It’s Official. Thakeham Homes bid to double the size of Alfold will be determined by a Government Inspector after a four day public Inquiry into its appeal to be held early next year.
Well its promise featured below to build doors, or hedgehog holes, in the thousands of garden fences it intends to put up around over four hundred new homes on Care Ashore’s Springbok Estate may not be quite enough to placate the locals?
Here’s what the Horsham based developer promises on its website…
In July “Your Waverley”s planning officers took the bold decision to kick Thakeham’s planning appeal into touch without allowing it to see the light of day at its Joint Planning Committee.
Under delegated powers officers can, if they are convinced there is no merit in a particular application, refuse it and they did. On (August 2nd) Thakeham lodged its appeal.
So … Care Ashore is not giving up the chance to make a bob or two, claiming it needs to save the Springbok Seafarers Charity which is in choppy waters! It will fight the good fight to build a shedload of houses, while improving and extending Springbok’s facilities to provide more accommodation for retired seafarers – and quite a lot for its staff and their families, according to Alfold locals.
The conscience of Thakeham Homes may have been pricked by hedgehogs, but not it would appear by the howls of protest from the residents of the Surrey/Sussex village which is presently under attack from developers on all sides.
However, if allowed at appeal the development in the countryside on the Surrey/Sussex border could be immediately adjacent to a new village proposed on a brownfield site at Dunsfold Park.
So are villagers now faced with a heads we lose – tails we lose dilemma?
Do they support the development of Dunsfold airfield? A scheme which proposes vital infrastructure including – schools, shops, commercial space, power, sewerage, road improvements and more, and 1,800 homes to be considering the Autumn?
Or … do they oppose Dunsfold Park, already recognised in “Your Waverley” Daft Local Plan, as a brownfield /employment site capable of taking 2,600 houses over the next 15 years?
Or… do they drop their opposition to Thakeham’s cunning plan refused on the grounds that the infrastructure to support such a huge scheme did not exist, and that it would overdevelop and destroy the rural character of a village which the Local Plan has earmarked for only 100 homes.
Alfold Fightback Group will no doubt be preparing itself for the fight to save Alfold’s green and pleasant land from the bulldozers as the village sits between a rock and an airfield – dubbed the largest brownfield site in “Your Waverley.”
To view the complete application go onto Waverley’s planning portal Reference WA/2015/1381.
http://waverleyweb.org/2015/10/20/awfold-alford-or-could-it-be-alfold-that-developers-are-invading