With everything that’s going on in the county at the moment, one can’t help wondering what on earth the News Editor of the Surrey Ad was thinking when he/she decided that a story about a charity fundraising event – not TOP GEAR, is relocating from Dunsfold Park to the Midlandsin was sufficiently interesting to make it headline news in the Cranleigh edition of the paper this week?
Far more interesting – not to mention life-changing – as far as Cranleigh residents are concerned is the news reported on Page 4 – YES, we did say Page 4! – of the paper that plans were approved (nearly a month ago!) for the Thakeham Thugs application to build 54 homes on a floodplain. The Cranleigh Society is incandescent about the decision and on any other day of the week that would and should be headlining the Cranleigh edition of the Surrey Ad.
As our correspondent, Cranky-of-Cranleigh, asked when pointing this out to us, ‘Is it just me or does the Surrey Ad take a surprisingly anti-Dunsfold Park tack whenever the opportunity arises?’
Actually it’s no surprise, Cranky-of-Cranleigh. Did you not know that one Rupert Howell, Development Director at Trinity Mirror Group, lives in a big house on the edge of Dunsfold Park? A house he’s been trying, and spectacularly failing, to sell on and off for several years now? It’s widely rumoured locally that Mr Howell blames Dunsfold Park for his failure to sell his £5 million pile … so no surprise that the newspaper he works for relishes having a good poke at Dunsfold Park ‘whenever the opportunity arises’.
And he could well be right! After all, who in their right mind is going to spend £5 million on a house beside a runway?!
With that in mind one would assume that Mr Howell would be a cheer leader for and supporter of housing at Dunsfold Park but, no, we’re reliably informed that, in the past, his wife was a major supporter of Stop Dunsfold Park New Town. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face … Only in the leafy lanes of Surrey …
