Councillor Maurice Byham is really quite a nice ordinary guy really and as member of Waverley Borough Council for many years, we understand, he has done quite a decent job on behalf of the residents of Bramley.
However, his usual avuncular, quiet persona has undergone a dramatic change recently and he appears to have had some sort of later-life crisis on the subject of traffic and housing development.
Perhaps the word Hypocrisy is too harsh a word to describe By-Pass Byham, as the modern definition indicates a state of promoting virtues, moral beliefs or principles that one does not actually have or is guilty of violating.
It is also considered to be a kind of lie, because you see, it often involves deceiving others. Hypocrisy is not simply failing to practice those virtues, bur misleading his fellows into believing he has them.
Now we fully understand Councillor Byham hates the traffic thundering through Bramley. Don’t we all? However, – let’s just call him By-Pass Byham (BPB) is deluded in believing all the traffic on the A281 comes from…yes, you guessed from Dunsfold Park…
‘Don’t get me wrong – I don’t really want a By-Pass around Bramley – what I want, what I really really want, is for everyone to think I am concerned about all the traffic. I’m really, really concerned about is the traffic coming from Dunsfold airfield – not Cranleigh, not Horsham, Billingshurst, Guildford, Shalford, Shoreham, Godalming, or anywhere else for that matter – just DUNSFOLD!
… Now, if you read a newspaper or turn on the TV it will not have escaped your notice that No homes have yet been built at DP! In fact, if BPB and some of his friends, have their way, they never will be! Because they want houses built in the countryside and on the Green Belt. Read on and all will be revealed!
If he hates traffic then WHY did:
- BPB sit in the council chamber just ten days ago and vote – against an officers’ recommendation to REFUSE a planning application for five homes in Bramley on the Green Belt – yes you know the stuff everyone wishes they had more of, as a protection against development!
The application in Bramley Park Drive for five homes was made in the name of an Agent. Councillor Richard Seaborne (Con Bramley) declared an interest in the application as he was, a Bramley parish councillor. Then proceeded to back the scheme to the hilt.
BPB – said he too, would declare that although the application had been submitted by an Agent – because,
He then gave the application his full support, despite hearing from the new girl on the block Liz Townsend that – the dust cart wouldn’t be able to get up the narrow road! Councillor John Gray from Dunsfold! said Yes, who for the second time this year, said YES to development on the GREEN BELT!
WHY? We wonder? On a dangerous bend, on the Green Belt, alongside a narrow lane called Park Drive which leads to the Godalming Anglers Club Fisheries and on land where they have parked for many year.
The reasons for approving it were :
- That was “scruffy and overgrown” what they didn’t of course mention was:
It is owned by non other than…
So that’s alright then – ignore the officers advice, the very same officers who would rather do cartwheels across the council chamber than refuse development anywhere Waverley
Former Member of Parliament for Epsom & Ewell and a Minister in the Government of Margaret Thatcher!
Now there’s a damned good reason for changing the settlement boundary of Bramley and building on the Green Belt if ever we have heard of one…isn’t it?
And… just days later he stuck his hypocritical little mit in the air and voted through another 265 homes on green fields in Cranleigh! Sending another shed load of traffic through Bramley/Shamley Green/Wonersh – You couldn’t make it up – could you?
The most difficult — characteristics to detect in human nature is hypocrisy. This word derives from Greek and literally means “play-acting” because it was first referred to actors who, on stage, had to give a specific interpretation of a certain character.