Appeal Decision 3237359

You couldn’t make it up! Really you couldn’t!  Another shedload of homes will soon be on their way  to the beleaguered  Surrey/Sussex village that is going through a population explosion.

A countryside site adjoining 56 homes now under construction by Cala Homes – will now make way for another 80 on adjoining land at Sweeters’ Copse, Loxwood Road after a Government Inspector  allowed an Appeal by Catesby Strategic Land Ltd.

To add insult to injury – the scheme REFUSED by officers under their delegated powers, will be the subject of swingeing costs awarded against the council for daring to throw the scheme out!

Why…has Inspector Michael Boniface overturned a scheme opposed by everyone, including the parish and borough councils?

Because of its close proximity to the proposed new Dunsfold Garden Village, just a hop, skip and a jump away. A development that isn’t even off the airport runway yet!

Because, in the Inspector’s opinion, ‘the settlement’ – the Dunsfold scheme – described as a ‘main settlement’ in the Local Plan of 1,800 homes, will have: Employment, a primary school, health care and community, retail and leisure facilities – that the developers of Alfold’s Sweeters’ Copse site can now also enjoy, presumably at the Flying Scot’s expense? 

The Inspector concluded that DP’s sustainable transport package – fleets of buses to be provided by Dunsfold Park to Surrey County Council in perpetuity – will serve the residents of Alfold New Town too.

And, as he said, Surrey County Council intends as part of the Dunsfold Plan to put in a footpath between Alfold & Dunsfold, this will improve “the attractiveness of a walk to these facilities,” Bloody Nora! Does the Inspector really believe  that the footpath will be completed during 2020/21, in advance of any occupation of the Sweeters’ appeal site homes? Because the county council trousered £150,000  in 2015 from Dunsfold Park for a new footpath from The Compasses Gate to The Alfold Crossways Junction. Has it appeared – has it hell  – because SCC claims it can’t obtain the necessary land!

So there you have it folks! More homes in the countryside, in a village with – no school, or GP.  Has a garage shop, a pub and a restaurant nearby and a major road the A281 Horsham/Guildford road running by. A village with serious sewerage and flooding issues which occur regularly. But the Inspector is well-satisfied and mentions that there are ample railway stations nearby! Perhaps 10 miles to Milford is nearby – certainly 16 miles to Horsham is just a hop, and a skip away and 12 miles to Guildford is really on the doorstep – isn’t it?

So we ask?

Because it is beginning to look to us that the planners may just be clinging by their finger-tips  to an over stated and seemingly discredited housing supply figure? And, with yet another  application which has now landed on its desk for yet another 80 homes virtually adjoining Sweeters’ Copse and other sites either consented or at appeal, Alfold Village and Dunsfold Park Garden Village could soon become one?

The application which was a screening opinion when we posted  a couple of days ago has now been lodged. Alfold Parish Council and the Waverley Borough Councillor have been meeting the developer W.E Black in private for several weeks. 

No minutes have appeared on the APC website since last September. presumably because Crystal Tips is now working for the Honourable Angela, Boris’s new Babe – MP for Guildford, who is promising Alfold villagers a Flood Forum meeting – soon. How soon?

As developers prepare to dump another 80 homes on Alfold, villagers are gearing up to say – No More!