WEHRA’s official website

About

Aims

WEHRA has been serving our community for nearly 50 years. We aim to safeguard our local environment and promote the interests and health of our community.


We listen to and represent the interests of our residents – owners and renters. Our work focuses on the key community areas of planning, traffic, parking, community, safety, improving our environment, promoting sustainability and ensuring that our residents are both aware and have a voice in the key issues facing the community.


We also work with other local groups on issues where we have a shared interest. We are an active member of WURA – The Wimbledon Union of Residents Associations – which provides a forum for all RAs serving the wider Wimbledon area.

In the past two years our key activities have been:

Planning

  • We have provided input into Merton Council’s proposals for a new Local Plan for Merton and their Supplementary Planning Document for Wimbledon.
  • We have responded to several individual planning applications e.g. the demolition and rebuilding of St. George’s House East, the YMCA, the AELTC, the Bank Buildings, the Lidl Building on Worple Road etc.

Parking/Traffic

  • We have been lobbying Merton Council not to introduce substantially higher resident parking charges.
  • We have been liaising with Merton Council to introduce parking measures which would reduce congestion in our streets by prohibiting business parking holders from using resident parking bays.
  • We have liaised with the East Hillside Lower Traffic Neighbourhood Group to investigate different ways we can reduce rat-running through our whole area.

Policing

  • We represent our residents interests on the Metropolitan Police’s Hillside Safer Neighbourhood  Panel.

Environment/Sustainability

  • We have been working with other local groups to reduce, and hopefully, remove the excessive lorry movements which currently take place to and from the waste facilities located in Weir Road.
  • We have organised several tree preservations orders in our area.
  • We have worked with local ward councillors and Merton Council to secure the funding for the refurbishment of the Wimbledon Hill Road walkway and gardens.

Street Cleaning

  • We have been lobbying the Council for better street cleaning.
  • We are lobbying the Council to relocate the recycling site outside the Library.

Communication

  • We send out a detailed Newsletter twice a year.
  • We send out regular News Updates to ensure our members are up to date with local events and available services.

The Area

Today

The WEHRA area consists of 10 roads which are bounded by Alexandra Road in the South, Woodside / Bernard Gardens in the North, Wimbledon Hill Road in the West and Leopold Road in the East.

It is an affluent, residential area which was built after the arrival of the railway in Wimbledon Town in 1855. The WEHRA area now boasts some 800 households plus a church, a school, a library and a local pub. The buildings date primarily from Victorian and Edwardian times.

History

Historically, the area formed part of the Wimbledon Park Estate. In the 1770s the first Earl Spencer, the then Lord of the Manor, employed the famous landscape gardener Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown to improve his park (now Wimbledon Park) with a new drive and lake. At the same time, he also laid out a large kitchen garden at the bottom of Wimbledon Hill which had a special hothouse for raising exotic fruit. The garden covered approximately 12 acres and was situated just below Woodside, and bounded by Compton, Wimbledon Hill and Parkwood Roads.

Executive Committee

WEHRA is run on a voluntary basis by a committee of local residents which meets at least four times a year to discuss issues affecting the area. WEHRA members are encouraged to contact the committee to have items added to the committee meeting agenda.


We hold an annual meeting, usually in March, to which all residents are invited. The Executive Committee is subject to election by the members each year.


The 2024 Committee members are:

Chair: Lynne Gordon

Secretary: Christopher Dizer

Treasurer: Guy Hallifax

Committee and areas of responsibility:

WURA (Wimbledon Union of Residents Associations): Lynne Gordon

Membership: Jamie Lamond

Planning: tba

Communications: tba

Policing: Jamie Lamond

Website & IT: tba

Remaining Committee Meeting dates for 2024:

September 26th and November 14th

WEHRA street reps:

Alexandra: Street Reps needed

Alwyne: Alexander Zeidler

Bernard Gardens: Street Reps needed

Compton: Katy O’Hara

Glendale Drive: Ann Broadbridge

Parkwood: Street Reps needed

Rostrevor: Martin Perry

Springfield: Street Reps needed

Woodside: Lotta Bolton

Woodside House: Street Reps needed

Worcester: Polly Joseph

Our Constitution:

For details of our constitution please click here.