We’re in the (unexplained) money!!

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The Waverley Web has been contacted by a concerned Alfold resident whose husband nearly choked on his cornflakes and uttered an expletive which, she assures us, has never passed his lips before in her hearing – ‘WTF!!!’

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Pardon our Russian, but we’re only repeating what we’ve been told!  Apparently, the gentleman in question was perusing the accounts of the parish council, as he does every year – because that’s the type of person he is – and he noticed a major discrepancy.  So MAJOR at first he thought it must be a typo or had someone put the decimal point in the wrong place???

For, according to the January 9th 2018 budget, this tiny parish council which, in a normal year, has a turnover of £35,000 and, in the previous year, had grants and donations of £14,850, had received grants and donations of £276,400. and, even more staggeringly, had spent the entire sum on legal fees!!!

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WTF indeed!!!!!!!!!!

Who on earth is bank-rolling Alfold Parish Council to the tune of £276,400?   Its’ annual precept is around £25,000 and that money is usually swallowed up dealing with ditches, hedges and dog shit!  Anyone attending Alfold Parish Council meetings, even on an irregular basis, will know that Pooper-Scooping at the playground is a permanent preoccupation for the Parish Councillors and leads to much animated (pardon the pun!) discussion.

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The full accounts can be found by clicking  here.

Q

Has Alfold PC, unbeknown to its parishioners, given up scooping the poop and scooped the Lotto?  Or has someone died and left them a legacy?  And did they spend the lot desperately defending their scoop when disgruntled rellies contested the will?

Can anyone throw any light on what’s going on in Alfold – shortly to change its name to Kerchingold?!  Or, are we going to have to file for an Unexplained Wealth Order?  You know us here at the Waverley Web, we’re always on trend!

The next Alfold Parish Meeting will take place on.  Or will Nick Pidgeon have lived up to his name and taken flight?  But, even if he has, we’re sure the very competent Clerk, Crystal Tipps Weddell, will have an explanation.

Will it be rather embarrassing for Chairman Nik Pidgeon Partner at lawyers Charles Russell Speechlys? His Chairman’s 2018 report on the Local Plan said:

“In respect of Dunsfold Park, again we made representations during the planning process, and with the Joint Parish Councils, were represented at the Public Inquiry following the Call-In by the Secretary of State of the planning permission that was granted.
All this involved much work and expense. (WWethinks quite a lot of work and expense!!) Thanks in particular to Beverley for her assistance in keeping this organised. 

Yet there was NO mention of thanks to their donor of A QUARTER OF A MILLION POUNDS FOR LEGAL FEES?

We look forward to hearing from Alfold residents at mailtocontact@waverleyweb.org

Alfold Chairman’s Report: http://www.alfold.org/APC%20Draft%20MINUTES%208.5.18.pdf

Alfold 2017/2018 Budget: http://www.alfold.org/Annual%20Budget%20-%20By%20Combined%20Account%20Code%2030.11.17.PDF

The WW has just received a comment to : contact@waverleyweb.org  from an Alfold man very concerned that his comments may somehow be traced back to him! What are people afraid of in that village, we wonder? However, although we vet comments before they are published to prevent defamatory statements. We want to assure all our readers that unless you wish for your real name to be disclosed, and wish to use s pseudonym we pledge would never reveal your identity. However, although you may comment, we must ensure that we know your comment are from a bona fide correspondents.

 

Will the people of Haslemere vote for more of the same at a Town Council by-election to-day?

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Will Haslemere residents do what they did last time, even though the sitting Tory they are replacing hasn’t shown up for a year?

Or will they bring some balance back into Haslemere Town Council to-day and elect three councillors who will truly represent their views and end the Tory domination of a  council that had wanted to co-opt more Tories into its ranks?

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DAVIDSON Jerome (Lib Dem) says: “As a long-term resident, I am concerned that Hindhead and Beacon Hill often seem to be treated as poor relations by the council. Obviously, that wasn’t helped by the previous Conservative councillor Alex Ford, who didn’t attend a single meeting in the year following his election.

