AFTER ALL, THEY’VE ASKED EVERYBODY ELSE!

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER …

We’ve all heard the old adage ‘he thinks all his Christmases have come at once’! If the Secretary of State doesn’t pull his finger out of the proverbial, that could be the verdict for the Flying Scotsman – always assuming, that is, Sajid Javid makes a positive decision when he finally gets around to making it!

Here at the Waverley Web we wonder –  is there anyone who hasn’t commented?

Our moles – both within Waverley Borough Council and PoW (and, no, the PoW mole doesn’t know s/he’s a mole, s/he’s just too trusting of his / her intimates!) – that the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government has written, this week, to ‘Your Waverley’  – copies to every Tom, Dick & Harriet who have expressed a passing interest in the decision – except of course, His Holiness.

 Saying: “The Secretary of State is considering the report of the Inspector, Philip Major who held a public local inquiry from 18 July 2017 into the [Dunsfold Park] planning application … [and he] takes the view that the recently published Report on the Examination of the Waverley Borough Local Plan Part 1 and the associated Final Schedule of Main Modifications include new information which may be material to the application before him.” The upshot being that “The Secretary of State considers that a period of two weeks to submit representations is reasonable in the circumstances of this case” and arising from that he “considers that he will not be in a position to reach a decision on the application by 15 March, as previously notified … he will now issue his decision on or before 31 March 2018.”

How long does it take one man and his army to make a decision that’s as plain as the nose on his face?! It’s like pulling teeth trying to get a decision out of the Ministry of Housing! No wonder there’s a chronic shortage of housing in this country if they keep putting off making a decision.

 In other democratic countries, the application would have been issued in half the time and  1,800 houses would have been built and occupied! But here in the UK, where every mouse, bat, and bullfrog has to be consulted –  – it’s  taken 10 years and counting … so what’s another three months here and two weeks there …?

We’ve heard that PoW is having a pow-wow as we type, taking “the opportunity to submit further written representations ”because it “affects the case [they] put to the Inspector at the inquiry.”

We can just see it now, winging its way over the ether:

Dear Mr. Jewell

Inspector Jonathan Bore has surprised no-one – least of all us! – by the conclusions reached in his report on the Waverley Local Plan Part 1; he has not wavered (no pun intended!) from the position he took during the Public Examination last summer when he unjustifiably ‘talked up’ the housing need target to the unsustainable level of 590 dwellings per year. Waverley Borough Council, to their detriment and shame, did not challenge that at the time or subsequently, and the result is a Plan which blights every part of the Borough but especially our corner of it.

Once again, local opinion has been ridden roughshod over and ignored. Neighbourhood Plans seem to count for nothing and the most unsustainable site for development, Dunsfold Aerodrome, has been elevated to almost ‘holy grail’ status by Mr. Bore. The report, which in its own words correctly states that it is strategic, has none the less placed a disproportionate reliance on this single, remote site for delivery of the unsustainable quantity of homes to be built in the Borough over the Plan period.

Mr. Bore talks at length about his own assessment of the environmental and transport credentials of Dunsfold Aerodrome, without the benefit of the full evidence properly being considered in the separate Call In Inquiry, the conclusion of which was not expected to be announced by the Secretary of State until 15th March. At the same time, Waverley Borough Council has proposed handling a ‘free gift’ worth between £10m and £16m to the owners of Dunsfold Aerodrome by exempting them from all-important Community Infrastructure Levy – money the whole borough desperately needs and would benefit from.

POW believes the residents of Waverley – and especially the residents of Awfold and Duncefold – deserve better!

Yours sincerely 

Bob Lies
Chairman of the Campaign

Protect our Waverley Campaign
… is a group formed to campaign against the development of Dunsfold Park New Town on the Dunsfold Airfield and other un-sustainable planning applications throughout the Borough of Waverley – not that we can be bothered to do or say anything about applications in the rest of the Borough because we only really, truly, madly, deeply care about Awfold, Duncefold, Ker-Chiddingfold and Where-Has-All-the-Traffic-Come-From… Horsham? But we’ve been told it’s not PC to let the people of Cranleigh, Godalming, and Farnham think we don’t give a Donald Duck about them!

Now, dear readers, once you’ve picked yourself up off the floor, where you’ve no doubt been rolling,  and wiped the tears from your eyes, we’ll break it to you gently … we didn’t make that letter up – well, OK, we might have used a touch of poetic licence describing POW and its supporters, but the rest is a reproduction its latest Press Release, written in a fit of pique when Inspector Bore’s Report was published.

Seriously, folks, we couldn’t have made that up if we’d tried. Yeah, we’re tongue in cheek and on a good day we can be funny but that was hysterical … all the more so because they actually believe their own PR! And… if they don’t get their own way they will…do what Violet Elizabeth Bob did and they will…