Poor old, poor old, poor old Cranleigh – whose residents appear to have been SHAFTED, yet again! This time by a so-called charity!

We, here at the Waverley Web, are a cynical lot – you may have noticed?! – but we fell about laughing at a recent ‘story’ in the Sorry Advertiser linking the contribution that the old Cranleigh Village Hospital made in the War with that of a new ‘Replacement Hospital’ for which villagers have been waiting – and are still waiting! – for over 20 years!

The ether has been positively humming since the Sorry Advertiser’s yarn and our inbox is overflowing with the indignation and wrath of dozens of our followers over there in the East, eager to set the record straight.

• THE NEW FACILITY IS A PRIVATE ‘FOR PROFIT’ NURSING HOME! RUN BY HC-ONE, WHOSE CHAIRMAN IS A CHAP CALLED CHAI PATEL!

• THE OLD CRANLEIGH VILLAGE HOSPITAL STILL EXISTS AND THE LEAGUE OF FRIENDS HAS JUST SPENT £400,000 UPGRADING IT TO PROVIDE A NEW X-RAY DEPARTMENT FOR OUTPATIENTS FOR THE ROYAL SURREY COUNTY HOSPITAL!

In the meantime, the proposed new, PRIVATE, FOR PROFIT, Nursing Home, for which a planning application has been pending – ‘any day now’, according to its supporters – since 2016(!), is still, mendaciously, being touted as CRANLEIGH HOSPITAL! Which, we’re told, is an outrageous calumny! Yes, the project was sold to gullible Cranleigh residents, not to mention a few of the early donors,  as a new, all-singing, all-dancing village hospital to replace the existing, much-loved but dated facility, but that is no longer the case – if, indeed, it ever was!

Now, the PRIVATE, FOR PROFIT nursing homes wants to build 26 homes for ‘HEALTH WORKERS’(!) in its grounds! The very same land which if, it was still owned by the parish council, could have provided a hugely valuable asset for generations of Cranleigh people!

Although there is a proposal to include 20 beds, 10 of those are earmarked to both save and make Surrey County Council a shedload of money, as they will enable the sale of the closed Longfields Alzheimer’s home, off Ewhurst Road, to become – yes, you guessed it! – another new housing development! The remaining 10 beds will be so-called ‘community beds’ for the Guildford & Waverley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) – in other words, for patients from all over the Guildford & Waverley CCG area!! So much for localism! This fact has been confirmed to the Waverley Web by Dr David Eyre Brook of the Guildford and Waverley CCG!

In the meantime, the existing Cranleigh Village Hospital building has become the permanent home for a Guildford & Waverley CCG Outpatients’ Clinics hosting an ultrasound machine, treatment and waiting rooms. Patients from Godalming and Guildford no longer need to travel to Milford or Guildford, they just tootle down the B2130 and the A281 to Cranleigh.

According to Cranleigh residents – who almost brought down the Waverley Web website contact@waverleyweb.org (in their outrage, both they and the villagers they represent have been ‘shafted and shat-upon-from-a-great-height’ by the once revered Cranleigh Village Hospital Trust, which snaffled very valuable parish recreation pitches in a land swap, together with millions of pounds of publically raised money for – A VILLAGE HOSPITAL – that has now morphed into a PRIVATE, FOR PROFIT nursing home with 26 so-called key-worker houses and 16 parking spaces!

Many Cranleigh residents and fundraisers for the original dream-scheme – a new, free at the point of use VILLAGE HOSPITAL – are now alleging that a former parish councillor was ‘duped’ into donating the land, in exchange for recreation land nearby, believing the public would get the VILLAGE HOSPITAL they were duped into raising millions of pounds for!

They also believe a previous Parish Council, led by the late Councillor Brian Ellis, signed a document in December 2010, which gives the Cranleigh Village Hospital Trust (now being dubbed the Cranleigh Private Nursing Home Trust!) the right to use the Snoxhall Playing fields access road for vehicular traffic across its land to the new 26 homes! FREE GRATIS AND FOR NOTHING (if you discount a tawdry peppercorn rent of £1!!!).

So there you have it, folks! Once again, the village dubbed by Waverley councillors as, ‘Poor Old Cranleigh’ has, in the words of its residents, been WELL & TRULY SHAFTED again…

Just to add insult to injury, residents over there tell us that £173,000 of the 106 Legal Agreement monies contributed by Berkeley Homes is going to provide a 3G all-weather pitch for the pupils of the £30,000  year Cranleigh PUBLIC School. “Poor old Cranleigh.” shafted yet again!!

Here’s just one of the letters received by the Waverley Web last year. The latest comments are too strong to print!