The £600,000 plans to spruce up Ashford, Sunbury Cross and Shepperton are set to include new street furniture, more car parking and the creation of a BMX track or skate park.

At a Surrey county council local committee meeting, held on Monday, March 15, plans were presented which detailed how £200,000 would be spent on each of the towns to rejuvenate them.

The money, is to be spent on Church Road in Ashford, the High Street in Shepperton and the underpass in Sunbury Cross.

A professional film maker has created a four minute movie of Shortwood Infant School to try and move council bosses to keep it open.

James Shanks, 37, created the documentary-style promotional video at the Stanwell New Road school two weeks ago.

Mr Shanks, whose four-year-old son Harvey attends the school, created it after being shocked to hear that Surrey County Council have put forward a proposal to close the school.

The film, which was edited and spliced from six hours of footage was shown outside the Town Lane Tesco over the weekend.

Two young Sunbury schoolgirls will hand in a petition to councillors tonight (Monday March 15) after campaigning to get a crossing built in a busy Ashford road.

Gemma Kyri, 13, of New Park Road, Ashford, and Lydia Powell, 12, of Chessholme Road, Ashford, both attend Bishop Wand School in Sunbury, and have to cross the busy Feltham Hill Road, Ashford, with other children and parents to get to school each day.

Between September and December last year, the girls got 277 signatures after campaigning for a zebra crossing, as they fear someone is going to be hurt before too long.

They will present at the Surrey County Council local committee meeting in Spelthorne.

A Staines fire chief has hit out at arsonists who endangered an Ashford park by setting a children's motorbike on fire.

Fire crews from Staines were called to playing fields in Alexandra Road at 5.45pm on Saturday (March 13) after the motorbike, which has an engine, was set alight.

The blaze is being treated as suspicious, but watch manager Karl Bowen has described the act as thoughtless.

He said: "It was very dangerous, because a lot of children play in the field and they could have inspected it. The burnt rubber and metal was also very dangerous, and young people could have gone up and burnt themselves."

Jellyfish, sharks, freezing water, and oil-spewing ships may be some of the obstacles six girl guiders may have to face as they swim the English channel this summer.

Team Twenty Ten are planning to swim 21 miles from the English to French coast in July, to celebrate the Girlguiding Centenary and to raise money for charity Street Child Africa.

Spelthorne's neighbourhood inspector will be returning to the borough after a return of around six months.

Sarah Greenhalgh will return on Sunday March and take over from the acting inspector Rebecca Kempster.

For the past few months PC Greenhalgh has been working on the Operational Policing Review Team at Surrey Police's headquarters, Mount Browne.

Residents of a quiet Ashford road have spoken of their shock after a bungalow has gone up in flames for the second time in two years.

Home-owners living in Ashford Avenue could not get in or out of their road after the bungalow at the end of the road went up in flames at around 3.10pm on Thursday (March 11).

More than hundred people could lose their jobs after workers at Bupa in Staines, Egham, and Ashford were told redundancies were being considered.

Workers at the healthcare company were told on Wednesday March 3 that a three-month consultation period had begun due to a need for the company to restructure their staff.

Spelthorne council is one of the 68 local authorities in the country who have microchips installed in their bins.

The news comes after campaign group Big Brother Watch sent a Freedom of Information Request to every council in the country to find out if they micro chipped household collection rubbish bins.

The leader of Spelthorne Council took a visit around two A2Dominion developments on Thursday March 4.

Councillor John Packman visited the Stanwell New Start regeneration scheme, which will create 52 new homes in the village, followed by St Michael's Road, Ashford, where a scheme to build 34 homes has just finished.

Mr Packman said: "I was pleased to see the progress that has been made."