“Hindhead deserve better representation than that, which I am determined to offer. I would push for a better bus service for Hindhead – one that is co-ordinated with train times in the morning and a service that doesn’t end in the middle of the evening.”

Perhaps residents should take a look at what one candidate thinks off-record about another town and village in Waverley?

Be patient it does take a second or two to load, but it is well worth the wait. Don’t vote until you have heard it – scroll down to the video clip that didn’t get away.

As two of Your Waverley councillors sneer and deride the villages of Ewhurst and Cranleigh, officers are daft enough to remove the incriminating remarks from U-Tube.

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The Final Countdown?

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The phone lines between Waverley East and West hummed last night as those who attended the first day of the High Court battle between PoW and it’s bosom buddies CPRE versus Waverley Borough Council and the Secretary of State chewed the fat over the wires.

 It was Ground Hog Day with all the usual suspects present and correct in Court 76 – the same tired old room in the nether regions of the High Court that hosted the first Hearing earlier in the year. WW animated-spider-image-0157just hung on in there…

Cast List
La Potts was a resplendent Josephine in a technicolour dream coat boasting colours of the rainbow – red and yellow and green and blue … and put the more conservative Liz-the-Biz, Daniel Bainbridge, Tom Horwood and Paul Fellows in the shade. Although Denise Le Gal, Waverley’s Mayor, did her best to rival La Potts by turning up late in Leopard Print!

Alan & Sarah Ground – still, to their chagrin, of The Old Rectory on The Green. Regular readers will be aware they’ve been trying to flog their Dunsfold pile since March but, sadly for them, there are no takers. That’s what happens when you spend 15 years dissing your neighbours. You’d have thought they’d have realised that given their collaborator in Stop Dunsfold Park New Town (Rupert Howell of Trinity Mirror and Sorry Advertiser fame) has been trying and failing to sell his bigger and better pile, adjacent to the airfield, on and off for years now.

Bob Lies, CEO of Protect our Little Corner, huddled on the back bench next to instructing solicitors.

John Jefferies, a PoW supporter, rocked up late and plonked himself down next to Dunsfold Park’s legal team. Had the boot been on the other foot, you can bet your bottom dollar, PoW would have been hollering ‘Spys in the camp’ from the High Court turrets but the Dunsfold Developer clearly couldn’t give a toss.

The Judge, refreshing young – not in the first flush, we understand, but young for a member of the judiciary – was female and clearly mistress of her brief and keen to lose no time in getting the ball rolling.

First up was The Grinch – oops! we mean The Stinch – on behalf of Protect our Little Corner.

Predictably, he had nothing new to say and bored the pants off everyone by harking back – yet again – to 2009 when permission to develop housing at Dunsfold Park was ‘emphatically refused’ because the site was ‘inherently unsustainable’. Oh, change the record do! The world’s moved on since 2009 but, clearly, The Stinch hasn’t. All his harking-back revealed he had nothing new to say and was relying on old arguments that have been repeatedly and soundly rebuffed, thrown out both by Waverley’s Planners and the Secretary of State no less.

By mid-morning, we’re told, even the Judge had had enough and was beginning to bore of his arguments. The Stinch bandied numbers around like confetti as he tried to justify his badly mangled argument which boiled down to PoW’s contention that Inspector Bore had started with the wrong figure in relation to Woking Borough Council’s unmet need and because the figure was wrong he had no business allocating 50% of it to Waverley. The Judge seemed unconvinced, questioning whether The Stinch was trying to argue that a 50:50 split on its own was wrong in law?

 PoW looked pained as the Judge sliced and diced The Stinch’s waffle and cut to the chase. They weren’t remotely interested in Waverley’s housing numbers per se, they were simply interested in stopping housing development at Dunsfold Park, at any cost, and if crying foul over housing numbers helped them achieve that goal that was all they cared about, regardless of the outcome for the rest of the Borough which could well end up without the protection of a Local Plan by the time they’re finished!

Then up came Mr Westway on behalf of the Campaign to Protect Rural England – that’s the bunch who’s nationwide cri de coeur is ‘Brownfield first’ everywhere … except at Dunsfold! They’d rather Waverley built all over green fields and greenbelt than laid a single brick on the Borough’s largest brownfield site.

