Tag: Bypass Byham

Alfold gets a new heart – and a safer village?

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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.

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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.

The 2019 Council elections have arrived at ‘Your Waverley.’

And electioneering has started!

Tory councillors didn’t even attempt to hide their loathing for any challenge or questions from the council’s minority parties at the recent Full Council Meeting. No wonder it took over a week to post the webcast, it burned the master’s fingers, so he went fishing!

That pesky Godalming new boy Councillor Paul Follows has been getting up the ever-widening nostrils of the Tories ever since he set foot onto The Bury’s Hallowed Ground! And.. they don’t even try to hide their contempt … because there’s an election coming on!

You can watch the Potty One’s eyes narrowing and she ummed and ahhd and tells him he will receive a more detailed answer from somewhere, sometime, somehow in the future. WW wonder – does he ever get one?

Screen Shot 2018-07-30 at 13.15.39.pngAt the last two Full council meetings, the Godalming upstart has dared to ask a few simple questions after being  asked to agree more money for the Judicial Reviews – you know the ones Protect Our Little Corner and the Campaign to Protect Some parts of Rural Englands’ fights to be played out soon in the High Court?  

Q He asked: What are the consequences to the local plan as a whole if the JR’s were successful because obviously, it impacts the Green Belt status of a big chunk of my ward, and elsewhere in Godalming?

Positive or negative – it has consequences and I just wants to know what those were. Is the whole plan undermined, or just parts?

What does he get? – Blank looks and is ignored.

Gone are the days when minority parties, or for that matter Waverley’s residents, were given the benefit of a civil straight answer – in public – and were treated with a modicum of respect. Challenge the tories at your peril, you will be ridiculed for daring to question where and how public cash is being spent.  Ask Gerry Hyman he’s got the T-shirt.

Paul Follows was one of the very few councillors not to vote for the Local Plan, he abstained. His concern, being that it was vulnerable to a JR challenge and that shed loads of public cash would likely be chucked at its defence…which turns out to be the case! 

This week the Godalming upstart was at it again… this time asking questions on the proposed funding for Waverley’s leisure centres. Not too many mind, because Cranleigh’s Boudicca, who has been rewarded with the deputy mayoral role after being kicked out by her ‘colleagues’ as chairman of Cranleigh Parish Council, ruled he had asked enough!! Nothing like a bit of power is there, especially when it has been taken away from you on the home patch!

He had dared to ask why a Press Release was sent out to the Media before the Full Council had an opportunity to comment on the Executive’s decision to spend squillions on new and existing centres? And… he’s a little concerned, despite being generally supportive of leisure facilities, about where the money is coming from and the increasing tax burden on Waverley residents?

Here’s Bramley’s By-Pass Byham, who now wants Bramley to have a leisure centre starting the election ball rolling: Didn’t someone tell the poor old duffer that it has taken many, many, many years to get any money for East Street and it has only just gone into the bank? And nobody is quite sure that his administration hasn’t presided over a white elephant?How did Waverley Conservatives manage to shrink the Brightwells dividend so much?

Oh! and why, because the Executive had only been held a few days earlier, under them there rules, why a debate on the decision could not be held and.. he couldn’t get any answers?  

Why ask another question then Councillor Follows? You know you won’t get an answer… because

YOU ARE NOT A TORY – GET IT!

Here’s your answer – Silly Billy! ‘There is an election coming on Councillor Follows, YW will be throwing money at the public over the coming months and standing up in the council chamber saying stuff like this? Just in case they decide to vote for your lot – or any other lot come to that!

 

 

 

 

Let’s all By-Pass Bramley – shall we? Or…maybe, just maybe…. we should all By-Pass Byham?

 Councillor Maurice Byham is really quite a nice ordinary guy really and as member of Waverley Borough Council  for many years, we understand,  he has done quite a decent job on behalf of the residents of Bramley.

However, his usual avuncular, quiet persona has undergone a dramatic change recently and he appears to have had some sort of later-life crisis on the subject of traffic and housing development.

Perhaps the word Hypocrisy is too harsh a word to describe  By-Pass Byham, as the modern definition   indicates a state of promoting virtues, moral beliefs or principles that one does not actually have or is guilty of violating.

It is also  considered to be a kind  of lie, because you see,  it often involves deceiving others. Hypocrisy is not simply failing to practice those virtues, bur misleading his fellows into believing he has them.

Now we fully understand Councillor Byham hates the traffic thundering through Bramley. Don’t we all?  However,  – let’s just call him By-Pass Byham (BPB) is deluded in believing  all the traffic on the A281 comes from…yes, you guessed from Dunsfold Park…

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‘Don’t get me wrong – I don’t really want a By-Pass around Bramley – what I want, what I really really want, is for everyone to think I am concerned about all the traffic.  I’m  really, really concerned about is the traffic coming from Dunsfold airfield – not Cranleigh, not Horsham, Billingshurst, Guildford, Shalford, Shoreham, Godalming, or anywhere else for that matter – just DUNSFOLD!

… Now, if you read a newspaper or turn on the TV it will not have escaped your notice that No homes have yet been built at DP! In fact, if BPB and some of his friends, have their way, they never will be! Because they want houses built in the countryside and on the Green Belt. Read on and all will be revealed!

 If he hates traffic then WHY did: 

  • BPB sit in the council chamber just ten days  ago and vote – against an officers’ recommendation to REFUSE  a planning application for five homes in Bramley on the Green Belt – yes you know the stuff everyone wishes they had more of, as a protection against development!

The application in Bramley Park Drive for five homes  was made in the name of an Agent. Councillor Richard Seaborne (Con Bramley) declared an interest in the application as he was, a Bramley parish councillor. Then proceeded to back  the scheme to the hilt.

BPB –  said he too, would declare that although the application had been submitted  by  an Agent – because, 

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He then gave the application his full support, despite hearing from the new girl on the block Liz Townsend that  – the dust cart wouldn’t be able to get up the narrow road!  Councillor John Gray from Dunsfold! said Yes, who for the second time this year,  said   YES to development on  the GREEN BELT!

WHY?  We wonder? On a  dangerous bend, on the Green Belt, alongside a narrow lane called Park Drive which leads  to the Godalming Anglers Club Fisheries and on land where they have parked for many year.

The reasons for approving it were :

  • That  was “scruffy and overgrown” what they didn’t of course mention was:

It is owned by non other than… 

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So that’s alright then – ignore the officers advice, the very same officers who would rather do cartwheels across the council chamber than refuse development anywhere Waverley

Former Member of Parliament for Epsom & Ewell  and a Minister in the Government of Margaret Thatcher!

 Now there’s a damned good reason for changing the settlement boundary of Bramley and building on the Green Belt if ever we have heard of one…isn’t it?

And… just days later he stuck  his hypocritical little mit in the air and voted through another 265 homes on green fields in Cranleigh!  Sending another shed load of traffic through Bramley/Shamley Green/Wonersh – You couldn’t make it up – could you?

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The most difficult  — characteristics to detect in human nature is hypocrisy. This word derives from Greek and literally means “play-acting” because it was first referred to actors who, on stage, had to give a specific interpretation of a certain character.