Make yourself a strong black coffee – because you’ll need it – then sit back and listen to the tremendous risks Surrey County Council is taking with YOUR money. The property department has made a loss, and the profit making social care company ‘Surrey Choices’ as so far made a profit of.. er… er… sorry a LOSS of £3.2 million
There is a list of all Surrey’s £148m property portfolio OUTSIDE Surrey here
And now ‘Your Waverley” are at it too! And… as the Waverley Web has
said many times…..
We can fully understand WHY – Councillors are planning a move onto the new and fertile pastures near the Lammas Lands at the other end of town – but wonder if they might need flippers and snorkels to help them keep their heads above water in a Flood Zone 3. Wouldn’t they be safer at Waverley Towers?
Borough Road, Godalming was closed due to serious flooding in 2013!
FLOOD ZONE 3. Why would you have new offices in flood zone 3.
Still the former engineering services company of Parsons Brinckerhoff in Westbrook Mills in Borough Road, could provide a new home for The Council Offices and pave the way for redevelopment of The Burys – and a nice little earner for a cash strapped council that has recently moved into the property development business BIG TIME! In the meantime – The Burys is still open for … Biz – ask Liz?
The owners of the offices – close to Godalming Station – had sought planning permission in 2014 to turn the building into flats – but would you Adam & Eve it – yes – we know you would! Waverley Planners turned it down. Then another application to change it from B1a (office) to Class C3 (residential) use to provide 64 dwellings was withdrawn In January (2017)
Regular readers may remember our little Waverley Web’s mischievous missive written in 2015 when Waverley borough Council had a lightbulb moment! And, it wasn’t at the Executive Meeting on April 1st but on December 1st that the council decided not to change the lightbulbs!
This is a report by Officers for the EXECUTIVE ‘s consideration! So it has been on the cards for quite a while.
:
You Can Read it here: – Could Waverley be on the move?
This was one of the neighbours objections – but I don’t expect they will mind having ‘Your Waverley” knocking on the door to borrow a cup of sugar – will they?
But where would that Pup be? At ‘Your Waverley” or Crest Nicholson’s HQ?
There are so many letters in the Farnham Herald’s pages about the Blightwells Project – that we will have to drip fee them to our readers. We want everyone in the Borough to read what is going on in the ‘Hole patch’ that is being wrecked by Waverley Planners… just in case the rest of the borough, particularly The East, think it just they who are being crapped on it concrete from a great height.
And.. yes Mr Hook you are not the only one! – All the council taxpayers in Waverley would like, and deserve, some answers?
It would push ahead with implementing the remuneration package regardless as the vote was “non binding”
Not content with denying the neediest in Farnham the prospect of affordable social rented homes in the Brightwells development, CN’s top dogs have added to their glory by awarding themselves bonuses amounting to £2,349000 (that’s not a typo) in spite of the fact that their own shareholders voted against the move at last Thursday’s AGM.
Now we and many others wonder how many affordable rented homes that huge dollop of money might have built if it had not been pocketed by CN’s greedy bosses? Have they the nerve to suggest they are the needy ones? Just check out their pay rates before bonuses: Chief Executive, Stephen Stone, gets a measly £541,158, while Chief Operating Officer, and Wonersh resident, Patrick Bergin, gets a pathetic £375,000. – that’s some operator, that Mr Bergin. So, doesn’t your heart bleed for them? No, no and no again.
So watch out Waverley residents for antics like this when it comes to other deals Crest Nicholson have in the making around the borough. Don’t trust the buggers, not now, not never. You have been warned.
Oh! and by the way – you may need the sick bowl before you read this – because!… It tells of an attempt at tax avoidance by CN but happily HMRC caught them out!
It leaves a stink and a bad taste to know that Waverley are seemingly content to deal with a cheating outfit like CN. Haven’t Crest Nicholson avoided enough of their company’s dues with the negotiations they have conducted over the years with WBC to do Farnham and Waverley council tax payers down over the Brightwells scheme? Ignored planning conditions!
What’s the betting that the pattern is repeated in other developments in Waverley?
We hear from the Cranleigh Society this is what they have put on their advertising literature! “Relaxed pace of life” – not according to the locals who have hundreds of grab lorries thundering through their streets!
You can read it here: CN Tax Avoidance 031716032017
Our creepy little friend 
tells us that The Protect Our (Little Corner of) Waverley Group isn’t happy that it lost the No vote for Dunsfold Park’s application to build 1,800 homes on the airfield – and is fuming that Waverley Planners said – YES.
