Expansion of the Surrey Hills AONB Consultation.

Have Your Say. Because Natural England says, ‘Your views matter.’

Here at the Waverley Web, we have read the Consultation Documents on proposals to extend the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) 

It makes interesting reading, particularly in light of our latest post, which you can read here: What will Aunty Angela’s building revolution mean for Your Waverley?

It’s like the curate’s egg—good in parts but not so good for other parts of the Waverley Borough with little or no landscape protection.
The previous consultation for such a large area received a disappointing response —only 1,518.
From our perusal of the documents, the primary candidate areas for inclusion in the new Godalming & Ash constituency are the Hogs Back and the area of Wanborough. It makes good sense these areas are protected. The proposed new boundary abuts the Hogs Back Brewery, and there was support for this, but it was hardly overwhelming.
Cranleigh Waters—This area will join the western and eastern ends of the Surrey Hills AONB, encompassing Chilworth, Wonersh, and Shamley Green.
It would be good news if Wonersh, Chilworth, and Shamley Green were eventually included. It would give them even more reasons to fight off future development there. Not that they have had to fight much development. All other villages like Alfold, Dunsfold, Ewhurst, Cranleigh, and around Farnham continue to bear the lion’s share.
Dunsfold Village is proposed for exclusion.
 As you will see from the maps, the former WW2 airfield at Dunsfold—proposed for several thousand homes in the new Dunsfold Garden Village Masterplan—has been completely removed from the AONB.
Will Dunsfold’s owners, Trinity College Cambridge, currently consulting on its new masterplan, see this as good news for providing even more homes there?
The neighbouring village dubbed – Poor old Awfold” by Waverley councillors – has little or no environmental protection.

All publicly available documents related to the project can be found in a link at the bottom of this page.

What is AONB

*AONBs were recently rebranded as National Landscapes; however, Natural England still legally designates an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty when designating. The reports and documents attached to this webpage refer to Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, or AONBs, throughout. To avoid confusion, if additional land is subsequently designated, it will be branded as part of the Surrey Hills National Landscape.

Background

Natural England is the public body responsible for conserving and enhancing the natural environment in England. One of Natural England’s statutory duties is to decide whether an area should be given special status and protection by designating it as a National Park or National Landscape. The purpose of such designation is to conserve and enhance an area’s natural beauty, and the designation is made using statutory powers in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.

In June 2021, Natural England announced an ambitious new programme to assess four areas for possible designation as National Landscapes. This includes extending two existing National Landscapes, the Surrey Hills and the Chilterns, and considering two new regions, the Yorkshire Wolds and the Cheshire Sandstone Ridge.

The Surrey Hills National Landscape boundary has not been reviewed since its original designation in 1958, but there have been various local calls to reconsider the boundary. Local authorities designated some areas of countryside outside but adjacent to the National Landscape boundary as Areas of Great Landscape Value (AGLV) to recognise their value at a county level. Following a series of landscape evaluation studies and a formal request by the Surrey Hills National Landscape Board, Natural England began exploring whether certain areas adjacent to the Surrey Hills National Landscape should be included within the designation.

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