Where art thou now POW?

They seek him here, they seek him there,
Waverley parishioners seek him everywhere!
Is he in heaven? Is he in hell?
Where is that damn elusive Capt’n Bob Lies
Hiding out amongst the chives?
His mischief creates nothing but invoices
Though he tries to claim he’s giving people choices!

There’s a huge hue and cry in Cranleigh where its parish council  – not to mention its residents – would like to know where Capt’n Bob Lies and his cohort Little Briton (‘Who? Me? I’m absolutely nothing to do with Protect Our Waverley!’) are?

Nothing has been heard from Capt’n Bob and his cronies since the end of November when the High Court threw out their challenge to the Dunsfold development and he hit the airwaves trying to justify this decision by accusing the Judge – a planning expert no less – of not understand planning law! As you do!

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Borough – just a hop, skip and six miles away from Dunsfold in Cranleigh – the Parish Council and local residents would really, really, REALLY welcome Protect our Waverley’s help in doing what it says on their can –

Protecting our Waverley!

So where were you when Waverley Planners were faced with applications to build former green belt land in GODALMING POW? Godawfulming – here we come?

Cranleigh is facing~: 

• Development in the village centre: Huge 80-bed private care home + 26 residential units of accommodation for anyone from anywhere, anytime.
• Another shedload of housing proposed by Cranleigh School for Cranleigh School in Horseshoe Lane. (27)
• A lorry-load of housing (40) proposed by the same school which will join Cranleigh with the settlement of Rowley on a vital wedge of land opposite the Notcutts Garden Centre in Guildford Road.
• A bigger lorry load of housing (91) – on the former sites of two local schools, after the two new schools have been consented – by Surrey County Council.  With traffic generation in Parsonage Road likely to bring  Cranleigh New Town to a standstill?

and that’s just your starter for TEN.

So where is Protect our Waverley and Capt’n Bob when they’re needed? Fighting Godalming’s corner – No Way!

Apparently, one of our correspondents has the answer:

It would appear Capt’n Bob has developed an addiction to litigation; he just can’t get enough of it!

Regular readers will recall that we mentioned last year that we’d received a rant from a reader advising us that Capt’n Bob and wife Mia were refusing to pay an award-winning local landscaping company for work they’d been commissioned to carry out at Casa Bob’n’Mia. Yes, that’s the one, you all remember the infamous Mi Casa Su Casa!

According to the award-winning craftsman, Capt’n Bob & Mia tried to wriggle out of paying circa £26,000 – yep, you did read that right! £26,000! – with claims of poor workmanship.

The case went to arbitration and, thankfully, for the award-winning landscaping contractor, the Arbitrator ‘saw straight through [Capt’n Bob] and threw out [his] claims of poor workmanship as he couldn’t supply any detail or evidence.’ No change there then!

According to our informant, Capt’n ‘Bob consistently lied and tried desperately to weasel his way out of paying us for over a year and caused myself and family a huge amount of upset at that time.’ Going on to describe Capt’n Bob as a ‘disgusting, lying, underhanded bully’.

Now hold on – even we don’t use that many expletives. Bob did pay the full amount, but he, of course, made the contractor wait the full two weeks. 

The contractor claims he still didn’t get quite everything he was due, but certainly over £20, 000 more than Bob Lies was trying to get away with paying. Luckily he was able to produce a letter from another company stating he did the same to them. The shame is that even after the interest he was instructed to pay, he still came out slightly on top. He had not a single care about how holding back this amount of money would affect a small local business or his family and there was nothing in the award to discourage him from trying this again.

He said “Bob and Mia are bullies and I’m sure someone else will find that out very soon. “

In the meantime, other tradesmen and women who are called to work at Casa Bob’n’Mia might like to take note of this sorry tale and ensure they get payment up front because, apparently, the couple like to ‘cherrypick’ what they choose to pay for and the award-winning landscaping contractor would like to ensure that others don’t find themselves in the same boat they did. Which leads us neatly back to Baroness Orczy:

Let’s hope that Captain Lies doesn’t come up against too much opposition to his own planning application?