections are completely genuine - but some are bogus. The offending one is claims to be for a charity called Helping Arms and boasts the charity number 5995054.

Mike Christie checked this out at Companies House and found that the company was registered in Tottenham Court Road, but has subsequently been dissolved. The charity number is false.

I have also checked Helping Arms through Google and you can see that they have a ruling against them by the Advertising Standards Authority, and complaints from other parts of the country.

The problem with bogus charities, apart from the illegality, is that they reduce the supply of second hand clothes to genuine charities.

So do check any bags that come through your door, and if you are at all doubtful don't leave out any goods. We have a number of charity shops in the area, including The Queen Elizabeth Foundation in North Parade, Fara in Tolworth Broadway and Debra in Hook Parade, so the best advice is to take your wearable clothes to one of these. If they cannot be worn again them pop them in your green box where they will go for recycling.

Charity shops, and genuine door to door collections, are a valuable part of the local economy. They help us all to meet the second target in the Reduce - Reuse - Recycle mantra, they provide a source of cheap clothing for those on limited incomes, and they raise funds for important charitable purposes. The last thing we want is to undermine what they do.

I'll be chairing the South of the Borough Neighbourhood Committee as usual this Wednesday. Everyone is welcome to come along and join in the discussions.

The meeting will start at 7.30pm at the Hook Centre. But the Neighbourhood Manager, Barry Allen, will be available from 6.30pm if you want to drop in and chat with him about anything to do with the Neighbourhood. He is usually joined by one of the local Police Safer Neighbourhood Teams.

The main planning item is the proposed development on the site of St Mary's Church Hall in Church Lane. The church have now taken over the old Youth Club premises and renamed it the St Mary's Centre - and it is thriving. So the old hall is now redundant, and the plan is to build flats.

If you have seen the agenda in advance you will see that officers were recommending that the application should be refused. However, amended plans have now been submitted and the planning officers are now recommending that it should be permitted.

Apart from that we have to consider some very worthy reports on youth unemployment, and on the parking strategy in district centres such as Tolworth.

Another item is on the policies that underpin the Local Implementation Plan, which is how we are going to bid for funds from The Mayor of London's Transport Strategy. Although that may seem dull, it could mean many £millions to be spent to improve traffic and transport in the borough.

There will probably be some interest in the item on planned highways maintenance for 2010-2011. The Committee has £104,000 to spend on resurfacing roads and pavements across all three wards - and I can assure you, that doesn't go very far at all. The highways engineers do a full analysis of all the roads and pavements using a standard form of assessment known as the UKpms. They then identify the worst ones and we councillors have to make decisions based on that information. It's not easy!

This year the officers' recommendations will only be available on the night. That is because the icy weather over Christmas and New Year has damaged a number of roads, and the officers wanted to do some further assessments.

I'm also rather pleased to see that the Hook Centre has actually underspent by £7,800 so far this year. This is due to the efforts that have been made to reduce energy consumption, mainly by improving the heating system.

If all that hasn't put you off, then do come along on Wednesday.

Since Edward Davey and Susan Kramer launched the Save Kingston Hospital campaign at the beginning of last week, much has been happening. For a start, nearly 6000 people have signed the petition, and nearly 11,000 have joined the Facebook group.

If you have somehow missed it, I should explain that some weeks ago the MPs were told that a review was being undertaken of the hospitals in South West London. One of the options being considered was to close down the A&E and Maternity departments at Kingston.

This South West London Strategic Plan was due to be published in December, and the date was then postponed until Jan 25th. At the last minute the MPs heard that although the report had been written it was being held back until after the election. They decided this was too important an issue to ignore so went public with their concerns.

Not surprisingly, some people have questioned the MPs' sources. As you will see on the website, they were given this information in four separate meetings with four separate chief executives. They also met staff who were working on the feasibility of the proposals.

On Wednesday, there was a routine meeting of the Board of Kingston Hospital, at which the Chair said it was 'inconceivable' that the departments would close. He did not, however, deny that there were any proposals.

By coincidence, last Wednesday evening I was sitting on the Council's Health Overview Panel which scrutinises local health matters, so I was not at all surprised that someone asked a question about the campaign. I explained what I knew - that senior NHS staff had indeed briefed the MPs about the content of the review, but that the staff would be under pressure not to reveal that.

I suggested that the Health Overview Panel should hold a special meeting to look into the matter, and this was agreed around the table. We would invite the Chief Execs of Kingston Hospital, NHS Kingston, and the people running the SW London review, as well as the two MPs. This is now being arranged.

In the meantime, Susan Kramer and Edward Davey have submitted Freedom of Information requests to those bodies as well as NHS London, and the Dept of Health. You can see these on the campaign website. The bodies have to reply in 20 working days, which will take us up to early March.

This is far too important an issue for it to be ignored or kept hidden.

Sally Hawkins, who runs the very useful Chessington Chat magazine, has sent out this advice about a couple of scams that have surfaced locally.

"I have recently been informed of a couple of advertising scams that appear to be operating in our area at the moment.

The first is a company call Medic Care who try to sell ‘too cheap to be true’ advertising space on the NHS Intranet site that is viewed by NHS staff up and down the country. They say they are connected to Kingston Hospital.

Their sales tactics are reportedly very, very pushy and victims often get bombarded with several quick succession phone calls asking if they are going to advertise.

Needless to say the advertising never appears and refunds are never given.

The second scam is less likely to make you suspicious as the company calls saying they are producing a publication/magazine/wallplanner etc in connection with the Emergency Services/Police/Brake Road care charity etc.

These calls have more of an emotional twist to them as they are supposedly in support of a good cause.

These sort of scams have been prevalent throughout the UK for some time but are obviously operating in the Kingston area at the moment.

Please be aware that two of my current advertisers have reported these scams to me over the last fortnight and so I thought it prudent to warn everyone.

Needless to say if you receive one of these calls and are given any contact details for the companies involved Trading Standards would be very grateful to hear from you."

This is a personal story that is both sad and celebratory.

In December 2006, I was invited to the annual Marie Curie service in memory of cancer victims. I wrote about it then and said;

"I was particularly keen to attend this, as we had lost a family member to cancer just over a year ago and she had died in a Marie Curie Hospice. I was able to read a poem in memory of her."

What I didn't say was that the poem was by Christopher Reid, in memory of his wife, Lucinda Gane.

On Tuesday, Christopher won the Costa Book of the Year Award, with his collection titled "A Scattering", which contains the poem I read.

You can see him accepting the award here and read some extracts. The whole book tracks his responses from the moment they learnt Lucinda had terminal cancer, through to some months after her death.

In 2006 the book had not yet been published, but he had sent copies of the second section, which is about her death, to family and friends. It made me cry. But I asked his permission to read the poem in public, in memory of her. I didn't find it easy.

Christopher is Ian's cousin, and we meet up from time to time. In fact, every summer the Reids have a big family party and about 40 of us meet up - it's a wonderful tradition that goes back to Ian's childhood. Christopher and Lucinda were always there - Lucinda delighting my sons with her stories about Grange Hill, in which she played a rather drippy teacher.

In fact, in one of his earliest poetry collections there is a poem about these gatherings, and I quoted it here.

He has published a dozen or so collections, but is also well known in poetry circles as the former Poetry Editor at Faber and Faber, where he nurtured some of the best known modern poets.

The whole family is immensely proud of him, even though, as he says, this was a book he wished he hadn't needed to write.

Don't be put off by the morbid subject matter - the poems are very readable, funny and witty at times, and manage to capture those fleeting thoughts that we don't quite put into words.