Since that fateful December day – they have been scratching their heads and their scrotums pondering how to overturn that vote and…
low and behold they have found a way to scupper Good Ship Waverley below the water-line, by lodging a Judicial Review – Oh No! Not another JUDICIAL REVIEW!
Regular readers will be aware that its two-pronged attack – brought Matron Milton aided and abetted by Our Jeremy, to the aid of the party, persuaded the Secretary of State to call the application in.
The key point here is:
Well – it’s a bit like the Brexit Remoaners, just when we thought a decision had been made – at last! They are off again, and again .. and it will not be over until the Fat Lady Slims – in other words millions of pounds of taxpayers money is wasted… again!
According to our insiders Buried deep inside The Burys – it now could pick up the bill for a Judicial Review and a Public Inquiry – a double whammy just as the going gets tough for local authorities, countrywide!
Because:
Below is a letter sent to Councillors this week on an application to build on the Green Belt in Elstead. Because, an Inspector has turned the world of Liz “The Biz” Sims and Graham ‘Sick-As-A-‘ Parrot upside down and inside out!
If you follow events in respect of WBC’s 5-year housing land supply read the Inspector’s decision on the Weyburn Engineering site in Elstead and 
….
As you will see, even the planning department has insider creepy crawlies entering our little web!
Can this motley group either start getting wound up over ALL the other developments about to Be dumped on the borough’s countryside and Green Belt.
For all our sakes POLCOW either Shut up or put Up- and…
No, your entire raison d’etre and that of your MP colleagues – is to derail development on the largest brownfield site in the borough, Sod the rest of Waverley – which is heading towards meeting its Maker as he prepares to force down our throats an even bigger housing allocation!
The tireless efforts of the high rollers bank rolling the campaign to – Protect Our Little Dunsfold Acres – have decided that:
As some of those who voted in favour of (DP) were not members of the Joint Planning Committee, but substitutes fielded to stand in for those members who either couldn’t attend, – or like Jeannette Stennett- couldn’t vote because she had publicly pre-determined how she intended to vote by announcing it in the Surrey Ad letters page – the 8 to 10 vote in favour of the Dunsfold application, was in fact 5 to 7 against, that is IF … the Council only counted the votes of those who were members of the committee and discounted those who were substitutes.
Yeah, Really, because they didn’t like the result the Dunsfold Bemoaners want…
What’s betting they wouldn’t give one jot if the vote had gone the other way!
However, this is where ‘POLCOW’ gets down and dirty – it is not contending the vote was unlawful or unconstitutional per se, just that it was unlawful and unconstitutional for substituted members TO VOTE!
Now if they hang their little ‘POLCOW’ hat on that view, then the votes will swing in ‘POLCOW’s favour.
AND..
All ‘Your Waverley” has to do to appease them is to amend its record of the vote to demonstrate that permission was refused by 7 votes to 5. In other words – its threat – “no need to worry the Courts as long as you do what we say…
SO if POLCOW is right then..!
Stand by your desks planning officers – all leave has been cancelled as all the wannabe developers refused planning consent will being pouring over the voting records to see whether all the votes counted should have been! And… every campaigning group in the borough that has objected to a consented development will do likewise…
And there we were at The Waverley Web thinking that it was the East’s very own whip cracking girl, Meddling Matron Milton that called in a favour to have the Dunsfold Park planning application called in by the Secretary of State!
And all the time she was being aided and abetted by The West’s very own Grinning Golden Balls!
These two really must be congratulated – no wonder developers are filling their coffers with dosh! We heard recently from one follower who personally delivered a big fat cheque to one of them on behalf of a wannabe developer! Now, they have jointly, given all those other little eager beavers, just the signal they needed to break through the dam and get going whilst the going’s good.
No doubt all those people over there in the East will think the will have an opportunity to thank Matron Annie in the usual way at the next election. But of course, she won’t be standing, as she’s on her way to become one of the 800 Lords-A-Leaping! As for the Hunt Ball – God only knows if he gives a damn what happens in his patch – no doubt he will just keep the inane grin on his face and head for the Big Job?
Yes, Mr Edge, the rot has really set in . Permission given on the Green Belt in Bramley and Elstead. Two slices of the once sacrosanct Green Belt in Waverley gone in just one week, and one of which contained a real sting in the tail – which will be the subject of another post!
