Talk about shutting the door after the horse has bolted!
George Eustace, The Secretary of State for Environment has warned that:
“Climate change is heightening the threat of deluges destroying homes.”
Funny that! We all knew that yonks ago. The residents over there in Cranleigh including the Cranleigh Civic Society warned that building on the flood plains of the eastern village was just storing up trouble for the future. In fact, the group that speaks up on behalf of the people of Cranleigh took a vote of NO CONFIDENCE in Waverley Borough Council in May 2017. CROSS OF CRANLEIGH JUST GOT A WHOLE LOT CROSSER …
Here’s just one of the sites that Thakeham Homes. A developer that was actually afforded the unprecedented honour of joining planning officers around the Waverley Towers council chamber staff table, to speak up for and receive its planning consent.
You can see where building work has started and where now the new homes stand.
However, no surprise here: Thakeham Homes sold the site on to another developer as soon as it received planning consent! It is now aptly named – “Willow Brook.”
No worries though. The Government has set aside £860million for 1,000 flood defence schemes as part of a package of measures to protect homes, businesses and infrastructure!
Our pedipalps – (spider’s legs for the uninitiated) travel far and wide -and our Waverley Web followers are based around the world. Here’s a letter from our friend Darryl Darwent – which we have attempted to answer. But which has taken a little time as it required a trip over to the wilds of Baynards – an area of Waverley on the Surrey/Sussex border.
Dear William,
Good afternoon from Calgary. It has been a while since we last corresponded.
COVID-19 & politics.
I can report our province has struggled to find a balance between keeping its economy going and protecting the population from COVID-19 variants. Not everyone is keen on wearing masks or getting a vaccine. These people are on the fringe. My wife and I have our first jab of Astra-Zeneca. We recently became grandparents. Our little one lives in Vancouver. We are eager for normalcy so the day arrives when we can see her.
Our 3-term mayor, Naheed Nenshi, is stepping down this fall when municipal elections occur. He has been a good leader. In his time he led us through the once-in-a-century flood in 2013. However, the present offers an opportunity for this city’s first woman mayor. This excites me. Calgary needs a good vision as the oil business has fallen through the basement. We are seeing good interest in green energy and technology setting up shop here.
Waverley /Longhurst Lodge
I see by your reporting that the mysteries and nefariousness in planning around Waverley continues. Wherever there’s an opportunity to make money in turbulent times it will be accompanied by someone getting shafted.
Are you familiar with Longhurst Lodge? We recently watched an episode of Restoration Man (2011) concerning the remodelling of a Victorian gatehouse in Baynard’s Park. I realised later that it resided near Cranleigh.
The problem with watching ten-year-old shows is you never know, especially in this case, how these projects turn out. According to the episode, the owners, Vanessa Ford-Robbins and Nik Huddy had plans to add an approved addition. They were also going to restore the massive gates.
Could I ask a favour? Can you please find out whether they followed through? According to a Wikipedia article on the property, Vanessa and Nik are still the owners. But, there’s no other information. Maybe there’s an article from a local source or some photos that offer a review.
There certainly is no rush for this to be done.
Sincerely, Darryl Darwen,
Calgary, Alberta
Doing our best.
Well, Darryl, we have certainly tracked down a photo of the property you watched on the TV. And Vanessa & Nick are still the owners. As you will see the gates have been restored. The couple are real eco-warriors in fact they now own a shop in nearby Cranleigh called “For Earth’s Sake.’ It is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company that informs and enables people and business to put the planet first and helps to show how we, as individuals ,can make a real difference!
Good to hear from you. Stay safe.
At the heart of For Earth’s Sake, CIC is Vanessa Ford-Robbins who, alongside partners Nik Huddy and Charlie Edwards, has launched the inaugural For Earth’s Sakeshopwith the ethos of shoppers being more aware of their actions, and the choices that they can make in mitigating their carbon footprint on the planet.The For Earth’s Sake shop on Cranleigh High Street, which opened its doors in April 2019, has become a hub for eco-conscious shoppers, and also to those who want to take their own steps in cutting down on plastic usage and their carbon footprint.Since announcing the launch of For Earth’s Sake CIC and the Cranleigh shop in January 2019, Vanessa and her team have created a brand that is trusted and appreciated, as well as one that is known for ‘doing what it says on the tin’.
Then we have this in the Farnham Herald which highlights the threat to Farnham and all the other towns and villages in Waverley. Both Farnham and the eastern villages in and around Cranleigh are particularly vulnerable.
What more could anyone want right in the middle of a pandemic and difficulties with BREXIT than a Boundary Commission intent on re-organising our local government institutions and our electoral boundaries?
However, it is not the Commission itself that has abandoned common-sense by instigating the vastly complex and time-consuming review. It is a Government that is hell-bent on reviewing anything and everything. Education – planning; health; local government; promoting unitary authorities and more!