If the Judge was bored by The Stinch, her Clerk’s eyes glazed over listening to Mr Westway. Indeed, so did everyone else, when the Judge livened things up by accusing Mr Westway of ‘trying to argue the inarguable’ and levying ‘very unfair criticism at Inspector Bore’ but Mr Westway was unrepentant and well and truly cooked his goose when the Judge explained to him, very gently, that she knew where he was coming from and where he was trying to get to and he really didn’t need to spell out every single syllable of his argument for her as she had – ahem – read her brief! Unfortunately, the Patronising Puppy didn’t take the hint, droning on for another hour. By the end of his oration, the Grounds were dozing on each other’s shoulder, Bob Lies had his head in his hands and those on the opposing side had given up all pretence of polite attention and were busily tapping away on their ipads, catching up on the day job.

Wayne Beglan, for Waverley Borough Council, finally got to his feet mid-afternoon but the main thrust of his argument and that of the Secretary of State and the Dunsfold Developer will have to wait until today. 

What of Aarhus we hear you ask? We know many of you are very anxious to know if you, the Waverley Council Tax Payer, will have to pick up Protect our Little Corner’s costs or whether the Judge will rule – as Waverley Borough Council and the Secretary of State contend – they pick up their own. The Judge deferred this decision to the end of the Hearing, at which point we understand Capt’n Bob and his cohort, Chris Britten, rushed for the loos, leaving skid marks in their wake!

Who knows, by this time tomorrow it could be mi casa es su casa! And if that’s the case maybe Messrs Lies and Britten will bugger off and bother some other borough!

Or maybe not, for rumour has it Protect our Little Corner is still being incredibly reticent about the source of its funding and the mutter in the gutter is that’s because another local developer has been funding them in order to knock out Dunsfold Park thus ensuring his own plans to develop other sites elsewhere in the borough – Godalming –  stand a better chance of success …

To be continued … gossip and South-West trains willing!!!

Long awaited plans for new healthcare facilities in Cranleigh to be submitted. WHEN exactly?

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This is an announcement on the Cranleigh Village Hospital Trust Website – which has now been re-named The Cranleigh Private Nursing Home website?

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Please note this announcement is dated 21st October 2016. So what exactly has gone wrong? You can read more here: Are there plans afoot to bring Cranleigh traffic to a standstill?:

Although THE CHARITY WEBSITE says – read more – you really won’t want to because the website is full of obfuscation and misinformation. 

Despite assurances from the charity new private nursing home to be operated by HC-One that a planning application has been imminent for two years – we ain’t seen nothin yet! Though the WW has heard the new plans will go on display later this month, Presumably with the news that…

SURPRISE, SURPRISE! ITS PARTNER HC-ONE HAS BEEN PUT UP FOR SALE BEFORE THE INK IS DRY ON THE SHODDY DEAL!  A deal with fills the coffers of Surrey County Council, through the sale of its nursing home site at Longfields in Cranleigh,  Assists with Guildford & Waverley CCG’s bed blocking problems for its 37 GP practices in yes, you guessed – GUILDFORD AND WAVERLEY – by including 10 NHS beds.

So now Cranleigh and the surrounding villages are asking – Please Sir – can we have our money back – over £1m quid of it, before it drops into Mr Chai Patel’s trousers with the other £1billion?

 

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No wonder Dr Chai Patel looks so smug. He must think he has struck gold – Cranleigh and the surrounding village’s gold from the public’s pockets.  Cranleigh Parish Council’s gold – a piece of land for which it didn’t even receive twenty pieces of silver. Just a peppercorn pound and a bit of agricultural land  – now a playing field – adjacent to which the charity now wants to put in a pay and display car park!

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SO IF THAT’S THE CASE … WHY IS IT SELLING OFF CARE HOMES IN OTHER PARTS OF THE COUNTRY?

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Will the new Cranleigh Care Home be sold off before it is even built?

