Tag: Cranleigh

Please,​ Sir can we have some more… (houses)?

please_sir

Never has the division between Town and Gown been starker than in Godalming at (Charterhouse School) and in Cranleigh – at (Cranleigh School!) Both private schools want to flog off their Green Belt playing fields to secure their futures!

Here’s the public presentation that was given by Charterhouse School to justify building 132 houses on their Broom & Lees playing fields. Cranleigh School’s offering is still on the blackboard!

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What struck us here at the WW was how out of touch / desperate was Charterhouse School’s justification for concreting over the green belt: Can’t help wondering if the Campaign for the Protection of some parts of Rural England, or perhaps even Protect ~Our Waverley, will have their say? Or, are they too busy girding their loins to stop development on the largest brownfield site in the borough at the Judicial Review due this Autumn?

The Broom and Lees Playing Field is Green Belt land. However, we believe that the proposed expansion creates a number of ‘Very Special Circumstances’ to justify this development, namely:

  • Providing new School places to widen choice in education
  • Improving the diversity and inclusivity of Charterhouse
  • Protecting and enhancing an established education facility
  • Protecting and enhancing a major local employer
  • Creating additional employment opportunities
  • Investing in and enhancing listed buildingsWithout the funding provided by the sale of Broom and Lees, the expansion and improvement of the School simply cannot proceed.

YOUR FEES ARE £32,364 a year for a day pupil! Surely you don’t have to pave over some of the finest playing fields of England to improve a school whose alumni include:

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To name just a few!

(left) Jeremy Hunt Foreign Secretary.

(Right) Jonathan King Singer, songwriter, composer and.. lad about town.

 

Just to add insult to injury £174,000 of the 106 monies provided by the developers’ of Cranleigh’s new 450 Berkeley homes, now under construction, has been earmarked for… a new 3G Pitch for Cranleigh School! Alfold Football Club puts its best foot forward – whilst Cranleigh’s 106 monies go to A Cranleigh top fee-paying school!

 

Much ado about the location of a new Cranleigh Leisure Centre.

Since ‘Your Waverley’s commitment to spend £12.7million on a new leisure centre – there has been much talk about where it should go? Should the Village Way centre be demolished and rebuilt, or refurbished and improved?

Rumours are rife about re-siting it on the proposed new private nursing home site in Knowle Lane now there is to be no replacement village hospital – or building it on the Snoxhall Playing fields?

Neither is an option as the Cranleigh Village Hospital Trust has tied up the former parish-owned land for a private nursing home development and the parish council which has been shafted by the charity, has tied up all the remainder of the parish land it owns into a Community Land Trust, to ensure it doesn’t happen again! This was prompted by the scurrilous behind the scenes dealings of a former parish council chairman who wanted to build on the nearby Beryl Harvey field donated to the village by the late Gordon Harvey, in memory of his wife. The benefactor’s son kiboshed the bid, with villagers backing, at a public meeting, and the plan to build houses on the allotment/conservation area in Knowle Lane was subsequently scrapped. 

We are reliably informed by villagers in the East, that as with the “replacement cottage hospital,” which will not now go ahead, local fundraising also paid for the creation of the original Cranleigh Leisure Centre, so villagers believe they are entitled to have their say?

We had hoped to bring you a  link to all the possible plans for the Village Way site – which should be open for consultation to allow Cranleigh residents to decide! But it has been removed by Waverley Council!

After 6 months of the details of all Waverley’s leisure improvements being online, the council took down the presentation after residents started to discuss it on Facebook. They realised it contained figures to be paid to a third party before a deal had been done.
Luckily residents here in Godalming had started sharing screenshots.

Don’t click on the link because it won’t work – a bit like Waverley Borough Council!

https://modgov.waverley.gov.uk/documents/s19759/Options%20Presentation%20for%20OS%2020.11.17.pdf

 

Thank heaven there are a few councillors left at Waverley that care about – the new town they have dubbed – ‘Poor Old Cranleigh.”

Just a handful of councillors – abstained – from supporting the layout and landscaping of Miller Homes consented application to build 120 three and four storey homes on the former Hewitts Industrial Estate in Elmbridge Road – why didn’t they vote against it is anyone’s guess? Do they get to feel Betty’s Appealing Boot if they dare oppose a scheme which was described by a string of councillors as:

“AWFUL” “THE WORST DESIGN I HAVE EVER SEEN,” “FOUR STOREY BLOCKS LIKE LINES OF CARAVANS.’ ‘MONOCHROME,’ ” A DESIGN THAT IS SO UNIMAGINATIVE IT IS RIDICULOUS.” ‘DIDN’T THINK IN WAVERLEY WE WOULD BE BUILDING IDENTIKIT HOMES,” ‘HOMES THAT LOOK LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF THE HOBITT.’ “NEVER SEEN ANYTHING SO UNINSPIRING.” 

