And guess where the developer’s money’s going? … To fund improvements to Godalming and Farnham Leisure Centres and build a new £12.7m centre in Cranleigh New Town!
WHY? Because there’s an election coming!
Blightwells here we come!!
Tag: Farnham
How did Waverley Conservatives manage to shrink the Brightwells dividend so much?
Or Perhaps as an alternative headline as suggested by Farnham’s Laurence Garner in this letter to the brilliant Farnham Herald…and which has been sent to us.
Council taxpayers ‘royally swindled’
Sir,
On the front page of your July 19 edition, you quote councillor Julia Potts boasting that there was ‘money in the bank’: £3.2 million from Crest Nicholson. Your older readers may recall that when Waverley decided in 2002 to award the contract to Crest Nicholson they boasted that there would be £20 million for the council to spend.
It was on this basis that the council over-rode the wishes of the people – expressed in a public consultation – and awarded the project to Crest Nicholson. Since then the value of the land shrank to eight-and-a-half before finally shrinking mysteriously to three-and-a-half million.
Up until 1973, Brightwells Gardens was the property of the people of Farnham, a pleasant amenity: mature trees, shady lawns with park benches and flower beds, a tennis court, a bowling green, and originally an open-air swimming pool; a pleasant spot in the heart of the town.
This was gifted, in a moment of folly, to WBC. After the agreement with Crest, the garden was deliberately degraded by Waverley to an unsightly slum, the bowling green trashed, the tennis courts wrecked, the gardens neglected before finally being sold to Crest Nicholson. They now have the impudence to call the Brightwells scheme a ‘regeneration’.
Councillor Potts neglected to mention that the £3.2 million must be off-set against the £4 million spent by WBC to buy The Marlborough Head public house and the £3.2 million spent on the Gostrey Centre extension to the Memorial Hall – a project originally to be built by Crest at Brightwells at their expense.
The fact is that the council tax payers of Farnham, and all Waverley, have been royally swindled by WBC, whether by design or through incompetence, it really doesn’t matter.
Laurence Carter, Wykeham Road. Farnham
However, what he omits to say is the council also allowed the Gostrey Centre for the elderly to deteriorate over many years. In fact, if a well-intentioned chef hadn’t reported the disgraceful state of the kitchen to Waverley’s own environmental health officers, it would have been forced to close down much earlier. But allowing it to deteriorate fitted in nicely with ‘Your Waverley’s cunning plans!
Yolande Hesse has written.
Sir,
On the front page of your July 19 edition, you quote councillor Julia Potts boasting that there was ‘money in the bank’: £3.2 million from Crest Nicholson. Your older readers may recall that when Waverley decided in 2002 to award the contract to Crest Nicholson they boasted that there would be £20 million for the council to spend.
It was on this basis that the council over-rode the wishes of the people – expressed in a public consultation – and awarded the project to Crest Nicholson. Since then the value of the land shrank to eight-and-a-half before finally shrinking mysteriously to three-and-a-half million.
Up until 1973, Brightwells Gardens was the property of the people of Farnham, a pleasant amenity: mature trees, shady lawns with park benches and flower beds, a tennis court, a bowling green, and originally an open-air swimming pool; a pleasant spot in the heart of the town.
This was gifted, in a moment of folly, to WBC. After the agreement with Crest, the garden was deliberately degraded by Waverley to an unsightly slum, the bowling green trashed, the tennis courts wrecked, the gardens neglected before finally being sold to Crest Nicholson. They now have the impudence to call the Brightwells scheme a ‘regeneration’.
Councillor Potts neglected to mention that the £3.2 million must be off-set against the £4 million spent by WBC to buy The Marlborough Head public house and the £3.2 million spent on the Gostrey Centre extension to the Memorial Hall – a project originally to be built by Crest at Brightwells at their expense.
The fact is that the council tax payers of Farnham, and all Waverley, have been royally swindled by WBC, whether by design or through incompetence, it really doesn’t matter.