 

Have the residents of Cranleigh and the surrounding villages been duped? Has the parish council been duped? And will this, combined with all the other development going on, bring Cranleigh’s traffic to a halt?

One Alfold resident has already written to the Waverley Web suggesting it should all go to DUNSFOLD. Does he mean the Dunsfold that is today fighting a Judicial Review in the High Court?

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Are there plans afoot to bring Cranleigh traffic to a standstill?

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The Cranleigh Village Nursing Home Trust – previously known as the Cranleigh Village Hospital Trust – has been told by health officials it can no longer refer to its £38m development, with a private provider, as A ‘HOSPITAL’.

Poised to submit plans to build a 60-bed private nursing home for HC-ONE on land in Knowle Lane – which was once owned by the people of Cranleigh and for which it paid, £1! Yes, you did read that right, they paid the princely sum of ONE POUND for land that was valued by the District Valuer at £175,000!!!

Anger is now mounting amongst local residents who raised funds for a project that has strayed so far from its original dream, it has become something of a local nightmare! Not only for CVNT but for Cranleigh Parish Council, Cranleigh residents and now possibly, even Waverley Borough Council?

Q: Why?

A: Because Waverley Planners  could be faced with determining a planning application for a scheme that was originally intended as a replacement for Cranleigh Village Hospital but which has now morphed into:

• A Private nursing home – with beds priced at the market rate!
• 10 social care beds for Surrey County Council, which allows The County Council to flog off the Longfield Nursing Home site and trouser the cash! Longfield was a council run home once housing over 50 elderly residents and a specialist Dementia unit. 
• 10 community NHS beds – but those beds won’t be for the exclusive use of Cranleigh residents. Oh no! They will be available to anyone within the Guildford & Waverley CCG Area’s 37 GP practices!

And, which could now affect its aim to build a new – much bigger Leisure Centre.

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Says the Cranleigh Village Society?.

 

• Over £1m raised for a replacement Village Hospital came from men, women,  children, clubs, and local businesses in Cranleigh and the surrounding villages; it was never intended for the use of patients of 37 practices which make up the entire G & W CCG!

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The area shaded in blue covers the Guildford & Waverley CCG area

• In addition, the CVNT, intend to build a block of 26 apartments, adjacent to the three-storey building behind Wiskar Drive and M&S Foods – also on land once owned by the parish and designated by Waverley as an area of Strategic Visual Importance. This now includes an access over the Snoxhall Playing Fields directly onto the already beleaguered Knowle Lane – for which it paid the Parish Council – yes, you guessed it: Zilch!! Allegedly these apartments are ear-marked for “key workers”. But whose key workers? The WW hears, if that isn’t enough, CVNT wants an access over the Downslink – the very same route which Waverley intends to keep sacrosanct should the railway return to Cranleigh.All aboard the Cranleigh express?

Now here’s the rub.

Knowle Lane has a narrow access onto Cranleigh High Street. Traffic backs up there constantly because Kerbside Garage, living up to its name, has a consistent flow of customers who all park on the kerbside, thus reducing the narrow two-lane road to an even narrower one-lane!

Incredibly, juggernauts delivering to both M&S and Sainsbury’s go in either side of the lane, creating yet more, chaos. Oh, and and the icing on the cake is the lane regularly floods! You couldn’t make it up, really you couldn’t!

Almost directly opposite the proposed access to the new nursing home is the recently created entrance into the new Berkeley Homes housing estate – 450 homes consented, 55 of which are accessed off Knowle Lane, almost directly opposite the entrance to M&S’s carpark, Wiskar Drive, Lynn Murray & Associates solicitors and several High Street shops rear entrances.

According to our followers over there in the East, Cranleigh’s old Village Hospital has been smartened up by the League of Friends for ambulatory patients – many thousands of them in the future accessing the services of X-Ray, consultant-led clinics and a proposed MRI scanner. Will these patients come from the CCG area?

And now, the cherry on the cake, Waverley BC has pledged to spend £12m on a new leisure centre to serve Cranleigh New Town! And all of this is the same, small congested area between Village Way and the lane between Bet Fred and Boots!