Another planning application in for nearly 500 homes on the green, green, grass of Alfold by Thakeham Homes at Springbok (can’t even wait for its Appeal) just jump Annie’s Gun – and get in quick while the Dunsfold Brownfield scheme is slung into the ‘waiting room.’ Soon the applications will be arriving in their droves.
With monotonous regularity they raise absolutely NO OBJECTION to proposed development sites around the borough, regardless of whether there are serious flooding, environmental, traffic or sewage issues!
The East of the borough has been kicking up a hell of a stink for more than a year about the serious situation over there. Residents, the parish councils, and Amenity Groups together with their borough councillors …have been totally ignored – and Farnham and the rest of the borough are being treated with utter contempt.
‘You will see from the link below ‘Your Waverley’ imposed conditions on developers – conditions that are useless, unenforceable, and which have been totally ignored by the people who are really calling the tune – DEVELOPERS!
Restrictions put in place by “Your Waverley” are not worth the bog paper they are written on.
But… Good News… this week Thames Water was fined:
Read the Full article here – and you will see they’re at it all over the Country. – But don’t worry the Statutory Authorities will continue to raise NO OBJECTION and Chief Planning officer Liz the Biz will shove another shed load of inappropriate planning applications through, that is of course, until they are heavily fined!
Another bit of a stink in Cranleigh’s troubled waters?
The capacity of Farnham Sewage treatment works, according to Thames Water, is 37,000 people – and that figure must include those extra people who work in Farnham but live elsewhere as well as he locals. The plant is, quite simply, running at full stretch! Bit like other parts of the borough.
To increase the plant’s capacity will require a major re-build and will cost many millions of pounds. Whilst the land is apparently available – the funding is not. So… there is a serious infrasctucture deficiency, which could led to health problems.
As if Farnham residents haven’t enough to contend with the serious air quality issues they will be able to add the stench of more sewage to their assaulted nostrils. This once, attractive Market Town, is being blighted by traffic and smell. It has a road system totally unsuited to current needs. However, the Statutory Authorities appear to be ignoring – the smell – noise – and fumes permeating through a town, now under siege by developers. As they line up, eager to add yet more sewage, more congestion, and then move on and set up their concrete mixers in another green field – possibly near you?
Farnham’s and the surrounding villages’ sewage and waste water is treat at the Farnham Sewage Treatment Works, situated in Monkton Lane.
For over 20 years near neighbours have complained about the stink from processing poo, however over recent years, the smell has become so bad that is seriously affecting the quality of life of many who live in nearby and up to a mile and a half away.
We have recently posted on Farnham’s air quality problems which worsen with every day that passes. But, once again, The Statutory Authority ‘Your Surrey’ raise NO OBJECTION!
Despite Nitrogen dioxide levels in Farnham Town Centre reaching dangerous levels – 23% higher than the maximum set by the EU! And not a single word of objection from ‘Your Surrey” Zilch, Nil! And… as for Thames Water or the Environment Agency Nothing Zilch … so sewage and fumes combined – what chance to our kids have… None, Rien, nichts , nada, asgje, nista, intet, niets, nada, nekas, ekkert, 没什么, heç bir şey ….. so let those earth movers roll!
We actually believed that the first Battle of Waverley’ would break out in sleepy Cranleigh – better known at Waverley Towers as – ‘Poor old Cranleigh’ as it struggles to keep its head above concrete.
Then to everyone’s surprise, surprise, it’s finally happened, – in leafy True Blue Haslemere. Where, three of its new boys on the block have resigned because of the political ploys of their ‘Tory Tosser’ masters – who have told them – ‘You do it Our Way.’
Of course most of us realise that the Tory old guard, on every rung of the political ladder – from parish to borough to county and central Government have a hold, so tight, that they are strangling the life out of our market towns and our rural communities.
Here at the Waverley Web we wrote about it just a few weeks ago – read it here: We’re thinking, that you’re thinkin
g what we’ve been thinking about local poltics!
Fed up Haslemere Councillor and former leader of ‘Your Waverley,’ mainly responsible for the fine mess that outfit is now in – stood up recently and complained about Haslemere’s rocketing car park charges – and the withdrawal of its green waste collection.
Councillor Robert – Know – less – argued, his town would be “better off if we moved into East Hampshire or West Sussex” for all the benefit it received from being a part of ‘Your Waverley.’ Ye – Gods hypocrisy or what – he’s running a very close second to Bramley’s By-Pass Byham. In Fact his nickname of the Surrey Police’s very own – ‘Olympic Torch’ – because he never went out at night, – might result in him giving BPB a race to WW’s Hypocrite of the Year award. ……………….. 
