As Waverley Planners gave the go ahead for another 75 houses on a green field in Alfold Road, Cranleigh last night – which is now being re-named “poor old Cranleigh” – WW looks at the campaign going on in Hart, in North East Hampshire.
Not everyone in our part of the South East is sitting back and allowing homes to be built all over the countryside without a fight- why aren’t the people of Waverley taking a leaf out of Hart’s book in rural North East Hampshire. It wants its brown field sites built on rather than the countryside.
In Waverley – the Save Our Waverley Group want our countryside built on to save our brown fields! Madness or what?
Read more about the Hart campaign here: http://wehearthart.co.uk/home/contact-we-love-hart/
Its campaigners say: “We believe the Government and Hart Council should think again. The objectives of the We Love Hart campaign are as follow:”
To call for the overall housing allocation to be reduced by challenging the SHMA
To demand that the Council develops a vision and strategy for Hart that retains its role as a rural, green hinterland for NE Hampshire that respects the separate character and identity of Hart’s settlements and landscapes and preserves the green spaces as amenity space for the urban settlements.
To require that the housing need is met by building on brownfield sites and increasing density in our existing urban areas to help rejuvenate our existing shopping centres.
To request that future housing stock reflects the needs of the changing demographics of the district.
To petition the council and government against any new settlement in Hart that will act as a sink for the unmet housing need in neighbouring areas.
To hold Hart Council to account to ensure the process is legal and transparent and properly consults all of the residents of Hart.
We submitted the petition, with 2,130 signatories, to Hart Council and sadly they have chosen to largely ignore it.
No change there then – are any council’s listening?
This statement is NOT TRUE – “Save Our Waverley Group want our countryside built on to save our brown fields”. Please keep doing what you are good at doing and remember your strap line “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when once we practise to deceive.”
If it is NOT TRUE – then please tell us all what exactly it is that the Save Our Waverley Group is trying to save? Is it standing up and opposing massive development proposed in the countryside around Farnham? Godalming? Haslemere? or around Cranleigh? Or is the SOWG opposing development at Dunsfold airfield – which is the largest brown field site in the borough. Is the group fighting to prevent the Green Belt in Cranleigh from becoming a new industrial estate, a development partnership between “Our Waverley” using “our money” after a decision taken in secret…again? WW stands by its strap line – we search for the truth – so tell us please, what does the group you defend actually want? A confused WW.
You might like to point out that had Cllrs B. Ellis, J. Stennett and S. Stennett voted to refuse the Little Meadow application, the application would have been refused by Waverley. Ironic that these three Cranleigh councillors were responsible for yet more homes being built in the countryside around Cranleigh. An area they claim to represent.
Let us hope that the people of Cranleigh will hold those borough councillors responsible for the village now teetering on the edge of becoming a new Town? But, WW doubts they will be around the New town long enough to reap what they are sowing – will they?