And, just to add a little spice to the mix, the Devious Dutch Developer behind The Knowle Park Initiative, Nicholas Vrijjland – formerly known as the Lettuce King – wants to build a car park in Knowle Lane adjacent to the Bruce McKenzie field, which he swapped with the parish but which he has nicely wrapped up and tied with a bow, into a Ransome strip!

In addition to clogging up Cranleigh High Street the Devious Dutch Developer is currently clogging up Alfold Road in Elmbridge, where he’s flogged off his former lettuce nursery to A1Dominion – a director of which just happens to be – yes, you guessed it – a director of CVNT, one Andy Leafy. Leafy who is preparing to build 265 homes on the old lettuce nursery, and 26 on the nursing home site, which he and the Devious Dutch Developer claim is all about improving the lives of Cranleigh folk! We think they mean improving the lives of themselves whilst lining their pockets at the expense of Cranleigh folk!

Now the locals are screaming – ‘Anyone want to buy my home in the village that Waverley Planners dubbed “Poor Old Cranleigh?’

Is this Charity fulfilling the expectations of the people of Cranleigh and the surrounding villages? Is it fulfilling its charitable objects? And, has Cranleigh Parish Council achieved Best Value for its residents? Has it acted responsibly?

There are many unanswered questions? Perhaps these will be answered over the coming weeks as the Charity lodges its planning application and holds a public consultation exercise?

If not – why not?

 

 

Waverley’s residents are becoming increasingly concerned about rising crime.

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In and around the borough’s towns and villages, crime is rising – and in most instances, the police are turning a blind eye!

Postings on the borough’s popular Community Boards, Facebook and comments received by the WW – are highlighting rising crime and vandalism, some of it serious and life-threatening.

Ballbearings fired into moving vehicles is now becoming the latest dangerous sport. Although so far the damage has been mainly financial, it is only a question of time before a driver, or passenger is hit, resulting in serious consequences. 

There are dozens of instances, of crime, petty and some very serious.   Theft of cars in Alfold, Farnham, and Godalming are becoming a daily occurrence. Bikes chained to posts are being hacked from their moorings, including one treasured bike from outside The Cranleigh Co-op. Windows in cars and homes are being smashed, field gates stolen and outbuildings ransacked. 

We are printing just one account from one resident of the Surrey/Sussex border village of Alfold – but this is magnified by hundreds of incidents right across the borough.

WHY? 

 

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Now here’s a great suggestion. LET’S ALL RING ANNE AND JEREMY?

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And so it goes on.. and on

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All aboard the Cranleigh express?

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It came as a bit of a shock to Cranleigh’s borough and parish council when they heard that Waverley’s councillor for Hambledon & Witley is meeting rail bosses next week in a bid to bring the railway line back to Cranleigh. Now its the turn of Cranleigh ‘New Town’s business leaders to jump on the bandwagon.

Is this MP Anne Milton’s worst nightmare coming true? She has stated publicly that she believes that if the line is re-opened the massive expansion of Cranleigh will continue – unabated.

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Can’t see any mention of Cranleigh though?

Cllr Holder, a former borough councillor for Dunsfold told his Waverley colleagues he meets the Managing Directors of Network Rail SW Trains and Foreign Secretary,  MP for SW Surrey Jeremy Hunt. at Westminster on Wednesday, October 9. They will be discussing the borough’s “infrastructure” issues including the introduction of the Cranleigh to Guildford railway line. A line axed in the 60’s but the route of which forms the Downslink and which has now been protected by the borough council in its Local Plan Part 2, should it return.

No doubt the parish council will be writing to Cllr Holder in the hope that he may enlighten him before the residents of Cranleigh start buying their season tickets in the hope of jumping on the new Cranleigh Express? Perhaps they are in talks with the Chamber of Trade too?

We hope they tell Bramley’s By-Pass Byham too, who may need a heart by-Pass if faced with the prospect of telling his constituents, who may foam at the mouth when they hear that trains could be heading their way?

Councillor Holder will also be rattling rail bosses cages, due to concerns that passengers travelling from Haslemere/Witley/Godalming are forced to stand on their journeys to and from London!