SO IS THE ROT WE HAVE BEEN PREDICTING SETTING IN AT LAST – IS A SEA CHANGE OF DIRECTION STARTING FROM THE BOTTOM UP?
MAYBE, JUST MAYBE THEY WILL WAKE UP OVER THERE IN THE EAST NEXT?
Yes, folks, you guessed it, Bob Lees, Chairman of Protect Our (Little Corner) of Waverley, has been busy welcoming the Secretary of State’s decision to call-in the Dunsfold Park application on behalf of ‘the thousands who protested against [the] proposal’. And, in the process, taking the opportunity to spread more of this duplicitous organisation’s propaganda and misinformation.
Where were Bob Lees and his cohorts – who claim to care so much about protecting ‘Our Waverley’ a week ago when the Knowle Park Initiative (KPI) was granted planning consent for 265 homes on a flood plain at the aptly named Cranleigh Waters?
“WHERE ARE YOU NOW POW COW”?
Were they out in their thousands – their hundreds even – in support of Cranleigh residents who feel ‘under represented, bullied and victimised’, according to a Cranleigh Parish Councillor?
Not on your nelly! Presumably, they were too busy watching box-sets of Brookside to remind themselves of the horrors that await them if housing is ever built at Dunsfold Park!
According to our Cranleigh correspondent, looking for representatives – even one member of POW would have done! – in the public gallery at The Burys It was a classic case of Where’s Wally?
It would seem Bob Lees has been so busy spewing his views on Dunsfold Park’s call-in, he entirely overlooked to send anyone along to object to the KPI proposals! No surprises there then!!! Had he done so maybe, just maybe, Councillor Isherwood (now known as that ‘Plonker Isherwood’ – in honour of Del Boy’s hapless brother Rodney, might have thought twice before he used his casting vote to force through an application that divided the Planning Committee and had ‘bullied and victimised’ Cranleigh residents crying into their cornflakes the following morning.
WHY, don’t they represent the wider Waverley? POW – Stands for Protect OUR WAVERLEY – So where were you when we were all objecting to major developments in the countryside in FARNHAM?
In all but name they are a reincarnation of Stop Dunsfold Park New Town, a campaign group specifically set up to protect their little corner of the borough – Alfold and Dunsfold.
Cranleigh is a mere six miles up the road from Alfold and Dunsfold – less as the crow flies – but POW don’t put a toe out of bed, let alone outside their front doors to protest against anything unless it has the name Dunsfold Park in it!
Cranleigh and its infrastructure is on its knees, bowing under the weight of over a 1000 new houses that have all been consented since POW was formed!
Do they give a damn? Do they hell! In fact, the more the merrier in Cranleigh, Godalming and Farnham as far as Protect our Little Corner is concerned. The more houses the surrounding towns take the better for Alfold and Dunsfold!
Is this disingenous bunch even aware of all th e other planning applications in the pipeline on the green fields of aloofly and Dunsfold? No why would they be?
In the Press recently : Mr Lies (Ooops! must be a Fruedian slip of the fingers, we meant to type Lees – really we did!) refers to ‘inadequate promises of contributions by[Dunsfold Park] to infrastructure’. INADEQUATE CONTRIBUTIONS? Hello! Wakey, wakey! What the f**k is inadequate about a rumoured £50 million pounds worth of contributions? We don’t see any other developer in or around Cranleigh offering anything like that level of contributions to improve local infrastructure or, for that matter, their combined contributions approaching anywhere near that sum … or have we missed something?
And what about Mr Lies (ooops! that finger’s got a mind of its own!) claims, that the Environment Agency and Surrey County Highways had made substantial objections? Yes, they did have some objections but what Mr Lies (Ooops!), oh so conveniently, forgot to clarify was that those objections have been overcome.
But then Mr Lies (Ooops! We did it again) and his cohorts at ‘P O L Corner’ have form in this respect. They littered the countryside, they claim to be so keen to protect, with dirty great banners in which they asserted that housing at Dunsfold Park would add 42-MINUTES delays to journey times.
So alarmed were we, at Waverley Web, by those startling numbers that we spent days trawling through the planning papers in an effort to substantiate them and what did we discover? That the statement – or should we say lies? – had been taken entirely out of context and deliberately misreported.
What they should have said was that WITHOUT development at Dunsfold Park, delays on the A281 in the coming years could reach 42 minutes but WITH the MITIGATION that development at Dunsfold Park would bring those delays would be reduced to 2 MINUTES! Strikes us that alone is a good enough reason to build houses at Dunsfold Park!