Laurence Carter, Wykeham Road. Farnham
It’s official – Waverley Planners have gone Bats!
Crest Nicholson get Licence to Kill…bats! And if you link into the comments box – you can hear the debate which was very kindly sent to us here at the WW by Mushroom Management. Presumably, because they (WBC) keep most people in the dark and throw a bucket of sh*t over them?
Lies, damned lies, and no proper statistics – for the endangered bat population of Blightwells, Farnham’s infamous multi-million-pound development in East Street.
Easing into her new role as part of the England Team and with Nikes at the ready, Chief Planning Officer put the boot in on councillors in readiness for her World Cup debut, when they dared to ask too many questions and took more than their allotted four minutes on Crest Nicholsons’s planning application to mitigate the loss of habitat and “protect” the Blightwells bat population.
Whilst everyone is aware from previous surveys that there are bats in the Redgrave Theatre, the Blightwells Cottage, The Marlborough Head, and elsewhere on the site all either demolished or awaiting the swinging ball, – there is to be NO MITIGATION – for the loss of the Maternity Roost, NO BAT HOUSE, as previously agreed with Crest Nicholson just a handful of aluminium poles stuck up around the site with bat boxes on the top!
There will be no bat houses to replace the maternity roost despite calls from rebellious councillors Farnham Residents’ Jerry Hyman and John Ward, Paul “fearsome” Follows, and Cranleigh Tory Liz Townsend, who was sitting on the Joint Planning Committee for the first time and who might just have to watch her seat! Disobeying Betty Boot on your first outing!
Watch out Liz, or we might have to start referring to Cranleigh’s ‘Liz as the Biz.”
There were some lovely quotes from councillors:- here’s just a few to make you smile.
“If we go ahead and grant this… it could be A LICENCE TO KILL – BATS!
Godalming’s Paul Follows: “Isn’t it an offence to disrupt or injure roosting bats.”
Cranleigh’s Liz Townsend: ‘How will the bats survive if the Blightwells Cottage is demolished?”
Anna James (Chiddingfold): “I’m quite happy to grant this application as it stands.” In other words Bug**r the Bats!
John Ward (Farnham)”If we don’t have a maternity wing- we may not have any more little bats.”OH! and I object to the Chairman asking us at the start of this meeting to “curtail the debate.”
Jerry Hyman (Farnham) – “It’s not rocket science if they, (the developers and the planning officers) don’t care about endangered species, and the environment – what do they care about?”
You may well ask – WWethinks … letting developers do whatever they like?
Planning Officer: “Natural England has issued a licence, and under the terms of that licence the developer cannot damage bats. Followed by: “Natural England have not actually assessed it?”
Betty Boot: Then dons her steel toecap Nike’s saying:”We are quite confident about our recommendation to approve this application because it is sound. and… In the big scheme of things, this is an insignificant matter”
Insignificant matter?
Here’s what many Farnam people think!
And… didn’t our Betty do well last night in her first World Cup game against Tunisia? But, she gets a lot more practice than most of the team, she puts the boot in on a daily basis.
However, we have just heard from one of her fans, that it isn’t her fault – she is just doing her Master/Mistresses bidding!
Farnham needs you! Don’t forget to vote!
Here’s the lineup for the Waverley By-election – provided by the Farnham Herald – because nobody does it better.
Labour are also standing a candidate for Waverley – Rebecca Kaye.
For the Town Council election the candidates are:
- Jo Aylwin, Liberal Democrats
- George Adam Hesse, Farnham Residents
- Rebecca Louise Kaye, Labour
- Rashida Ahmad Nasir, Conservative
More Gypsies and Travellers could be on their way to Farnham Dunsfold and Cranleigh if the Local Plan part 2 is approved.
Part 2 of Waverley’s Local Plan is presently out to Consultation.
Consultation on the preferred options will end in June. There will be a pre-submission consultation from October until December this year with the Plan being submitted in February 2019 for adoption later in the year.