Aren’t we all? Particularly the poor devils like us at the WW who travel to the city, and arrive worn out before the working day even begins and then do the same at the end of a hard day’s work, including writing the Waverley Web in our lunch-hour, because we can’t get a seat on the train!!

Now the Cranleigh Chamber of Commerce has jumped on the train wagon. In its latest missive it says:

Should the railway between Shoreham and Guildford, through Cranleigh, be reopened?

That’s the question being posed by the English Regional Transport Association (ERTA).

They are a voluntary membership-based, pro-public transport improvement association with its main projects initially in the Bedfordshire and surrounding regional areas, but now increasing its remit since several projects had a nation-wide positive benefit and impact.

Membership of ERTA is now open to all.

One of its proposals is to reopen the railway that used to run between Guildford, Cranleigh and Horsham, where much of the old trackbed survives.

ERTA will be holding a public meeting (forum) to-day Saturday 6th October 2018 from 1pm to 4pm at the Rodboro Buildings, 1-10 Bridge Street, Guildford, Surrey, GU1 4RY. Members of the Cranleigh Chamber of Commerce have been invited to attend.

Commenting on the proposals, we said:

“The Chamber of Commerce will watch with interest the proposal to reopen the line. However, it will take considerable local and national political will and a large government purse to overcome the logistical and cost challenges presented in face of the most optimistic forecasts of passenger numbers.

“Recognising these challenges we recently commissioned research from Sustrans to work out the costs of upgrading the line to an all-weather surface allowing shared use for walkers, horses, the disabled and cyclists. The costs to bring the track up to the standards of other shared greenways across the UK are a tiny fraction of the cost to reopen the line to rail.

“We would encourage the county councils of Surrey and West Sussex to seriously consider upgrading the whole Downs Link from Guildford to Shoreham.”

Presumably, the footfall predicted from 1,700 new homes now under construction is not enough for Cranleigh businesses? Or are they, like Councillor Holder, hoping that the Chinese will be arriving on Cranleigh’s Platform 1 to jump on  The Flying Scotsman sometime soon?

Here’s his shock announcement.

Cllr Holder to the rescue! He’ll be solving our trains … a new railway line for Cranleigh, and boosting Chinese tourism!

17.11.29 – Beeching lines may reopen…to boost housebuilding copy

How now POW’s (cash) cow?

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Screen Shot 2018-10-02 at 18.51.12.pngIs the milk about to go sour in POW’s Brown Cow?

Forced to play Russian Roulette with their homes, by the High Court’s refusal to grant them the protection of the Aarhus Convention (People’s Access to Justice) in advance of the Hearing  relating to Waverley’s Housing numbers next week our mole inside the PoW camp tells us),  Protect our Waverley is becoming increasingly desperate in their attempts to avert a potential catastrophe.

Bob Lies and Co’s costs may not be limited to the £10,000 it had hoped under the convention mentioned above, but they will not know until the Judge has ruled on the day.

As our Dunsfold Correspondent points out, this gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Mi casa su casa’! Protect our Little Corner of the Borough has penned yet another open letter to Waverley Borough Council, literally begging it to allow POW to save face:

30th September 2018
Dear Councillor Potts and Mr Horwood

WHY WAVERLEY BOROUGH COUNCIL SHOULD CONCEDE THE S113 APPEAL

POW is writing to ask you to withdraw the defence of the housing numbers in Part 1 of the Local Plan in the interests of all the residents of the Borough.

Conceding our case will allow WBC to re-calculate the numbers on the basis of the new household projections published by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) on 20th September 20181. Barton Willmore has calculated 2, using the new NPPF ‘Standard Method’, that the Objectively Assessed Need (OAN) for Waverley is 27% lower than the Government’s comparable figure based on 2014 data 3. Over the 19 year Plan period, this equates to a very significant reduction of over 3,000 dwellings.

Furthermore, these calculations show that Woking’s unmet need has disappeared.

You have both claimed that if CPRE and POW succeed in their challenge, then the Local Plan will fall and the protections it provides will be removed. That fear is unfounded.

