"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when once we practise to deceive.
Here’s John Ward the Leader of “Your Waverley’ making his shock announcement and our post yesterday: TRINITY COLLEGE TAKES FLIGHT FROM DUNSFOLD!
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.
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.
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)
Please join my meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone. https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/829134269
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:
https://global.gotomeeting.com/install/82913426
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:
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!
The arrogant Agent even goes on to say…
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!
Village leaders considered this request from the Cranleigh Village Health Trust. The charity that is seeking planning consent to build a 64-bed care home an accommodation block and 16 community beds now wants to meet the parish council in private… again.
Here they go again… we hear the CVHT trumpets blow again…?
Here’s what it said on last week’s Cranleigh Parish Council Agenda. The meeting was held on Zoom to enable the public to take part.
CRANLEIGH VILLAGE HEALTH TRUST (CVHT) CVHT Response to letter exchange (This item may be held in private and confidential session – reason: commercial in confidence) Recommendation: •
‘To consider the request from CVHT for a private meeting of two CVHT representatives with the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Council, and the Clerk, to discuss an outcome for the Paddock Field which is beneficial for the community and satisfies CVHT’s obligations as a charity, in line with the covenants placed on the land. There may be information that is commercially sensitive.’
Another chapter is about to open in a burgeoning book of a 20-year saga that has dogged – what has been dubbed by some as ‘the largest village in England”
The Cranleigh Village Health Trust’s request was given short shrift by councillors who were united in their opposition to holding ANY further meetings in private with a developer seeking to build a commercial private care home for HC-One one of the nation’s largest care providers.
Though it is now debatable whether HC-One is the operator? The Chairman of the Trust, Dr Robin Fawkner-Corbett has confirmed publicly that the planning application in the name of HC-ONE and CVHT that has been with Waverley Planners for many months, has no signed-up operator! Saying an operator will be named once planning permission is granted.
Now that the Trust has effectively become – Billy No Mates – it wants a secret meeting with a handful of councillors to unveil its latest cunning plan. A plan for a site it owns – has the value of a playing field, land swapped 15 years ago sold by the parish council of-the-day for £ 1– in return for a piece of agricultural land for a playing field.
See the link here – ` It’It’s official. The Cranleigh Village Health Trust has NO partner for its bid to build a new Private Care Home.
And here`; So what the hell is going on – with Cranleigh’s private nursing home and HC-ONE?
And here: Health Honchos pull the plug on a 20-year-old scheme to return Cranleigh’s Community Beds.
The first, and only, member of the public to speak was the man who heads the campaign group to stop the development going ahead.
Andy Webb – as we repeatedly say – who has no connection with the Waverley Web, asked if he could represent the Campaign Group on behalf of its supporters at any meeting to be held. He said as the Trust had received considerable amounts of public money. ( believed to be circa £1.7m plus) – the public should be included in any debate. He said he couldn’t get any response to his requests from the Trust for a meeting, but firmly believed the public must be allowed to hear whatever its representatives had to say?
“We have an absolute right to know what is being said – it is our money they are spending!“
Chairman Liz Townsend said the council would go into the council meeting and consider the request and the decision lay with her members.
First off the grid was Cllr Richard Cole who said he recalled the previous private meeting with the Trust was to listen but not comment. Cllr Townsend reminded everyone that the well-minuted private meeting was to hear nothing other than any ‘community benefits’ put forward by the Trust.
“We made it very clear to them it would not be about process.”
Cllr Cole, who is also Chairman of a Waverley Planning Committee, said any meeting should not be discussing the planning application – an application that…
“it appeared wouldn’t be coming to the borough council – any time soon.”
” You can offer them another meeting – but this time “I want to be there,” said a feisty Cllr Rowena Tyler – and I want that minuted!”
Cllr Jeacock said he wasn’t happy about holding any private meetings in the first place – “I don’t like it.”
Neither did Cllr James Betts –
“I will strongly object and I want that minuted. I don’t agree with the Trust keep asking for private meetings with two representatives, they should speak to the parish council, and anyone else who is interested as an elected group – and the meeting should be held in public.”
Cllr Nigel Sanctuary echoed his sentiments. “this is a community issue – and there a lot of emotions around this. Public emotions are running so high, that we should reject any request by the Trust to meet a few of us in private.” He said the council should reject any more private meetings and should have some clear objectives about what it wished for an outcome.
Cllr George Worthington: “We said three months ago the last meeting was a “one-off” to hold another would not be sending the right message. We need to have everyone on the parish council – and the public involved.”
Both Cllr Hannah Nicholson and David Nicholas agreed. A conciliatory voice from Cllr Nicholas said the last meeting in private should be the final meeting.
