Profile Of East Horsley Parish Council 

East Horsley Parish Council (‘EHPC’) comprises 9 councillors, all unpaid volunteers, who represent a parish with a population of around 4,500 people.  

EHPC employs a Parish Clerk and Assistant Parish Clerk, supported by a part-time Village Warden for local groundskeeping and small-scale maintenance, and a communications consultant who assists with the EHPC website and Parish Newsletter sent out quarterly to all residents.

Councillors are organised into three Committees for Planning, Finance and Personnel and eight Task Groups covering Events, Road Safety, Village Appearance, Countryside, Community, Communications, Railways and Climate Change.    

The Parish Council owns two areas of publicly-accessible woodlands, The Forest and Great Ridings Wood, both acquired through public subscription, and also Wellington Meadow, which is owned and managed by the Parish Council as a wildflower reserve.  All of these green spaces are supported with the help of local resident wardens and work parties of village volunteers. 

Notable projects achieved by the Parish Council during the last five years include:

• Adoption of the East Horsley Neighbourhood Plan
• Construction of a public skatepark
• Installation of the first public toilet in East Horsley
• Revision of the parish boundary to address a local anomaly 
• Introduction of a monthly Farmers Market
• Installation of sponsored flower planters at prominent locations across the village
• Adoption of Horsley and Effingham Junction railway stations by residents 
• Securing ultrafast broadband roll-out with Fast Fibre to Homes (FFTP)

Regular ongoing activities of the Parish Council include:

• As a Statutory Consultee reviewing and commenting upon all planning applications in East Horsley, typically around 100 applications per year
• Quarterly reviews with Surrey Highways to implement road safety improvements
• Litterpicks by councillors and residents across the village, twice per year
• Organising and funding a large-scale village fête every two years
• Provision of annual Christmas lighting in our two village centres
• Organising an Annual Volunteers Party for those supporting community events including a Volunteer of the Year award presentation
• Provision of local allotments
• Charitable donations to support local causes 

Looking forward EHPC expects to further expand its activities as a result of:

1. The unprecedented expansion in our village population arising from Local Plan housing developments; and
2. The continued cutting back on local services by the county and borough authorities, leaving parish councils to ‘pick up the slack’ where they can.

Reflecting this expected increase in the demands on our councillors’ time, a Community Governance Review was held by EHPC in 2019 which will see the maximum permitted number of Parish Councillors increasing from nine to twelve councillors in 2023.

East Horsley Parish Council,

March 2021

Public Toilet at Kingston Meadows, the first public loo in East Horsley, opened 2018 - Farmers Market, initiated by EHPC in 2020 - Wellington Meadow, owned and managed by EHPC as a wildflower reserve