Here’s `Kevin Deanus Councillor for Alfold.

 

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However, Waverley was between a rock and a hard place after a Government Inspector over-ruled its refusal and allowed the application to turn the former light industrial estate into a housing estate! But surely with a bit of negotiation, they could have persuaded the developer to provide something more suitable?

Even Elizabeth Townsend – Chairman of Cranleigh Parish Council appeared unperturbed that the former industrial estate, which will further urbanise the once rural area of west Cranleigh, and change it beyond recognition. But she did voice her concerns about landscaping near the entrance, the treatment of the ancient woodland, and the possible overlooking of cottages nearby by such large buildings.

However, 17 members of the Joint Planning Committee granted the reserved matters with four abstentions – so life goes on over there as another set of bulldozers and HGV’s roll into -“Poor Old Cranleigh!”

Here’s the village’s design statement for what it’s worth! And – here’s a decent Alfold Councillor Kevin Deanus telling the planners exactly what he thinks of the plan!

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COULD DINOSAURS COME BACK TO CRANLEIGH?

 

Screams the headline on the Cranleigh edition of the Sorry Advertiser. How we all love the silly season – particularly when some of the WW is away lounging on sunbeds in the Scilly Isles!

Unlikely, says the Waverley Web … because they’re alive and well, chewing the fat of the land in Alfold, Chiddingfold, Dunsfold & Hascombe. They lurk behind hedges in their million-pound mansions and they wouldn’t dream of slumming it in the emerging New Town that Waverley Councillors now refer to as Poor-Old-Cranleigh!

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These Dinosaurs, who evolved from Stop Dunsfold Park New Town into Protect our Waverley (all in the interests of self-preservation you understand) have fought tooth-and-nail for the past 10 years to preserve their own villages in aspic, at the expense of the rest of the Borough – Cranleigh  Godalming, and Farnham in particular.

On a serious note, Fossils Galore (no, we didn’t make that up, but we might well pinch it as our new sobriquet for PoW!) are hoping to secure support for a dedicated museum and activity centre following the discovery of the full skeleton of an Iguanodon dinosaur at the Wienerberger factory in Ewhurst last year. Didn’t they know most of the old fossils are already sitting in the Natural History Museum in London?

The Waverley Web thinks it’s a great idea but strongly recommends Fossils Galore waits on the results of PoW’s Judicial Review because, if unsuccessful, they could find themselves with a cartload of prehistoric beasts to add to their collection:

• Pride of Place in the exhibition could be given to the Velociraptur – otherwise, know as ‘Crap-Peddler-in-Chief’ Bob Lies
• Tyrannosaurus – otherwise known as Tyrant-in-Chief Peppa-Pig, who hasn’t got a good word – let alone a nice one to say for anyone! Anyone for a chipolata?
• Spinosaurus – Spinmeisters-in-Chief Chris Britton & Sarah Sullivan

Clearly, it’s the Silly Season in the sticks!

Were Cranleigh firefighters around to fight this blaze near woodland?

 

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The car ablaze adjacent to woodland near Keepers Cottage, Cranleigh!

Because most of the time Cranleigh’s single pump machine has been seen racing around the Surrey countryside attempting to cover for other stations that are either unmanned or are running an overtime ban!

Of course, for Surrey County Council, paying part-time (retained) firemen to stand-by in other parts of the county isn’t cheap. It costs shedloads of money to take firefighters out of area! In addition, they are then unavailable to cover their own areas so if an incident occurs in Cranleigh firemen then travel from Dorking travel home again and then trouser even more cash. If the waste of taxpayer’s money wasn’t so serious it would be funny?

You couldn’t make it up?

But then why would Dumb & Dumber at County Towers give a damn. They’re too busy putting the cold steel of council budget cuts right through the heart of our vital emergency services. So much so Surrey’s head honcho in the brigade has been kicked into touch because he’s not prepared to put his name to cuts that he believes will impact on manpower and put Surry’s residents lives at risk. So his loyal staff have banned overtime! 

You can read it here: Dumb and Dumber do it again?