Sing-a-long with Elvis?
The temperature is going off the richter scale in Farnham this week-end so incensed are the residents of “Your Waverley”at the indecent haste with which Gone to Potts is racing “Top Gear” style into bed with developers.
One man who has watched, documented and poked his finger into Waverley’s eye for more than decade sums up his reasons in the link below, almost too many to get your head around. Jerry Hyman explains exactly why this scheme must be challenged – before its too damned late.
Sadly Waverley Web did not exist when “Your Waverley” Council, aided and abetted by (Borough and County Councillor Denise Le Gal) who is responsible for the County’s Pension Fund, – persuaded her county colleagues to dig Waverley out of the great big hole it had dug itself into. And, despite its Herculean attempts, it failed to attract commercial investors to back the East Street development. However, WW did, figuratively speaking, lob a hand grenade into Farnham when we revealed SCC’s part in funding a scheme, of which not even all county councillors were aware. You could not make it up – could you?
The whole sorry story goes back years. It was Waverley’s very own “Mrs MOP, CEO Mary Orton Pett who provided a Government Inspector – with “a secret letter” giving details of the ‘non-existent funder’ in a bid to obtain the vital Compulsory Purchase Order of the Marlborough Head Pub which unlocked the door to the Brightwells development. She subsequently resigned with a huge payoff of “our money.”
Over £200,000 was paid to five employees in October2013, needless to say she had the Lions share, for reasons, still undisclosed in public. Councillors were warned not to divulge the reasons, due to the damage it would cause the council, and she agreed to a gagging clause! Oh what a tangled web they weave?
Mrs MOP, who earned around £130,000 a year, was given her ‘golden handshake’ by the Tory-led council .
Announcing Mrs Pett’s departure just one hour before councillors agreed to withdraw the ill-fated Local Plan planning blueprint, Waverley leader Robert Knowless said it would “save a senior post and a significant amount of money” while allowing Mrs Pett to ‘concentrate on developing her career”.
Following this news, the day-to-day running of the council passed to Waverley’s then-deputy chief executive Paul Wenham and strategic director Damien Roberts, who was himself given a £50,000 pay-out from his previous job at Croydon Council in 2012. Where one of his colleagues committed suicide due to “bullying.”
So there we are then! We watch and wait for Waverley councillors, many of whom are new, and have no connection or interest in Farnham to bite the bullet, turn a blind eye to the devious, dirty business that has been perpetrated by a duplicitous group of people. Or …
will the tail surprise us and start wagging the Waverley dog? Don’t hold your breath.
Read Jerry Hyman’s letter to the Farnham Herald here : Jerry