There is legal precedence that part of a Plan can be changed without affecting the remainder. In the case of William Davis Ltd and Others v Charnwood Borough Council (2017), Gilbart J concluded: “I am not willing to strike down other policies whose provenance was not contested before me. I shall, therefore, limit the relief granted to the quashing of that policy.”
A lower OAN will make it easier to meet the 5 year supply requirement, adding additional protection against unwanted and inappropriate development in the longer term.
WBC must avail itself of this unique opportunity to revise down its housing numbers presented by the High Court Challenges being brought by CPRE and POW, rather than wait until the 5-year review of the Plan in 2023. If it fails to do this, large sections of our beautiful Borough will be ruined by unneeded development – on Green Belt, on Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Areas of Great Landscape Value – and future residents will be condemned to live in totally unsustainable locations.

Your duty, as political leader and Chief Executive of Waverley Borough Council respectively, is to protect the interests of Waverley’s residents, now and in the future. You will singularly fail in that duty if you do not take advantage of this unique opportunity to make an early amendment to Part 1 of your Local Plan by conceding the s113 Appeal. The benefits of adopting the reduced quota are significant – both for your Council and your electorate.

Yours sincerely

Bob Lees

cc Uncle Tom Cobbley et al.

Interesting that this missive was penned – no doubt in some haste! – after PoW’s latest Pass-the-Begging-Bowl-Bash at The Sun Inn on Dunsfold Common last week. The Waverley Web attended the event and, bearing in mind the number of cobwebs in the cavernous ceiling of The Sun, Incy-Wincy may well have gone undetected … 

But, given Capt’n Bob is – yet again – appealing to Waverley to surrender to PoW’s bobleesdemands and ditch the High Court battle PoW started (!), we can only assume the Fund Raiser didn’t go too well  and Capt’n Bob is desperate not to have to employ the services of Cranleigh Removals at Casa Lees!

The WW is beginning to feel almost sorry for him. He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t!

Scenario 1: He can’t tell the High Court Judge – hand on heart – that he represents the majority of residents in the Borough – as he likes to brag! – if he doesn’t have a bank balance bursting with local residents’ contributions to prove it! After all, where is all this alleged support if the raggle-taggle PoW is surviving hand-to-mouth?

Scenario 2:  On the other hand, if he can and does demonstrate that he’s well funded by his enthusiastic and numerous supporters – rather than just a handful of high-rollers who object to the pollution of their Surrey Hills by an influx of affordable housing for the great unwashed (or, to paraphrase OJ, AKA Charles William Orange Esq of Hascombe Place, who objects to the creation of ‘a sink estate’ on his doorstep at Dunsfold Park) and write big cheques – then why shouldn’t the Judge insist PoW funds its own beef with Waverley BC rather than the Tax Payer having to foot the bill for them?

Oh what a tangled web POW  weaves whilst practising to deceive!

 

Quelle surprise! The Bats​ have abandoned Blightwells – just in time for demolition​ to begin​?

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The bat population of Brightwells packed their belongings and left … all in the name of progress?

Waverley planners are not bats, they are devious, dishonourable, and don’t even obey their own YES men/women!

Farnham Cinema (GONE), Farnham Theatre (GONE), Open Air Swimming Pool (GONE), Trees (GONE), Tennis Courts (GONE), Bowling Green (GONE), BATS (GONE)

BLIGHTWELLS COTTAGE (GOING, GOING…

All sacrificed on the altar of developer/local authority greed? Will the batty decision made last night see Farnham’s Bats result in the same fate for the fall of this historic town as that predicted if the Ravens leave the Tower of London?

 

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The Ravens of the Tower of London are a group of at least six captive ravens which live at the Tower of London. Their presence is traditionally believed to protect the Crown and the tower; a superstition holds that “if the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away, the Crown will fall and Britain with it”.

Despite a prediction by Councillor Carole Cockburn of “traffic chaos” – but, all in a good cause – and claims by Farnham Residents Councillor Gerry Hyman that Waverley continues breaking the  law by not carrying out proper environmental, traffic and air quality assessments, it is now full speed ahead, for a development which has been in gestation for over 20 years.

