Since the Waverley Web was founded we have watched the chequered story of the Redgrave Theatre – its closure and the controversy that has raged since the whole Brightwells site has become a town eyesore.

As the retail situation seems to be worsening (now Prezzo is going and probably others too) the prospect for new retail and new restaurants seems decidedly rocky. Who would invest in such ventures now?

How can Surrey County Council, which is cutting children’s services, restricting care for the elderly to only those in ‘acute need,’ as well as leaving some of our roads impassable, believe it wise to invest over £50 million of taxpayers monies in such a risky venture?  

Isn’t it time ‘Your Waverley’ re-thought its strategy and maybe ….finally…realise that the only draw that will bring in the public is based on a cultural experience.  A theatre and perhaps a three screen cinema with a shared auditorium would do the trick.

Most residents recognise that Julie Potts, the present leader was landed with a done-deal, and inherited a stack of past mistakes made by Chief Executives Christine Pointer and Mrs Mopp – (Mary Orton-Pett.) But surely there no good reason to keep piling mistake upon mistake? It’s never too late to learn, but it would take a brave man/woman to do a volte-face.

If not, we may just have to wait and vote the Waverley dinosaurs out when we can.

There will shortly be a by-election in Farnham. 

While ‘Your Waverley’ held its breath, hoping and praying its Local Plan would pass the dreaded deadline for a Judicial Review – up popped not one, not even two but three challenges!

Nightmare on Waverley Street? Here’s  WW’s post – first with the news…again!

Here’s just one of them – Milford Man Tim House, who has 30 years experience ‘litigating and resolving complex disputes!’ Oh dear! Do we see even more of our money going down that great big legal drain?? Now a man familiar with resolving disputes is creating one! Because he doesn’t want homes built on Milford Golf Course in his back/front garden!

Well -we have heard from the NIMBY”S (Not in my backyard) and from the NIMFY’S (not in my front yard) and now from the bloody BANANA’S (BUILD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ANYWHERE NEAR ANYONE.)

Worth a listen here:
http://powcampaign.org/bbc-surrey-interview-chris-britton-pow

Just when you thought it was all over bar the shouting – now Waverley’s Local Plan could get Daft again!! Let the shouting begin?

Those scourge of developers – the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) and Protect our little corner of Waverley (PoW) – have reared their ugly heads again and a Milford couple who don’t want to overlook 180 homes near a railway station at Milford Golf Course, – have joined in!

Whilst the rest of us were busy hunting Easter Eggs and tucking into roast lamb,  the indefatigable mob above were busy finessing their latest objections to development in Waverley by preparing legal challenges to halt the Local Plan.

The doors to developers open?

Just what is it that makes these people think their little corner of the country should be exempt from the need to build more housing countrywide? Seriously, folks, they need to pause, take a deep breath and accept defeat with grace before, in their desperation to stop the Local Plan (a blueprint for development for the next 15 years) in its tracks, they throw open the doors to the borough to each and every developer with an eye to the main chance! Those who won’t hesitate to take advantage of Waverley’s weakness if it doesn’t have a Local Plan in place to protect it!

There can be little doubt in anyone’s mind that whilst the primary aim of CPRE, PoW and Co, is to undermine the housing numbers set out in the Local Plan there is a sub-plot here to undermine the recent decision in respect of Dunsfold Park. No one is in any doubt that politics lay behind the decision by the Secretary of State to call in the Dunsfold Aerodrome application – after all, Mistress Milton was shouting from the roof-tops that she’d whipped Javid into doing her bidding – but, for once, it seems that Party Politics was placed above Local Politics. 

Moaning Milton-moans on…and on.. “I want a huge industrial estate at Dunsfold.”

Fortunately, SJ didn’t, ultimately, do what Moaning-Milton wanted. Instead he acted impartially, weighing the contradictory evidence submitted by the Dunsfold Developer and the Rule Six Parties (AKA PoW and the Parishes) and concluded in the memorable words of the Dunsfold Developer’s QC, Christopher Katkowski, that PoW and the Parishes were a bunch of ‘hypocrites’, who, when one got down to brass tacks, were objecting to the fact that those who would eventually live in the proposed new village would be living more sustainably than they themselves are living!

