Our Team

Monica Harding

Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Esher & Walton

I’m Monica Harding and I’m campaigning to be your next MP in Esher and Walton.

I’ve lived in Thames Ditton for 15 years with my husband and four children. I’m a management consultant and have worked in the UK, Asia and Europe as a CEO and Director.

I’ve served as a Governor at a local school for over 8 years and a Trustee at our local hospice. But I’m also a mum who cares about the future we’re handing our young people. I believe in this great country and I want to do my bit to keep it great.

I don’t have a background in politics - I want to give local families a real voice in how the country is run. I’d love to represent you and I’d love to hear from you.

Cllr Bruce McDonald

Leader of Elmbridge Borough Council

Claygate ward – elected 2021

Cllr Jez Langham

Long Ditton ward – elected 2021

Elected in May 2021, Jez stood on a platform supporting the protection of local Green Spaces, and also younger people and families’ interests.

Jez sits on the Overview and Scrutiny committee and is actively directing it into looking into issues impacting all members of the community, from Thames Water’s mismanagement of our sewage in our rivers, to school places and ULEZ. He is also a member of the Performance and Finance Standing Panel, which oversees the council’s performance metrics, aswell as the East-Area Planning sub-committee – covering development applications across The Dittons, Claygate and Hinchley Wood.

Jez recently played a leading role, together with his fellow Long Ditton councillors Liz Laino and Neil Houston in persuading the Council to voluntarily designate the Stokes Field Nature Reserve in Long Ditton as Village Green (a legal status preventing development in perpetuity). This was realised in July 2023.

During the pandemic, he ran the Liberal Democrats’ successful campaign to collect and distribute pre-used laptops for local secondary and primary school pupils’, helping over 40 families.

He has lived in the Dittons for over 25 years, has three children, Thomas 23, Evie 21 and Edward 15 and commutes to London, working as a Business Development Director for a film production company.

Cllr Alex Coomes

Claygate ward – elected 2012

Alex is chairman of Elmbridge borough’s audit and standards committee and vice chairman on the East Area Planning Sub-Committee. Alex also sits on the planning committee. Alex has lived in Claygate since he was four months old and is a parish councillor. He enjoys the benefits of living in Claygate and wants to help it remain a lovely village and to work for the residents on borough matters.

He has worked hard on the Claygate parish planning Committee considering the views of residents on planning applications, the merits of any application and how these opinions should be transmitted to Elmbridge. He has been active in making comments to on the Elmbridge plan.

Alex was a very active supporter of the campaign against the imposition of metered car parking charges by Surrey County. Alex works hard for the benefit of Claygate, but still finds time for his allotment.

Cllr Mike Rollings

Claygate ward – elected 2018

Mike Rollings had been involved in a low key way delivering Focus and was moved to take a more active role with the LibDems campaigning against Brexit and joining the party. As a consequence he was invited to stand in the local elections and was elected as a Claygate Ward Councillor in May 2018. He currently chairs the Elmbridge Licensing Committee and is a member of the Oversight and Scrutiny Committee, with a keen interest in financial matters.

By way of background he was brought up in Claygate and retains a great affection for its people and village community. Locally he is the Elmbridge nominated Trustee on the Claygate Recreation Ground Trust.

His business life has revolved around company restructurings and insolvencies.

Cllr Ashley Tilling

Weybridge Riverside – elected 2019

I am proud to represent Weybridge Riverside as one of your councillors. Since being elected, I have worked with my colleagues as a member of the South Area Planning Sub-Committee to try to maintain the character of Weybridge by striving to ensure that we build the right type of homes. I became actively engaged in the final stages of the Brooklands Accessibility Project and several measures I proposed to improve the town paths, including installing lighting, smoothing out two dangerous right angle bends next to the skate park and extending the route through to the car park for easier access to the town centre, have all now been implemented. As a member of the Energy and Sustainability Working Group, I managed to arrange a trial of food and drinks carton bring banks at Weybridge and Walton station car parks.

Since May 2021 I have been a Cabinet member with the portfolio for the Environment. This responsibility includes overseeing waste management, air quality monitoring and measures to make improvements, and co-ordinating the council’s response to the climate emergency, aiming to make the council’s operations carbon neutral by 2030. To this end, I sit on the Carbon Reduction Advisory Panel and I also sit on the main Planning Committee.

Cllr Judy Sarsby

Weybridge Riverside ward – elected 2021

I was asked to stand as a Weybridge Riverside Candidate by my predecessor Andrew Davis, who died of cancer in January 2020. Andrew knew of the work I did at that time, with the local refugee charity Elmbridge Can, in helping refugee families to settle and integrate in the community. I was also the Welfare Officer of Weybridge Rowing Club and had started a litter picking group to protect Desborough Island.

I started up my old sourcing company at the beginning of the pandemic to find much needed PPE for the country, after the care home next to my house, reached out for help.

On being elected I learnt of the The Grace Dear Trust, the mayor’s charity, designed to help educate in signs and symptoms of ill mental health in the young. I had seen juniors suffering since lockdown, so arranged a major sporting event the “Row Paddle Run”. We brought together over ten sports clubs and one hundred athletes and raised over £6000. So far we have run two full day mental health first aid workshops and have another due in February and will run the sports event again in 2022.

The Weybridge Community Fair was cancelled, so I ran it in September and brought together local clubs and organisations to show the local residents what Weybridge has to offer. The next fair, will be held on June 25th 2022 and promises to be an even greater community embracing event.

Other events I have organised have included the planting of five trees around the green space by Elmbridge Canoe Club following the felling of local trees. The five were planted from money raised by a local business woman, to commemorate those lost as a result of Covid in the first waves of the pandemic. Local families of loved ones lost, attended and found closure in the ceremony.

When news of dumping of raw sewage in our rivers was raised, a march along the river was organised to raise awareness of this issue and put pressure on the government to prevent the pollution. National Radio interviews followed.

More recently I’ve worked alongside the Environment Agency and other Thames-side organisations to address issues of river safety from moored boats and floating obstructions, cutting back of overhanging trees, to educating river users on safe enjoyment.

Issues of the young people of our town, of enjoying, sport and the green spaces and water ways, to bring good mental health and well-being, maintaining healthy living by becoming carbon neutral and maintaining the aesthetic beauty of Weybridge, are all areas I will continue to fight to protect for the town of Weybridge and the families that live here.

Cllr Robin Stephens

Cobham & Downside ward – elected 2021

Robin was elected in a by-election in Cobham & Downside in July 2021 as the first ever Liberal Democrat Councillor for Cobham and Downside. A resident of Cobham, he lives with his wife and two children in Cobham and runs a business locally called Cirrom which does artificial intelligence.