Really pleased Betchworth Water Tower is back in service, ahead of schedule and after £600k of work by SES. I asked SES to fix the tower after people told me about frequent water outages at a village hall event. Thank you to SES.

Reported on here: Power cuts that left Box Hill residents without water and heating fixed after £600k upgrade | Surrey Live

Dorking is only 21 miles from London, yet it takes an hour to travel there by train. 1,900 people signed my petition calling for a fast train and in response, South Western Railway said they will look into it. I will also be meeting with the Rail Minister to discuss this further.

Add your name to the petition here: https://www.chriscoghlan.org/petitio.../better-train-service

The pothole by Debbie’s house was filled last month but is already disintegrating. A new one has appeared next to it. Like many, she is sick of spending a fortune in council tax for pothole-ridden roads. Next month I’ll be writing to the Conservative run Surrey County Council about this. 

Fill out my pothole experience survey: https://digitallibdems.typeform.com/to/KXSFymh1 . 

Report potholes here: https://tellus.surreycc.gov.uk .

I met with Royal Mail’s CEO about poor postal service. Since before my election, I’ve pushed them to recruit more staff at Dorking’s sorting office. I’m glad they’ve recently recruited 17 more people. I’ve seen a steady reduction of complaints but will continue to hold them to account.

Marbelia was mistakenly registered as dead by the DVLA. She only found out when she tried to renew her licence. She was then sent a provisional one despite driving for decades. I’m contacted regularly about numerous issues from the DVLA. I’ve seen a sharp rise in people contacting me about many issues with the DVLA, including severe delays for licence renewals. I have now raised this directly with the government.

I’m glad Marbelia’s case is finally resolved but it’s deeply frustrating that it only got sorted when I got the BBC involved.

Read the article here. 

Covered by BBC London and BBC South East Today here: 

Lenka has to ask strangers to help her carry her buggy up to Dorking Deepdene station because there is no step free access. Mole Valley Council have put aside £3 million to add lifts and improve the platforms - backed by Network Rail and GWR who say this would mean better trains and potential new routes. But the government won’t commit to funding the required feasibility study. I wrote to the Transport Secretary urging them to review and spoke to BBC Radio Surrey