Seriously, folks, perverting the course of the Local Plan should be made a civil offence. Without going into all the gory details – yet again – there can be little doubt that its attempted persecution is maliciously motivated and if they succeed in finding a legal loophole in the Local Plan, once it’s been torn up and cast to the four winds, lets hope CPRE and PoW  ask the people of Cranleigh, Ewhurst and all the other villages in the East how they feel about their fields and gardens being built on?

‘Your Waverley’ is being dragged through the Courts, for the sin of obeying the Government’s ruling –  to build homes the country needs. If they don’t do it – then the Government will find someone who will!!

Meanwhile, those who can afford these vexatious challenges will be contemplating packing their suitcases and moving to greener pastures, because they can.

Whilst for those of us left behind the ordeal is far from over …

P.S

Councillor ‘By-Pass Brmley’Byham is helping out the Bramley Neighbourhood Plan. The village on the A281 has allocated sites on the Green Belt for building, but he is moaning to the locals that Waverley officers won’t let them. 

Bet we have a pretty good idea where that Green Belt site is! Bet Fred, it belongs to one of his mates  – like the last one he supported in his village!

Firstly we apologise for the rotten picture quality – but the Sorry Advertiser has – rotten picture quality! 

Secondly, if Cranleigh with approximately 15,000 inhabitants and several thousand to come is a village,  how come Dunsfold with 1,800 homes producing possibly three or four thousand residents – is a town?

Thirdly: We don’t know the Flying Scotsman, and we doubt he reads our blog because he stubbornly refuses to respond to any of our requests for comments!! But, if we were he, we would stop buying the paper, just like most of the rest of Surrey. 

Last, but not least! It couldn’t have anything to do with one of Trinity Mirrors senior directors living on the perimeter of the aerodrome, could it?

P.S. Now legal challenges To Waverley’s Local Plan have been set in motion – perhaps it just won’t happen and the onward march of developers across the borough’s green fields will continue unabated. Perhaps Annie Milton will have her fervent wish granted? That the largest brownfield site in Waverley becomes the largest Industrial Estate in the borough?

Oh! and just as a little local joke. She has told her followers, who have told us. She wants to see Guildford’s brownfield sites built upon – particularly Wisley Airfield!!

The WW believes that the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England ( better known as – Build on Brownfield sites across Britain but not at Dunsfold Aerodrome!)  And, the Protect Our Waverley Group of NIMBY’s  (the build anywhere except at Dunsfold gang) have thrown a hand-grenade at Waverley’s Local Plan by seeking  Judicial Review/s  in the High Court!

and… you wouldn’t Adam and Eve it – but a Cranleigh and Shamley Green Councillor; Mike – known locally as, ‘Rubber’ Band, is Waverley’s representative on the  Surrey Hills Board which also includes representatives of the CPRE!

… and there could be more – including wealthy lawyer Tim House who doesn’t want 180 homes built at the bottom of his very large garden overlooking Milford Golf Course. Looks like a threesome! 

Not exactly a good news week for Waverley Borough Council – and it isn’t an April Fool, or is it?

So shell-shocked is the council, that senior officers and ‘the chosen few’  are scurrying around ‘YW’s’ corridors of power like demented gnats, according to our insider informants, some of whom were themselves involved in the preparation of the Local Plan. The rest of the ‘back bench’ councillors will no doubt, read about it here on the Waverley Web at the same time WBC issues a Press Release! 

Ah well! It’s an ill-wind that blows no good as they say at the Meteorological Office!  Developers will soon be crawling all over the borough dropping their surveyors down on ropes to hover over our green fields measuring them up for even more suits of houses made out of ticky tacky?

Another shedload of taxpayer’s money going into our everflowing drains?

Build on all brownfield sites across the country other than Dunsfold!