Presently operating from an agricultural barn in West Sussex, the Wings Museum is heading for Alfold.
The Aviation Museum based at Handcross near Balcome is home to exhibits and visitors from all over the world. It has permission for a 10,000 sqm hanger, and now a multi-million-pound detailed scheme is with Waverley Planners.
Waverley didn’t want it – and the village didn’t want it, but a Government Inspector did. Why? Because a museum was included in the borough’s Local Plan Part 1. However, the numpties who drafted it – forgot to recognise there was already a museum just a hop and a skip away at the neighbouring Dunsfold airfield.
So now the village dubbed by Waverley councillors as “poor old Alfold” could get two museums- a few hundred yards apart and 50,000 + visitors per year. The access to the new building is proposed off Alfold Crossways junction and onto narrow rural roads. One of which is access to the proposed new garden village.
A spokesman for the Hunt Brothers Charity called ‘Wings’ told the appeal Inspector its Museum, attracting 28,000 visitors to view the planes, needed the massive new hangar off Dunsfold Road, Alfold saying it would be a huge asset and good for the borough’s economy.
The building would include classrooms and a library for education, a shop, a coach, car parks for 50 vehicles, and coaches. They claimed it would also have a dedicated section dealing with Dunsfold Aerodrome’s history.
It was financially sound with money in place to forge ahead with the exciting scheme on land it owned and to include an adjacent nature reserve, where the remains of WW2 buildings still stand.
The scheme was “unique” and would be an asset to the area, attracting visitors worldwide.
Wings say the new Garden Village would provide transport links proposed at nearby Dunsfold Park.
Floods and sewage problems dog the village on the Surrey/Sussex border. At a recent Public Inquiry, Thames Water said it could not currently provide services to a proposal by Thakeham Homes to build 99 dwellings close to the Museum site.
Here’s its take on the present Museum proposals.
Chocs away for the Wings Museum – unless it joins Dunsfold Park’s tribute to the past?
Here’s the link: https://planning360.waverley.gov.uk:4443/planning/search-applications?civica.query.FullTextSearch=WA%2F2016%2F1954
There is so much misleading guff in that proposal… not least the image showing access to the museum via Dunsfold Park. If Wings are expecting 28,000 visitors (yeah?) then 99% of them are coming by road. There is no road access to the museum from Dunsfold Park – so all visitors will need to come via the lanes through Alfold or Dunsfold. To portray visitors cycling from DP to the museum is laughable. As laughable as their planning proposal that stated that the number of visitors to the museum that choose to use public transport would be the same number as if the museum was situated in Godalming town centre. Lies and and damn lies.
We here at WW sometimes wonder if the Inspectors that make decisions like this actually visit the sites, investigate public transport and walk along these rural roads. The access road we mentioned leads from the Crossways junction and then into the road that leads to Dunsfold Park via The Compasses Gate – a road used by Cranleigh Freight at present.