By the way, who did bosh the bats? Set fire to the Ivy at The Redgrave Theatre? Was it Adam or was it Eve?

The demolition of Brightwell’s Cottage, complete with its bats, “which don’t exist” according to CONFIDENTIAL reports, and if they do, will be encouraged to live on boxes up appropriately coloured bat poles, can now proceed unhindered.  In fact, the perfectly phased development will take place at exactly the same time as the demolition of  Farnham’s “most hated building” The Woolmead which is also set to commence this month. From that development alone 80 HGV movements a day are anticipated through Farnham.  The Surrey-based demolition and groundworks specialist Wooldridge Group said: “We are pleased to share with you a new contract awarded to Wooldridge Demolition, in Farnham, Surrey. Multiple commercial and retail units to be cleared for residential properties and more shops. 

So works on the Woolmead will clash with the construction of Waverley Borough Council’s adjacent ‘Brightwells Yard’ development!

Brilliant co-ordinated planning that? Wonder how many more Farnham shops will close?

The 11-week lane closure on the A31 has now begun and the construction of Brightwells’ temporary access bridge. Waverley’s development partner Crest Nicholson estimates more than 200 HGV movements – on average three a day required to undertake the works. Add this to the 80 HGV movements per day Berkeley Homes estimates will be required during the four-month demolition of the nearby Woolmead, with around 2,000 HGV movements in total expected during the initial basement excavation phase of around eight months. Result = chaos?

 Berkeley Homes was granted full planning permission in July to replace The Woolmead, with a new block of 138 apartments (non-affordable) above more than 4,000 square metres of shops and restaurants.

Even throwing a last-minute spanner into the works by suggesting that Crest Nicholson may not legally own, or have a legal interest in the land in Borelli Walk required for the bridge, did not deter the Tory-dominated council from giving the go-ahead by 17 votes to one last night – Wednesday. In fact, Oh Carole suggested the meeting to discuss the issue was a waste of everyone’s time  accusing  a colleague of using ‘delaying tactics.’

However, the committee was forced to concede,  if it was found that the developer did not have a legal interest in the site. Permission would be refused for what officers described “as the minor non-material amendment” to a development which  Leader Julia Potts said was as put a new heart into Farnham Town Centre.

Where exactly is Farnham’s beating heart?

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Why the hell Waverley planning experts couldn’t determine that little legal loophole before the meeting is anyone’s guess? It’s only taken 20 years to get a financial backer for a scheme which has been hoiked around the City and shunned by private investors for so long, it has become as stale as last month’s kippers! And despite the stink kicked up by Farnham people, Surrey County Council and Pension Fund Trustee and WBC councillor Denise Le Gal –  rescued our rotten borough with over £30m of OUR MONEY.

One financially strapped council bales out another?

But fear not Officers including Betty Boot said repeatedly – “we are satisfied” with our recommendation to approve this minor amendment so the bridge can now be constructed from the A31, and, “I am satisfied” we are acting legally, and “I am satisfied” that bat’s don’t exist in Blightwells and, “I am satisfied” with all the Environmental Impact Assessments and the CONFIDENTIAL bat surveys.

 She’s satisfied so that’s ok then, Isn’t it?

Here’s what one of our followers had to say: “Apparently the last look at the Maternity Roost had cobwebs and little to suggest recent occupation – I wonder Why???

It isn’t difficult to scare Bats they are timid gentle creatures …. But they do come back to roost eventually… and something better than those Cr*ppy Bat roosts should have been insisted on regardless of the state of the Maternity Roost in the Cottage.
They simply do not care.

 

Tales of the unexpected as Surrey’s Mr Tickle resigns.

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The tales from various ladies at political and community events are coming in thick and fast…

mrtickle.jpgGodalming’s Surrey County Councillor Peter Martin resigns as Chairman.

But you know – if you’re a Tory in True Blue Surrey, you can get away with almost anything? Unless, of course, if Miss Backlash gets to hear of it?

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And here at the Waverley Web, we have heard more… and we are tickled pink, so much so, we fell off our web.animated-spider-image-0201