The Kingswood Residents’ Association is one of a number of adjoining local residents’ associations (RAs), which work together as the Banstead and District Federation of Residents’ Associations. The issues the Banstead Federation covers are usually of wider concern, such as national and regional planning policy, borough-wide amenities and the protection of Green Belt land.
Currently the Federation has some 14 RAs as members, representing tens of thousands of residents. Its committee meets quarterly and is made up of committee members from each local association. Your representative from the KRA is Barry Miles.
In the past year key issues addressed by the Banstead Federation of RAs included the Government’s proposed changes to the planning system, where the Federation took an active part in the response of individual associations to the two consultation documents, ‘Changes to the Current Planning System’, and ‘Planning for the Future’. Much criticism of these appeared in the national Press. Closer to home, there were discussions on the proposed retirement village on the Legal and General site, and plans to massively increase the size of the operations of Fidelity Investments at their site in Lower Kingswood. Both have now been approved.