Alfold Councillor Kevin Deanus was vitriolic when he considered a scheme to build 80 homes at Sweeters Reach in Loxwood road a few months ago.
A Bramley colleague described the proposed development by Bewley Homes as “crap.”
Bramley Councillor Martin D’Arcy said :
“This is one of the worst layout housing schemes I have ever seen. I thought a previous Secretary of State for housing wanted to ‘build beautiful?’ Beautiful these are not, in fact, this is a crap design, the developers are obviously clueless.”
Waverley councillors have approved a scheme to bring Chapel Fields into the heart of Alfold despite objections from planning ‘experts.’
As outrageous as it may seem it took a determined developer to devise a housing scheme that would fund basic highway safety measures!- Vital road improvements have been called for but ignored for decades by the county highway authority! But it is partly due to Surrey County Council’s own development on Lindon Farm adjoining Chapel Fields that prompted councillors to overthrow their planning officers advice to … REFUSE!
Thanks to the landowners – and a determined Agent – Alfold will get now get 8 new homes – from two to four bedroom, a shop and cafe, a play area, and a central village green – but more important than all those put together – a safer highway through the village.
Waverley councillors, some of whom have a personal connection with the tiny Surrey/Sussex border village were able to recount their own personal experiences of one of the most dangerous country roads in the borough.
The Loxwood Road is a popular route for lorry traffic from the Shoreham Docks, and a busy link into the A281 Alfold Crossways a scene of numerous accidents. One several years ago, saw a female motorist die outside the village shop. Her death brought appeals for the highway authority to provide safety measures.
Alfold Councillor Kevin Deanus said his village had recently been bombarded with development. Development both “inappropriate and insensitive”and which had provided the village with “absolutely no benefits.” The application before the eastern committee offered numerous benefits welcomed by many, including the parish council. He claimed SCC’s development nearby had, “changed everything.”
Cranleigh, and former Alfold councillor, Mary Foryszewski said the scheme would “enhance the Conservation Area,”and here, at last, was a developer putting something back into the community.
Cranleigh’s Jeannette Stennett predicted the scheme would open up the village – give it a new heart and anyone who had ever driven from the bottom of the Loxwood Road past the sharp bend on the hill, would welcome with open arms the traffic calming measures. Saying, It was what Alfold had needed for a very long time. Alfold had lost pubs, a fine restaurant and with the Development at nearby Dunsfold now approved, this thriving community deserved more. “I am giving this all my support.’
Councillor Stewart Stennett said he had personal experience of his own traffic accident there, saying the extra 20 car parking spaces for the Chapel, and residents parking would be welcomed by all.
Bramley’s By-Pass Byham who always welcomes traffic improvements, said in all his time at Waverley he couldn’t recollect Alfold Parish Council ever supporting “anything”– so would definitely supporting this application.
However, Wonersh’s Grouchy Goodridge didn’t believe the shop or the cafe were viable and the scheme was just a ploy to get housing development onto the site. The councillor who regularly reveals he is permanetly joined at the hip of planning officers with superglue argued against.“The developer has dangled a carrot in front of us? So what happens when these facilities are unviable? I certainly won’t be voting for it.”
After Ewhurst’s Val Henry spoke of her “excitement”about a scheme bringing with a raft of benefits for Alfold people. It was then left to Chairman David Else to call for a vote?
Despite a bit of confusion, which was not helped by officers seemingly completely disinterested in advising members on important conditions to be imposed on the scheme it was agreed by 10 votes to two. With Groucho and Chairman David Else voting against.
Or will they follow the recommendation of their very own planning dummies and refuse a widely supported scheme for eight homes – a cafe shop – and a car park?
Tonight Waverley planning ‘experts’ will once again recommend refusing development on land in the Surrey/Sussex border village – which has been hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons recently! Will this site on which development has been sought since 1986, once again be kyboshed by planning officers who are ignoring local opinion – including those of village leaders on the parish council? (However, shouldn’t someone tell the parish council that Grampian Conditions aren’t worth the paper they’re written on).
Perhaps Alfold’s Councillor Kevin Deanus can be as persuasive in supporting this application as he has so ably demonstrated when objecting to other totally unsuitable schemes, that officers have backed to the hilt in the east of the borough?
It beggars belief that Surrey County Council with Waverley’s support can build on land to the rear of Lindon Farm, formerly part of the same holding on which permission was refused to every other applicant. But then grant itself planning permission for three large buildings for supported living accommodation for autistic children with access from a one-way dangerous country lane! Every other past application had been refused by its very own engineers’ on highway objections! Double-dealing or what?
