The Liberal Democrat Group has arrived, and although things are quiet at present, there is much work going on behind the scenes. Coalitions created, roles defined for new councillors, inductions held, and plans for the future are being drawn up as we write.

However, there are some huge challenges ahead for ‘Your Waverley’ not least of which is the matter of £1m worth of savings to be made, a Judicial Review on the Local Plan pending in the courts, dealing with the Farnham Blightwells development debacle and numerous controversial planning applications in Haslemere, Godalming and Farnham town and villages.

There is also the huge job of dealing with the Dunsfold Masterplan which includes 1,800 of the first phase of the new settlement.

Cranleigh too faces a number of highly controversial schemes – A New Bypass, the start of which is already being created by stealth, siting of new schools in a highly congested area, plus a new leisure centre.

So, there is much to do about everything. Let us all hope the new Rainbow Alliance is up to the job?

MANIFESTO AT A GLANCE

CHANGING THE JOB DESCRIPTION OF LOCAL COUNCILLORS

COUNCILLORS THAT LISTEN,

A number of Tory councillors have attendance rates below 30% Response and general participation from some councillors is at an all-time low

SHOW UP & WORK HARD

We would:

1. Publish the attendance of all our councillors. 2. Hold public surgeries on a regular basis to engage with residents. 3. Fully and actively participate in council sessions and represent the views of our residents. 4. Appoint one of our councillors as an internal monitoring officer to ensure the above commitments are met.

A FAIRER, BALANCED & MORE TRANSPARENT COUNCIL

NO ONE GROUP SHOULD MAKE ALL THE DECISIONS

Before the election 50 of 57 Waverley seats were held by the Conservatives. Near-total control by one party leads to an absence of debate and scrutiny.

We would: 

1. Reform the standards panel to make it easier for residents to take a question and take action against councillors. 2. Change the procurement rules for big contracts to protect public money. 3. Ensure that all scrutiny functions, including audit, include members of the opposition. 4. Facilitate public and full debate at all levels of the council.

SENSIBLE PLANNING & INFRASTRUCTURE

SUSTAINABLE DECISION MAKING

Conservative promises on the green belt have been repeatedly breached. Hundreds of houses are being built without the infrastructure to support them.

THAT ENGAGES RESIDENTS

We would:

• Set up a committee to investigate available land for social housing, bring it forward to council and set up a public consultation for each site to deliver more social (council) housing. 2. Create a committee (held in public) to properly monitor all Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) funds.

•  Reopen the local plan at the earliest opportunity to change the housing mix and increase affordable and social housing provision for every application to at least 40%. 4. Set up open, public forums to discuss large (above 100 dwellings) planning applications prior to it going to a formal planning committee so that residents can have a proper say.

DEFENDING OUR ENVIRONMENT AND AIR QUALITY

SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT

Air quality in Waverley is under threat and monitoring is inadequate. Sustainable environmental policies are needed if the borough is to develop.

SUSTAINABLE WAVERLEY

We would:

1. Increase the number of air quality monitors. Currently, there are just 2 in the entire borough. 2. Create a permanent air-quality monitoring group that reports to the full council and publishes its reports independently.
2. 3. Work to reduce car usage and increase the number of electric car charging points and to promote sustainability in planning applications and development by encouraging sustainable travel options 4. Seek to eliminate single-use plastics wherever possible and help towns and parishes to do the same.

Published and promoted by Heather Hullah at 95 Green Lane. Godalming on behalf of the Waverley Liberal Democrats.

Here’s the link to the document.  https://tinyurl.com/Manifesto2019

The WW asked for the Conservative Manifesto but we never received it.  The WW has been blocked from the Waverley Borough Council e-mail system – so new councillors will have to either log on to follow us – or log on from their personal e-mail accounts.

It comes as no surprise to any of us Farnham townsfolk that the investment strategy of our county council wally’s is tainted. We, the council tax payers, pour our hard-earned cash into the great black hole called the final salary pension pot – and then… they invest the money in 28 shops, yes, shops and now…

... Steve McDonald of Divest Surrey, e-mails us with a news update about the campaign to seek the removal of  £145 million worth of climate-wrecking fossil fuel investments by the Surrey Pension Fund.

Divest intends to hold its planned action on Friday 7th June.

Divest Surrey writes:

‘The main news is that Extinction Rebellion (XR) has joined us in our fight to remove what is now £ 145 million worth of fossil fuel investments by the Surrey Pension Fund. XR was the group who organised the recent climate protests in London and all over the world – and are growing rapidly.

We are asking everyone to come along to the next pension fund Trustees meeting at County Hall, Kingston, Surrey at 10 am on Friday 07 June, and join like-minded members of the public to do what we can to influence those who believe that continued massive fossil fuel investments somehow assures us of a good future.”