You name it – they want to change it – in the middle of the most catastrophic disease that we have faced in modern times. At a time when our cash- strapped local authorities are struggling to make ends meet
Whilst the rest of us are adding blubber, if the Commission has its way, our borough council will be losing weight. By that, we mean losing councillors – down from the existing 57 in 29 wards – to 50 and fewer and larger wards. So presumably in 2023, there will be a slimmer Waverley – or possibly NO Waverley – as it is still Surrey County Council’s intention for the whole county to become a Unitary Authority. It is hanging onto its fervent desire to get rid of the county’s 11 boroughs & district councils. This despite being told by Government to shelve its ambitions for the time being.
Your Councillors
Waverley Borough Council has 57 seats, representing local people in 29 wards that make up the Borough.
Councillors are elected by the community to decide how the council should carry out its various activities. They represent the wider public interest as well as individuals living within the ward in which he or she has been elected to serve.
Each councillor is elected for a four-year term. The most recent elections took place on 2 May 2019. The next Waverley Borough Council elections will take place in 2023.
Councillors have regular contact with the general public through council meetings, telephone calls or surgeries.
According to the council’s website, Fifty-six borough councillors are members of a political party registered with the Electoral Commission; one is Independent. They are currently divided as follows:
Councillors are not paid a salary for their work, but they do receive allowances. By law, all members of the Council are required to complete a declaration of interest form, the details of which are published annually.
In 2018/2019 the council paid out £395,000 in Basic Allowances, Special Responsibility Allowances, Travelling and Subsistence Allowances. it also included just £3,000 on internet charges.
in 2019/20 the figure was £397,000 – which WW believes is amazing value for money. This is low, compared with many other councils across the country that pay considerably more.
Tonight – Monday – Village leaders will once again sit down to consider yet another reboot of the Cranleigh Village Health Trust’s ambitions to build on land it sold to the charity for £1.
Cranleigh Parish Council will decide whether it will back yet another incarnation of a scheme that has driven a stake through the heart of Cranleigh and the eastern villages.
Over the years hundreds of letters and a petition containing 4,000 signatures have been posted AGAINST. There have also been hundreds of letters in SUPPORT. Many of which have been for a HOSPITAL!
NOTICE OF AN EXTRAORDINARY MEETING OF THE PARISH COUNCIL
Councillors are respectfully summoned to attend an online extraordinary meeting of the Parish Council to be held at 7.00 pm on MONDAY 01 FEBRUARY 2021 To join the meeting: Extraordinary Parish Council Meeting Mon, Feb 1, 2021, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM (GMT)
You can also dial in using your phone. (For supported devices, tap a one-touch number below to join instantly.) United Kingdom: +44 20 3713 5028 – One-touch: tel:+442037135028,,829134269# Access Code: 829-134-269 New to GoToMeeting? Get the app now and be ready when your first meeting starts:
The Paddock field. The site which is currently proposed for a private care home in the latest planning application.
Over the past 21 years – successive parish and borough councils have ruminated and cogitated over a scheme that was perhaps once, a long, long time ago – referred to as a ‘beacon for healthcare.’ At least that is how it was referred in the archive pages of the “Sorry Advertiser. back in the ’90s.
As the decades have rolled on – the scheme has morphed from a Hospital/Day Hospital/GP Surgery into a Private Nursing home, with so many different numbers of private, and or, community beds, that forgive us please if we don’t refer to them because we have lost count. Now, like most of the population of the eastern villages – we and they have joined CONFUSED DOT COM!
In the life of the present scheme, we believe it has now changed from 64 beds in the private nursing home – and 14 community beds to 60 private and 16 for the community. First, they were FREE then they weren’t, first it was a HOSPITAL, and then it wasn’t. Then it was for a named care-home provider – HC-ONE and then it wasn’t or maybe it will be?
Will, they won’t they join the club? Here’s what the Chairman says:
So there you have it, folks. The Cranleigh Village Health Trust is confident it will have an operator for a damned great private nursing home slap-bang in the middle of your village. It is also confident that everyone will want to go into the new nursing home – because, after all, we all lust after going into a nursing home don’t we? And the half dozen or so already in the Cranleigh environs aren’t enough. Are they?
And – the fact that your health authority says it wants to provide you with a different type of care in future – in your own home, must mean that another Care Home is required – doesn’t it?
No doubt the poor old parish councillors will have burned the midnight oil trawling over this document from Tetlow King – the Charity’s Agent. A letter which gives all sorts of assurances about the future use of said beds, and the residential flats! Even, chortles on about it is a plus that the Surrey Heartlands Trust and all the other health and social care honchos have now pulled out! Kindly leaving the community beds for the very people who contributed circa £2m and a chunk of public land to provide them with the proposed – private care home!
It is incomprehensible to me that any group, the community at large or planning officers would not see the benefits of this development on a piece of land that sits in a sustainable location between extensive built development on either side where this Council has given permission on several occasions in the past.
And just for the record. Planning permission has not been given for this scheme on several occasions in the past!
The Waverley Web cannot help wondering how much this – and all the other applications have cost ‘Your Waverley.” We calculated that if it wrote to everyone on the planning portal that has made a comment it has cost many more thousands of pounds of OUR money!