Then along comes a community facility – a Cafe and a shop, which locals say will complement the existing village shop – in a village with scant amenities. Along with the added bonus of a car park (10 spaces for a village church and 10 for residents’ parking, plus a traffic calming scheme) and a play area in the heart of the old village – and the planners say…
… OH NO!
Dumb or what?
Come on Councillor Deanus – get your truncheon out and knock some sense into your so-called experts and get Cranleigh’s Liz Means Biz, (not to be confused with Betty Boot), and your fellow councillors along with you?
Tell them about the numerous accidents that have occurred on the dangerous bend where a woman died just a year or so back. Tell them about the dangerous parking, and the numerous incidents, accidents, damage to property that are a regular occurrence in Loxwood Road. (We have researched this and our followers over there have been writing to us)!
And… how can anyone claim this doesn’t fit into the street scene?
Existing housing and church – a footpath eight homes and a car park, cafe and shop behind? But the ‘experts’ don’t like it!
As if it hadn’t enough on its hands fighting the Dunsfold Park developer, the mutter in the Awfold gutter is that Protect our Little Corner is making a takeover bid for Awfold’s Neighbourhood Plan… and soon its parish council!
Great, they’re going to stop development in Awfold, we hear you cry. And not before time! Finally, they’re taking an interest in somewhere other than Dunsfold Aerodrome. Well done, POW, you’re finally living up to your name!
Well, er …, no, not exactly! According to our informants – and they are many! – POW is planning to concrete all over Awfold’s green and pleasant fields in its latest bid to stop development just a hop, skip and a field away at Dunsfold Aerodrome, the largest brownfield site in the borough.
WHAT???
You couldn’t make it up, really you couldn’t! A scheme that was turned down at Appeal by a Government Inspector earlier this year is, only months later, is now being promoted by the Neighbourhood Plan Committee.
WTF is going on in Awfold, we hear you ask? Awfold residents could not have made it clearer how they felt about Thakeham Homes’ Springbok application – when they turned out in their droves to give it a big, huge thumbs down – but Thakeham’s supporters are determined to get the development back on the agenda.
Are Thakeham’s supporters now promoting another of its cunning plans?
You might well ask! Of course, everyone knows Nik Pigeon, Chairman of Awfold Parish Council, has declared a pecuniary interest in the Springbok scheme but, according to our informants – who have been busy trawling through Awfold Parish Council’s parish papers, following recent, startling revelations about the Parish Council’s money-laundering activities – piles of dodgy do-do are being uncovered. One of which whiffs to high heaven!
Apparently, in April this year, up popped POW’s very own slippery little hypocrite Chris Britton, who, together with his wife Cilla, now sit on Awfold’s Neighbourhood Plan Committee
So why would someone who lives in a house overlooking Dunsfold Aerodrome whose been fighting the Dunsfold Developer tooth-and-nail, to prevent development on his doorstep, want to team up with another developer to help them build homes just a hop, skip and a field away on the other side of the aerodrome on someone else’s doorstep? It really does beg the question what’s in it for him?
In fact, call us stupid but the Waverley Web, can’t understand why anyone is calling for more sites for development there because the village only has to find 125 homes to comply with Your Waverley’s Local Plan and it already has:
• 55 consented – and going up fast – at Sweeters Copse as part of Phase 1, with further homes in the pipeline for Phase 2; • 23 consented at Brockhurst Farm on the Horsham Road; • 57? at the former Wyevale Garden Centre, where consent has already been granted for part of the site and a new application is seeking to increase that number; • 11 at Oakhurst Farm (SCC) • Not to mention numerous conversions of barns and outbuildings – including at the Alfold Craft Centre, and a number of individual new homes – all of which are described as ‘windfall’ sites!
So, without even trying, Awfold has already exceeded the 125 homes it needs by over a fifth and yet POW’s Boy Britton is busy promoting other schemes including at Springbok, owned by Care Ashore, or as some believe Thakeham Homes?
In addition, as part of the call for sites, numerous other Alfold landowners – most of whom objected to development at Dunsfold Aerodrome, – have rushed to throw their land into the hat, including Care Ashore’s land south of Satchel Court Drive; The Nutshell, Horsham Road; Glebelands Farm, Loxwood Road; land at the entrance to Wildwood Golf Club; Bridian Farm, Little Bookers Lea Farm, to name but a few.
Carry on at this rate and Awfold’s green and pleasant fields will quickly become Awfold New Town whilst, next door, the largest brownfield site in the borough sits idle if POW’s Boy Britton has anything to do with it. What a treacherous little Weasel he is!
