Newsletter - Sat 5 Apr, 2025
By David Grantham
Local government reorganisation: both Reigate & Banstead and Surrey are consulting residents on how local government should be reorganised. More below.
The 80th anniversary of the B-17 crash on Reigate Hill was marked with a ceremony including the laying of wreaths, silence and readings. More below.
Reigate Tunnel Beer & Gin Festival will run 15-17 May, in the heart of the town centre. As in previous years, the “Ale for Aid” event, organised by Redhill Redstone Rotary club, will raise money for good causes. A choice of 40+ ales, artisan gin and prosecco will be on offer. Details here. (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)
St Albans Road, which runs between Brokes Road and Somers Road, near Reigate Hill is due to close on Monday (7 April) for seven weeks for gas main renewal. Updates can be checked on the Surrey roadworks map (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre).
Registration is open for this summer’s R&B Junior Games, which have been put together by Reigate & Banstead Borough Council and Better Leisure. Aimed at children in school years 3 to 6, the 10-week programme (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) will offer free coaching in basketball, pickleball, swimming, and SEND multi-sports at local leisure centres, culminating in a celebratory event on 13 July at Donyngs Leisure Centre.
Two drug dealers who supplied around 4 kilos of cocaine, worth £413,000, into Surrey between July and September last year were sentenced (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) at
Guildford Crown Court on Monday: one received eight years in prison and the other six-and-a-half years. They were using a Dartford address as a ‘call centre’, where police caught one red-handed, while the other was arrested while trying to leave the premises.
A grass fire over at Box Hill on Sunday 9 March cleared a 20 × 20 metre area, with four barbecue fires having to be put out during the incident. Surrey Fire & Rescue and National Trust are advising people to be “wildfire aware” (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), with barbecues banned from NT property.
A Surrey County Council campaign, run in partnership with Age UK, and which helps people to map out their later life, including thorny questions about care, has been shortlisted for an MJ award, the local authority equivalent of the Oscars. Planning for Your Future (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) has a number of online resources and a calendar of events.
Reigate & Banstead seeks public’s views on local government shake-up
Reigate & Banstead Borough Council is inviting residents to have their say on local government reorganisation plans in Surrey, which will see county-level services (e.g. education, adult and children’s social care and roads) merged with borough-level (e.g. bin collections, planning, and housing) into new unitary authorities.
Initial proposals for the county were recently sent to the Government: these are for two unitaries (the favoured option of Surrey County Council) or three (backed by most of the boroughs/districts, and all of the opposition groups at county level).
Reigate & Banstead and Crawley Borough Council are also looking at cross-border options, particularly around maximising the economic growth potential of the Gatwick Diamond economic area.
Final form plans have to be submitted to the Government by 9 May, and to prepare for that Reigate & Banstead is running a public survey, open until midday on 21 April. People taking part can enter a prize draw for £50 vouchers.
Reigate & Banstead’s leader, Cllr Richard Biggs, said: “Our survey seeks to understand what is most important to people in their local areas and communities, it asks about how and which surrounding areas people use, for views on transport and democracy as well as preferences for local government organisation.
“We need your help to tell us what you want and what your priorities are so that the plans we submit to Government reflect these as far as possible.”
The borough is also encouraging residents to complete a survey run by the county council, "Shaping Surrey’s Future," which is open until 20 April.
The Reigate & Banstead survey is here (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)
The Surrey County Council survey is here (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre).
80th anniversary marked of B-17 crash
The nine young men who died when their B-17G crashed on Reigate Hill were remembered in a ceremony on Wednesday 19 March, exactly 80 years since the accident.
At the event, which took place at the well-known memorial (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), a moment’s silence was held at 5.42pm, the time of the crash back in 1945.
The bomber struck the hill on its way back to Northamptonshire from a raid on railyards near the Czech-German border.
Weather had closed in over the English channel, and the crew ended up flying too low, startling those waiting for a bus on Reigate Hill, before the aircraft hit the trees.
Normally the bomber would have carried 10 men, but on this occasion only nine were serving given the smaller risk from German fighters at this stage of the war. Rescuers on the night spent time searching for the tenth man before learning they had accounted for all the crew.
RAF veteran and National Trust historian Tim Richardson gave details of the events of the night, including the rescue efforts, in part drawing from a Surrey Mirror article published shortly after the war’s end when local knowledge of what had occurred could safely appear in print.
Richardson also delivered one of the readings, the poem “High Flight (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)” by Canadian Word War 2 pilot John Magee.
HM Lord Lieutenant of Surrey Michael More-Molyneux performed the other reading, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s “Message to Mothers of Foreign Soldiers”.
Among those laying wreaths were United States Air Attaché Lt. Col. Dan Benson, who also gave an address, and the mayor of Reigate & Banstead, Cllr Eddy Humphreys.
The Last Post and Reveille marked the beginning and the end of the silence, and a bagpiper played as participants, including veterans’ representatives, cadets and scouts, marched to and from the event.
The wooden wingtips (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), on one of which the wreaths were laid, were made by wood sculptor Roger Day, and were unveiled in 2015 as part of the 70th anniversary commemoration. They sit at the same distance apart as they would have on the aircraft, and include within them metal recovered from the plane.
The ceremony remembered not only those who died in the B-17 crash, but also other aviators who lost their lives in the wider Surrey Hills.
Audio and interviews from the event are in episode 80 of the Planet Reigate podcast (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre).
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