“We are a civilised lot here – an open meeting can be well-chaired, and well-managed and we will listen to the Trust. There could be an opportunity here for something sensible to come out of it. However, we have to make it clear to the Trust, that if there are confidential commercial matters – they should give us that information in a report. We could at least offer them that.”
It was UNANIMOUSLY agreed that the council would write to the CVHT stressing that it agreed it would hold a parish council meeting to be held in public – which was not the same as a PUBLIC MEETING.
Is the charity behind a bid to build a private care home and a residential development on former parish land ignoring Cranleigh village leaders and its donors?
Silence has been anything but golden for Cranleigh Parish Council – a former partner -of the Cranleigh Village Hospital Trust – which has now morphed into The Cranleigh Health Trust (CVHT.) It has failed in its repeated attempts to get answers to its concerns for many months.
Now – The Cranleigh Village Hospital Campaign Group, which is backed by many thousands of villagers, many of whom were donors, claim it to is being ignored. But will not sit idly by any longer!
Campaign leader Andy Webb has written to the CVHT informing it that the group he leads wants to be included in any further discussions it has with Cranleigh Parish Council. It believes it has the mandate to speak on behalf of villagers, following a pre-COVID public meeting held at the village hall in September 2019. It also has a petition with over 5,000 signatures calling for a halt to the charity’s 20-year battle.
It also has the backing of the many hundreds of residents in the eastern villages who have objected to the Trust’s latest scheme. The Trust has a current live planning application with partner HC-One To build a private care home, and 16 community beds, and a residential block of flats for Surrey’s care workers. This despite the fact that all key stakeholders including – The Royal Surrey Hospital; The Integrated Care Partnership and Surrey Heartlands Trust have all withdrawn their support. Surrey County Council has also jumped ship. The Trust chairman has also publicly confirmed that it has no operator signed up for the private care home but would find a suitable partner once planning consent has been given.
Whose left to back a Cranleigh Charity’s bid to build a private care home?
So here you have it! Cranleigh Nursing Home circa 2001/2021?
However, according to Andy Webb, The Campaign Group’s leader, the e-mail requesting to be included in any further discussions has not, as yet, received a reply.
The Trust’s media company – Bamford Media was also asked for a statement regarding confirmation that CVHT has withdrawn its appeal against Waverley Planners earlier refusal for a larger scheme. But again, has received no response.
On 24 Oct 2020, at 08:43, Andy Webb <andy@andywebbphotography.com> wrote:
Dear WW,
The reason I started this campaign was in memory of my mum and to get some answers for the community who have given their time and money to a charity which promised us a new fully functioning hospital and day hospital.
Even after the hospital was a distant memory the charity still called themselves Cranleigh Village “Hospital” Trust which was very misleading to the public who were still donating money to them.
Now, even though the CVHT has withdrawn its appeal against the “Not For Local Residents” Community Beds and Private Care Home, the fight to stop the new planning application continues.
We have been pushed aside and kept in the dark for so long. We have been blocked on the CVHT social media platforms, read their so called myth busters and who was responsible for all of this? None other than the media company they use to offload more garbage than an overfilled refuse truck.
They have tried to dismiss the petition I set up but failed as everything was done legally and above board.
They tried to play down the amount of money the public raised and what it was misspent on.
Even though the original landowner retained the strip of land around the Bruce McKenzie Field they deny it is classed as a ransom strip.
What is the old saying? You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.
With stakeholders pulling out and CVHT now desperately looking at hospices and other charities to dig them out of a hole, it proves that their proposals are not viable.
As the community and local organisations have donated £1.8m to the charity we (the public) are classed as major stakeholders and therefore should be treated as such.
It is now time for us to have our say in any future CVHT plans with the newly formed Cranleigh Village Hospital Stakeholder Campaign Group.
With so many supporters and with petitions totalling nearly
5000 signatures we are more than just a few loud voices.
With everyone working together we have a chance of stopping this application and if we are successful the Paddock Field must be returned to the parish and kept as a much needed green space.
We will never give up on this and I would personally like to thank everyone for their continued support and much valued help with the campaign.
Our next step is to get as many objections against the planning application and to get the petition signed by as many people as possible.
Our aim is to stop this planning application being approved once and for all and have the Paddock Field returned to the parish. Also, if any of the Charities money remains it should be donated to the League of Friends of The Cranleigh Village Hospital. After all, the community donated its money towards a Hospital/Day hospital and not a commercial venture.
Please click on the link to submit your objections to the planning application.
Here is the link to the petition.
https://www.change.org/campaigngroup
To have your say please join our Facebook Cranleigh Village Hospital Stakeholder Campaign Group.
here is the link
Kind Regards, Andy Webb.