As you may expect, the Waverley Web didn’t get an invitation to the opening of the spectacular new Canada Avenue. But we have now heard from a man who did.
Feelings are running high in Cranfold, and any hopes there might have been that the opening of the new road would create a sense of being OPEN FOR BUSINESS were well and truly capsized by the non-appearance of Richard Turncoat or any of the Fellows to represent Trinity College Cambridge. Yet another misstep on Mr Turncoat’s ill-trodden path since he took the helm at the formerly distinguished College. How many more before he’s turned out on his ear?!
Meanwhile, residents are discussing starting a campaign to demand the College commit to a start date for house building at Dunsfold Park. That would undoubtedly be a turn-up for the books and a novelty for the national papers to pick up on …
Twenty-two years after The Rutland Group acquired Dunsfold Aerodrome from Bae Systems, the man formerly known as the ‘Flying Scot’ opened a new access road into the aerodrome directly from the A281 last week. And what an impressive new road it is – approximately a quarter of a mile long and lined with a double row of Canadian Maple Trees on either side. It creates a real sense of arrival with stunning views up to Hascombe Hill, and we are promised Runway Park, a new linear parkland created from the former runway in due course.
Is Dunsfold’s Canada Avenue a road to nowhere?
The great and the good were there – including many present and former parish and borough councillors who had fought tooth and nail against the plans to build on the borough’s biggest brownfield site. Colonel Bouchard, from The Canadian High Commission, was invited to unveil the new road’s name: CANADA AVENUE. It is a fitting tribute to the Canadian engineers who created the airfield in just 18 weeks during World War II and the pilots who flew from the wartime airfield.
Noticeable only by his absence was Richard Turnhill, the not-so-new Bursur of Trinity College Cambridge, the owners of Dunsfold Park. Parish and Borough Councillors and residents were spitting pips over this.
‘Not only is it deeply disappointing, but it’s insulting and outrageous,’ fumed one, ‘that not a single person from Trinity College Cambridge has bothered to show up.’
‘No wonder the country’s in the state it’s in,’ moaned another, ‘when major institutions are allowed to sit on their hands and do sweet FA. All around us planning consents are being granted on green fields because a bunch of **sser* in Cambridge won’t get off their asses and start building the homes they have consent for on the borough’s biggest brownfield site.
It’s high time the government punished institutions that landbank by confiscating their land if they don’t build.’
SURPRISE ? Yes Waverley Web you should have been invited by the Flying Scot. You campaigned hard for the development with rude comments about those who quite rightly pointed out the lack of suitable road access to and from Bramley, Cranleigh, Guildford, Milford, and Godalming.
How will the flood risk and site contamination issues be dealt with? Is there the local demand for the houses?
No wonder Trinity College are considering the issues carefully
(b)(b) Really! The delay wouldn’t have anything to do with (a) Waverley’s constants rejection and then volte face. (b) MP’s Anne Milton and Jeremy Hunt backed by Protect Our Waverley (BTW where is POW NOW- is it protecting Waverley – like hell it is! (c) calling in the consent to the Secretary of State and then off to the High Court!! What nonsense. While Dunsfold has burned for 20 years every town and village around it has doubled in size and the traffic has increased. Ask the residents of Alfold about flood risk and contamination. Their recreation ground has been covered in effluent for weeks and was out of bounds until Thames Water cleaned it up! Is Bramley quiet now with very little traffic? No it is clogged up to its eyeballs and the building rattle as the HGV’s race through it. Without one property being built at Dunsfold. Perhaps when Dunfold is developed the contamination will be dealt with in the same dubious way as many of the other sites in Waverley!!
Obtaining planning permission for land is a real earner. The Guardian reported that “an acre of land becomes up to 275 times more expensive when it is granted planning permission for new houses.” When so many need affordable homes the next Government should be forced to place a land tax on those that fail to develop to drive development. It is not clear how Trinity College is a developer the law should be also be changed so that only developers can obtain planning permission.
Brian
I couldn’t agree more there should be a “Council Tax” – Equivalent to maybe 25- 50% on all the homes that haven’t been Built within a reasonable time-frame, to stop all the Developers sitting on their Hands – Either because they are waiting for Additional Applications to be brought forward within the same General site space (Brockhurst & Q-Developments) or just are doing NOTHING as in DP
Maybe Trinity are hoping if they sit on the site for another 10 years – the land will be less contaminated, more of the un-exploded munitions will have sorted themselves out prior to construction… More developers, Self Builds etc.. will actually WANT to build out here!
The Government doesn’t care – so long as they can produce the figures that say they are building the New homes the country needs – they are NOT Building them where people want to live; ie where there are Jobs, Schools, Medical facilities, and decent travel infrastructure
Or maybe they know more than WBC and have realised that trying to ram another 1800 – 2600 Homes here is just not going to work – despite the fact that they are the Only site around here that are supposed to be giving something for the local Villages and Cranleigh – albeit nothing like what the East of the Borough actually need.
With the 480 odd New homes we currently have approved in the village of Alfold – we are like a Building Site at the Moment – I do wonder how many of the WBC have traveled to our Village to see the state of it and the impact it is having on our Village and its complete lack of ANY Facilities……………
We can bang on until the cows come home about WBC’s lack of a 5YLS and how they cannot produce a credible argument at Appeal for even the smallest developments due to it. But it is about time WBC Pulled their Finger out (I know they have a call for Sites..) and sorted this mess out. It is what we voted for.
WW agrees one hundred per cent the Government should act. There are many thousands of sites just like this all around the country. Stik a thumping great land tax on them and then see how profitable they become.