This “battle” we are having with the committee is so important. If huge pension funds like Surrey’s along with many other financial institutions all over the world continue to fund the search for more fossil fuel, then as we are all well aware, everyone loses!
Venue Ashcombe Suite, County Hall, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2DN.
Date Friday 07 June
Time 10.00 am – Please be there by 9.45am. As members of the public, we will be escorted to the meeting from reception.

We posted on this three days ago. Now the Sorry Advertiser has plastered this MISINFORMATION, again… right cross its front page!

Don’t believe a word of it. Dunsfold Park has No intention of hosting a ‘rubbish dump’ for the area. And, it now considering taking a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission. (We heard it from the horse’s mouth) – However,  the company is concerned that residents of the eastern villages may stop petitioning against the closure of the Civic Recycling Centre at Nanhurst Crossroads. (perhaps that is exactly what the county council is hoping for.) 

(or, in the local vernacular, colloquially speaking, WHAT A LOAD OF HORSE SH*T!)

What is it with the Sorry Advertiser?

Why does it feel the urge to consistently take a pop at Dunsfold Aerodrome?

In yet another attempt to rubbish – quite literally! – the largest brownfield site in the borough of Waverley which has, after a sixteen-year fight, finally achieved planning consent to build 1800 homes, Get Surrey – the Sorry Ad’s online mouthpiece – gleefully reported that:

Tons of rubbish could be dumped at Dunsfold Aerodrome after it was identified by Surrey County Council as one of 22 potential sites to manage waste.

Given Surrey County Council is running down, with a view to closing, the recycling centre at Nanhurst Crossroads, just a hop, skip and a jump from Dunsfold Aerodrome, what is the likelihood that they’re going to open another rubbish dump – Get Surrey’s very emotive term, we might add, not ours! – at the former Aerodrome?

Even less likely is the prospect of the site owners, Trinity College Cambridge, agreeing to the siting of a rubbish dump in their new town/village… whatever you want to call it.

Delve a little deeper, behind and beneath the bombastic, misleading and supremely negative headline, which clearly implies that Dunsfold Aerodrome is going to disappear beneath a mountain of smelly, household detritus, one discovers that:

‘The Surrey Waste Local Plan 2019 to 2033, was submitted to a planning inspector last month. The plan shows how and where the waste will be managed in Surrey in the future and draws up policies for handling the waste of future housing developments. Industrial sites have been identified as potential land for waste development and facilities such as composting, renewable energy making plants and recycling.

Land at Dunsfold Aerodrome is listed among the 22 sites by the council as potential land for waste management facilities.’

So, the truth of the matter is, in due course, when the former aerodrome morphs into a new settlement, it might, just might incorporate its own waste management and handling facilities within the adjacent industrial park, where composting, recycling and renewable energy making plants could be sited for its inhabitants and tenant businesses! Not to take the detritus from Cranleigh New Town and beyond.

None of that is BREAKING NEWS as far as we’re aware as Dunsfold Park has been talking about groundbreaking recycling and renewable energy plants feeding the new village as far back as 2007 – at which time the Sorry Ad was too busy acting as the mouthpiece for Stop Dunsfold Park New Town, the forerunner to Protect our little corner of Waverley, to write any positive stories about the largest brownfield site in the borough. Nothing’s changed there then!

Indeed, we think – but, at the time of posting, are still in the process of checking – that Dunsfold Park already has a bio-digester on site which creates energy from food waste and, if that’s the case, rather than the major blight Get Surrey is febriley implying, the Aerodrome is, in fact, ahead of the game!

Trust the Sorry Ad / Get Surrey to put yet another negative spin on what is, in fact, yet another very positive story for and about Dunsfold Aerodrome. Unlike other developments, just a hop, skip and a jump away in Cranleigh where other developers, rather than embracing waste management are looking to DUMP it on everyone else.

Residents of Witley and neighbouring Hambledon have an opportunity to view how their neighbourhood could look over the next decade.

Sections 1 -3 are introductions and overall vision and as such merely state known facts.

In  Section 4: 4.9 the parish council wants 30.5% of new housing to be 4+ bedrooms but at the same time,  will actively resist planning applications from people wishing to extend their existing 2-3 bedroom homes saying that this needs to be justified.

(Some may remember that Government once had an ‘extensions policy’ to retain smaller properties, particularly in rural villages.  Two years ago the Government bought in a ‘temporary policy’ to allow an extension on detached properties up to 8 metres, slightly less for semi-detached properties. This had now been made ‘permanent.’

So sorry Neighbourhood Plan – no can do?

Here at the Waverley Web we would put the boot on the other foot and ask why build such a large proportion of 4+ bedroom homes if the requirement is for smaller homes? Couldn’t be because the developers want more executive homes could it?