We wish the government wasn’t forcing thousands more homes on Surrey – and Waverley in particular – but they are and that being the case we need to protect as much of our countryside as we can – not just Alfold and Dunsfold! And that means building on previously developed brownfield sites, not the precious green fields in the NorthSouth,East and West.
Our advice to Mr Lies (Ooops!) and Co – horts is either start protecting the entire borough of Waverley – although you’ve left it a bit bloody late for that! – or rename yourselves Protect our Ass!
And if you Really, really want to protect the entire borough, why don’t you start right now by lobbying Matron Milton and the Secretary of State to call-in the KPI application because, as we all know, there’s reasons-a-plenty for so doing!
NEWS IN BRIEF
Elsewhere, writing in the Surrey Ad’s ever decreasing letters page recently, a Jane Winder (Whiner more like!) claims that ‘Those who actually know [Dunsfold Park], understand full well that it is an unsuitable and unsustainable place?’
Really? Really? REALLY?
So tell us, Ms Whiner, what’s so unsustainable about a village with direct access onto the A281, it’s own shops, it’s own primary school, health centre, church, recreation facilities and a developer-subsidised bus service to Guildford, Horsham and all points inbetween?
In our humble opinion, that makes this proposed new village a damn sight more sustainable than Dunsfold Village where we understand you live! Dunsfold village doesn’t have a school, or a GP and the village shop relies on volunteers. All well and good but, actually, it’s selfish people like you, opting to live in the middle of nowhere, who are generating all the traffic on the A281 that people like you are so busy complaining about as you have to get in your cars to go anywhere. Come to think of it, a new village at Dunsfold Park makes Alfold and Dunsfold more sustainable and less of a drain on the rest of us as you can walk to their facilities instead of driving along the A281 to Cranleigh, Godalming, Guildford and Horsham! Time to stop whining Ms Winder and start thinking about your own impact on society.
Tory controlled Surrey County Council has passed a motion of confidence in their Leader David Hodge despite his very public row with the Government that brought assurances that it “DID NOT” Do any “Secret Deal” with ‘Your Surrey’ County Council to head off a 15% council tax increase.
Despite Prime Minister Theresa May’s insistence that there was NO ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ between David Hodge and the Government and… despite the fact that Surrey’s Budget is now unravelling at the seams – all the Tory Tossers lined up behind their leader to enable him to hang onto Surrey’s reins and gallop towards, possibly – Beechers Brook, perhaps?
By 47 votes to eight – all those sycophants – including all our Waverley Councillors – The Farnham Gal, the Eastern Villages – Alan AKA, (‘I’ve just been dropped’) Young, and his wife the Queen Vic, – Farnham’s Riot Ramsdale & Farnham’s very own – Touch of Frost, Peter Martin, David Harmer and Steve Cosser were among those who ensured Hodge the Bodge was not ousted from his very hot seat … well at least not for the time being?
“Secret recordings” made by one of his ‘colleagues’ and sent to the BBC caused a furore, but Hodge is sticking to his guns in the ‘Truth, Dare, Promise or Opinion’ board game now being played out between him and the Government.
That threat of a Referendum might even have been a good ruse if he could have pulled it off! But will Surrey taxpayers be the ones clutching the mucky end of the stick he has now provided his Tory masters to beat us with?
The Prime Minister visibly squirmed when she said: ‘No deal has been made with Surrey that has not been made available to other councils’ so to extract themselves from the mucky brown stuff we can see a different “deal/gentleman’s agreement/stitch up, being worked up in the darkest corners of Government to keep the local elections on track.”
After all – this little debacle won’t damage the reputation of Surrey Council or the Government, because Surrey’s voting fodder will be out in their droves in a few weeks time to ensure we get more of the same – despite someone being economical with the truth?
After all – the Tory Tossers are supremely confident that when the Elections take place on May 4th the results will reveal the voter’s verdict on this unedifying spectacle!
But if you would like to hear on Radio 4 how ‘Your Surrey’ has already lost £1.1 million running its property company so far – listen here.
Oh! and by the way Farnham followers – Le Gal won’t be among those seeking re-election – she’s had an uplift – to scramble up that other TT’s greasy power pole! – The next step for an ambitious career politician up from – Borough to County… onto the pinnacle of success she has striven for – Parliament. Bye-bye Farnham hello ?? – please let it be Blackpool !!