Just when you thought the Cranleigh Village (Don’t mention the H-word) Trust debacle couldn’t get any worse, enter stage left Batty Bamford. Again!!
Batty – has latent ambitions, we’re told, to step into the shoes of the late, unlamented Life of Brian, former Chairman of Cranleigh Parish Council.
Bully-Boy-Brian didn’t believe in democracy and whilst, give him his due, he chaired parish council meetings, all the important decisions were made behind closed doors, with a chosen few, including wife of Brian. They were duped into accepting a land swap for a football field with a Ransome strip surrounding it? Embarked upon some extremely dubious shenanigans to provide an access along the Snoxhall Fields access road – and supported use of former parish land to allow A2Dominion to build residential flats there. But even they didn’t know that an A2D director was a CVHT Trustee? From the information spewing into us from a host of people, including former councillors, we could go on, and on…
But then we will leave it to (Don’t mention the H word) who are busy running ragged trying to convince everyone in and around Cranleigh New Town there really is something in it for them. There are two meetings tonight! One at the Civic Society another at Snox Hall where the parish council consider the scheme – on land it once owned and swapped for a replacement HOSPITAL.
Apparently, according to the Mutter on the street new bully-on-the-block Bamford is incandescent with the Waverley Web because we have … wait for it, …wait for it … Drum roll because It’s a biggy:
We have dared to TELL THE TRUTH!!!
Because if you don’t – someone will tell it for you.
Yes, there you have it, folks, the Waverley Web has dared to reveal the little secret that the Cranleigh Village (Don’t mention the H-word) Trust is desperate to conceal: that it isn’t what it says on the can!
Instead, the promised new village hospital that Cranleigh residents, businesses, schools and other organisations fund-raised so hard for is DEAD and, in its place, the Trustees have cobbled together a deal with a multibillionaire owned private sector company HC-ONE to build a private nursing home, with none of the usual services associated with a cottage hospital and a mere 20 out of a total of 80 beds provided free for residents of the borough rather than the Cranleigh residents who did all the heavy-lifting in relation to the fundraising.
According to embattled and berated Cranleigh residents and businesses – who wish to remain nameless for fear of reprisals – new BOTB Bamford considers himself to be the public face of Cranleigh. Never mind the views of the democratically elected Parish Council, in his capacity as Vice-Chair of Cranleigh Chamber of Commerce, new BOTB wants to speak for all of Cranleigh – or at least all those that he thinks matters!
What is it about some people that the minute they assume a semi-public role – even in a tiny pond like Cranleigh – that makes them think they morph overnight into sagacious men of business and statesmen of the village? And why do they think they can completely disregard and sweep into the gutter the aspirations and views of the many thousands of residents who believed in and fund-raised for a new village hospital – not only in name but in deed?
The answer, in part, is that power corrupts – even in tiny doses, which is all new BOTB currently has. But can you imagine what a jumped-up popinjay he’s set to become if ever he reaches the giddy heights of Chairman of the Cranleigh Chamber of Commerce? May God preserve us if the Cranleigh Chamber of Commerce doesn’t!
Sadly, he has convinced himself that he’s the only person with the wit and ingenuity to decide when a village hospital is a village hospital – or not as is the case here – and if anyone disagrees with him woe betide them – or so we’re told – more of which below.
We at the Waverley Web are shaking in our bunker because, we’re told, despite a 14.4% rise in crime in Surrey for the period 2017/18, with an astonishing 72,800 incidents reported during the period, Peanut wants the police to investigate us!
Yep, folks, you did read that right. According to our Cranleigh followers, BB is running around Cranleigh streets telling anyone who will listen that he wants the police to waste their very limited and valuable resources investigating and exposing the contributors to the Waverley Web, instead of concentrating on the more pressing issues of an 8.4% rise in burglaries in the county, incidents of domestic violence, rape and vehicle-related crimes.
Our crime? Apparently, we’re guilty of upsetting him and his village-wide view. Now, of course, we understand that the police are required to protect and support minorities, but, seriously, does he really think being one of the few people in Cranleigh to support the debacle that the Cranleigh Village (don’t mention the H-word) Trust has become is really what being a member of a minority group is all about?!
Whilst BB ponders that complex problem, we await the dawn raid and have a working title of Truncheons at Dawn for the ensuing article