Alfold- the village that just keeps giving!
What seems like the dim and distant past when the late Hindhead councillor Peter Isherwood was Chairman of the eastern planning committee members described an eastern village as …
“Poor Old Alfold.”
Some called the village on the Surrey Sussex border Alford, Arfold or AWfold – even Surrey County Council put up a sign incorrectly spelt the village’s name. It wasn’t until an eagle-eyed resident spotted it and sent the picture to us at the Waverley Web that it was rewritten and replaced.
Recently Thames Water covered its recreation ground in toxic turds for a week or so, and villagers were banned from using it as a Health Hazar. it sometimes makes us wonder what “poor old Alfold” will have to put up with next.
Oops, we forgot, an Alfold mole told us that at the Thakeham Site, where the developer wants to triple in size from 99 to 325, the sewage is going to be trucked out as the Alfold to Loxwood sewers can’t take it across the Sussex border – because it’s full!
So is it any wonder Alfold feels it has been well and truly stuffed? You only have to look at the graphs below to see more homes built in the tiny village (190 consented in 21/22 and many more since.) A village with no school, shops, pubs or restaurants and no decent public transport has taken more of Waverley’s share than the large towns of Farnham, Haslemere, Milford and Godalming, with train stations and nearby Cranleigh on a regular bus route.
Let’s hear Waverley councillors cry out again for “Poor old Alfold?”
Is this a sign of things to come?
Thames Water apologises after 200 tankers of raw sewage left in Surrey town.
Raw sewage was held in open tanks in Camberley for six months last year during the hottest summer on record.
Over 200 tankers of raw sewage were driven to a Surrey town and left there for six months, causing a “nightmare” for residents after all of Thames Water’s 360 treatment plants reached critical capacity.
Thames Water has apologised but is refusing a request from Surrey councillors to make a financial acknowledgement to the community by reducing bills for 11,000 people.
The crisis in treatment capacity began when Hogsmill, one of the main Thames Water treatment works, broke down, forcing staff to move thousands of cubic metres of raw sewage at speed and deposit the contents into tanks in Camberley because there was no other storage capacity across its whole estate. Storage tanks at Woking were already full from a previous crisis.
Thames Water has told councillors in Surrey it had had no choice. Either they moved the sewage to storage tanks in Camberley, emptied it into rivers, causing massive pollution, or left it in tankers on the roadside, which could have exploded, causing a major national incident.
In the incident, 6,000 cubic metres of raw sewage sludge were left in an open tank for six months without treatment. About 11,000 residents suffered the impacts of raw sewage being stored during the hottest summer on record. Odour suppression was implemented but only during the day and did not cover the entire tank.
Thames Water was called to explain why it had decided to move so much sewage to the town. In evidence, a manager said they had no choice.
“The risk we had if we didn’t move that sludge was pollution of the waterways and potentially 30-40 trucks parked on the motorway in the middle of summer, which could have exploded,” he told the external partnerships committee of Surrey Heath borough council.
The Liberal Democrat-led council is demanding compensation to the 11,000 residents who suffered the impact of the raw sewage held in open tanks at Camberley sewage works for six months during the hottest summer on record.
Councillor Rob Lee, who chairs the external partnerships committee, said Thames Water had offered and then withdrawn an offer of £60,000 for a community playground as a conciliatory gesture.
He said: “They left this sewage in an open tank until August and only used odour suppression control in the daytime.
“Moving these tankers of sewage to Camberley to be stored saved the company millions in terms of fines they would have faced if they had polluted the waterways, and it stopped a potentially major national incident of tankers exploding by the roadside.
It is time the government got a grip on this nonsense and gave its regulators some teeth and competence. If Thames Water can’t handle the sewage halt developments that are unsustainable. Why not use the Community Infrastructure Levy to increase the capacity of the infrastructure not fritter it away on minor schemes of far less importance? The Saturday Telegraph Business advises that Thames Water is struggling with a nearly £19 billion debt no wonder we are deep in it. Why on earth do Local Authorities not consider sewage a critical issue when approving planning applications, problems that are ignored accelerate their growth? Previous questions on sewage capacity were dismissed as unnecessary because “sewage treatment is a legal obligation.”
And Why stop there??? There were another 92 New Homes for Alfold in the Year 2022/3 (2022-2023 AMR figures not yet published) that is just from the Consented Approvals
Alfold Farm 1 Approved WA/2022/00556 23/06/2022
Brookfield 2 Approved WA/2022/00570 23/08/2022
Sweeters (2) 80 Approved WA/2022/01604 26/10/2022
Alfold Farm 1 Approved WA/2022/01751 15/12/2022
Vintners 8 APPEAL WA/2021/0463 14/02/2023
No wonder we feel that we are being Dumped on from a very Great height!
Perhaps you and your Webbers can explain something….. Why are Wonersh/ Shamley Green considered SMALLER VILLAGES in LPP1 ? when their Population (2011 Census) was 3412 (Alfold was 1059)
Three Villages considered LARGER VILLAGES were
Bramley = 3559
Chiddingfold = 2960
Elstead = 2557