Is it any wonder that when the Waverley Web was founded we chose the well-known saying…

‘Oh what a tangled web they weave when once they practise to deceive?’

An Ellis rides again to the rescue of a Cranleigh Charity who villagers claim has duped them of their cash.

Will ‘Wife of Brian’ succeed in scuppering a decision by Waverley Planners to ditch a controversial care home scheme?

Will ‘Wife of Brian’ succeed in scuppering a decision by Waverley Officers to ditch a controversial care home scheme?

The answer to that little conundrum – will the Cranleigh Private Care Home application be determined by Waverley Members next Wednesday? Yes, of course, it will.

 The planners’ report states that the scheme, which was to be refused under delegated powers, will now go to the council’s main committee due to the large public response. Although it mentions 241 letters of support and 253 – letters of objection – no mention is made of the 4,500 residents who signed a petition.

But of course, we know, that they know, that everyone knows, that it has been called in by Cllr Patricia Ellis? Residents and councillors have wondered for weeks, if not months, why there has been an unprecedented deviation from the normal procedure for call-ins for this particular application? An application which has languished inside Waverley Towers since  November 2018?

So villagers are asking us?

Is wife of Brian is being assisted by non-other than ‘Son of Bainbridge!’

WW hears from residents over there – that the question on everyone’s lips in Cranleigh is – ‘Whether or not Daniel Bainbridge, the Borough Solicitor and Deputy Monitoring officer, for Waverley, has declared an interest in the Cranleigh Care Home application?  If he hasn’t maybe he should have done because his father, John, is a Trustee of Cranleigh Village Hospital Trust.  

Angry villagers, more than 4,500 of whom are opposed to the privately owned care home being granted planning consent, have bombarded the council with petitions and letters of objection in their attempts to prevent it. After being told officers were recommending refusal under powers delegated to them, they wonder why the Monitoring Officer was so determined to allow Cllr Ellis to call it in – and support it.

We have received dozens of messages from donors, asking if Daniel Bainbridge, the deputy monitoring officer,  had a hand in ensuring that the “infamous late-call-in saga request, despite being out of time, was acceded to?”

Have John Bainbridge and his fellow trustees been aided and abetted – wittingly or unwittingly by…

 Bainbridge Junior could be in a position to give them the inside track on what is and isn’t happening in the Planning Department at Waverley.

Opposition from local residents – who begrudge every penny of their £1.5m hard-earned cash going into a privately owned business  – and opposition by Cranleigh Parish Councillors has done nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the few – VERY FEW – hardcore supporters of the privately owned care home trying to get it over the line.  

Just to recap for those just back from the Moon a Cranleigh Charity – Cranleigh Village Hospital Trust (CVHT)- was formed 20 years ago to build, yes you guessed, a hospital and a day hospital for Cranleigh and the nearby villages. The Charity has been dogged by difficulties, including numerous changes in NHS structures. Another of which is now on the way with the creation of Surrey Heartlands into which Guildford & Waverley will be incorporated.

However, a planning application to build a 60-bed  Private Care Home, which was recently changed to a “Nursing Home” and 20 community beds, has been languishing in Waverley Towers since November 2018. Why?

The Waverley Web understands that, as we type, a complaint about Daniel Bainbridge is now winging its way to the Ombudsman in order to establish exactly how and when Bainbridge Junior registered his conflict of interest in relation to the proposed Cranleigh Care Home.   Another is on its way to the Charities Commission enquiring how and why the trustees of CVHT can resolutely refuse to return donations to those who ask when the Trust is clearly guilty of operating what one disgruntled former supporter described as ‘a cloak and mirrors deception.’

A Charity that took money from local men, women and young children, under false pretences. Pledged a hospital and a day hospital, on land sold by villagers for £1 and is now building an £18m commercial care home, on land covered by a covenant. A covenant changed in 2013 by an exchange of e-mails! 

Now, Cranleigh faces the depressing prospect of the planning application for the privately owned care home being waved through by members with little or no connection to the village.  Meanwhile, Cranleigh residents are not only out of pocket personally, but they’re also out of pocket at a parochial level as the late unlamented husband of Councillor Ellis sold off their land valued at £250,000 upon which the privately owned care home is to be built. All without so much as a by your leave, or a mandate from the community –  for a measly £1! They are describing it as a dastardly act of daylight robbery!