4.10 What do the plan’s authors mean by social and intermediate tenures? Would that be a few rental and part ownership “affordable” homes? Affordable homes in Surrey are surely an oxymoron. As for “part rent part buy” – ask some of those poor young souls who have been trapped in properties, they now cannot sell! Why? Because devious developers who over-value properties to line their own pockets are making the lives of the young almost impossible.

4.17  States that gardens must be at least 10m deep x width of the house (= 50-60sm) or in the case of flats a balcony of 3sm but in Policy ND8 it states that balconies should be 3sm and gardens 5sm either there is a typo or no garden is required?

4.23 & 24 There is no comfort to be found here as to whether there will be sufficient water and sewage supply being available as this is left for the developer to discuss with Thames Water.  Presumably, they will look only at the development before them as they have in Cranleigh with little improvement made. Developers, there are currently disposing of sewerage into holding tanks, and letting the affluent’s effluent out slowly into the system!

This is unacceptable. Large developments tacked on to existing, and in some cases elsewhere in the borough ancient, sewage and water supplies have proven to be insufficient leading to overloaded systems unable to cope, and breaking down.

Section 6 includes a new Medical Centre of 12,500sq.ft. but no mention of where this new centre will be? This new centre will include a new pharmacy but what will this mean for the existing service provided by independent pharmacies such as Milford Pharmacy who provide excellent service?

It appears that there is little space to increase the size of the existing infant schools but no mention is made of how the increased numbers will be catered for. This should not be a problem for the senior school as Rodborough is on a 25-acre site and either rebuilding or expanding existing premises are options providing the funds are forthcoming from Surrey County Council?  Without assurances of funding for the provision of education space no permissions for building 480 new homes should be given.

Our Witly reporter says she hopes that something more substantial than proposals for a travel plan is in the offing. Too often problems like this are kicked down the road, the expansion takes place but no buses are provided leaving parents living further out left with no option other than to use a car.

Section 7. While it is true that there are good links via main roads and the railway the reliance on cars remains overwhelming because of poor bus services. The objective of improving the experience for pedestrians and supporting a steady flow of traffic while mitigating the impact on the environment is pie in the sky. There is no public transport to speak of and approx 480 new homes with 2-3 cars each means at least 1000 more vehicles just in Milford as most of the new homes will be there.

Neither are there plans to improve or repair the existing road system so congestion is inevitable. There is much talk of new footpaths but where are the guarantees they will be built.

7.12 specifically mentions the much-needed improvements to the Station Lane/Church Road junction. Other than traffic lights there is very little that can be done to improve a junction that is already a problem before the 200 new homes are built on Milford Golf Club. If there is a solution it would have been spelt out in the Plan. Unless new wider roads are planned (and they are not) then traffic exiting the new developments onto existing roads will be a problem.  Talk of New Highway Design in Policy T2 (page43) is wishful thinking.

7.14 States that requirements for charging points will be a necessity. Recent planning consents given by Waverley Plånners have included more of these, but earlier developments have not?

Travel policies T4, 5 & 7 are laudable and would that they could be achieved but we saw all these types of proposals in Farnham and we know what a mess that is. Wishing for funds sufficient to mitigate traffic congestion, providing sustainable travel modes to reduce pollution levels and accessible transport for the disabled will require far more money than the developers can, or will, be prepared to contribute.

SCC is responsible for providing good safe roads and has proved it cannot keep up with the rising number of potholes.

It appears that the majority of the 480 homes will be built in Milford on two large sites.

The development of the  Milford  Golf Course land has been granted so nothing can be done about that. Unless of course legal covenants covering the site are challenged in the Courts? Last night Waverley Planners gave developers the go-ahead to build homes on Milford Golf Course.

The Secretts’ land is a brownfield site and therefore preferable to any greenfield site. The combined development on these two large sites should also prevent any development in the smaller villages/hamlets of Enton, Wormley, Brook and Sandhills.

Here’s a little billet-doux we received from ROSALEEN EGAN 

27th May 2019

Hi Waverley Web,

Well, I attended the Count yesterday as a UKIP count agent. When I applied ( to Waverley Borough Council?) for myself and four others to attend I had to chase our authorisation letters, only to be told we were not on the list and there was not any room. This foolishness was sorted out but you can imagine my surprise when I arrived at the Count to find Seven  Lib Dem agents. That was it, no TT’s, no Labour, no Greens, no Brexit Party and no Indies!

The Tory Boo Boys just didn’t have the guts to turn up, watching the piles of votes accumulated in the Lib Dem and Brexit Party boxes as this would have silenced them. Someone needs to let them all know that part of the democratic process is going along and watching your party being decimated and learning from that process, not hiding away and saying it is all that nasty Farage man’s fault!

Well done to all the polling staff for keeping their good humour over a very long day ably led by Tom Horwood, who I have to say, is better than Napoleon Wenham by a country mile.

Rosaleen.