Grab the Ark in Waverley-Updated.

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Storm / Flooding Update (PM 17/02)

Two flood warnings remain in Waverley: River Wey at Elstead and Eashing; River Wey at Godalming. River levels remain high and will continue to be monitored.

– Flood barriers will remain on Catteshall Road until at least Wednesday (but it will be when the EA are happy it’s safe to). So please continue to use the access from the other end of Catteshall Lane for that part of Godalming.

The barriers functioned as designed and I think without them the houses there would almost certainly have flooded.

– the allotments in that area have been under water and I’ll be seeking updates as to next steps there. Likewise borough staff will be looking to see if the existence of the barrier at Catteshall has in any way raised the flood risk further up (e.g. at the Almshouses).

I would like to take this opportunity to to thank the Town and parish council teams across the borough. WBC officers who have been managing this situation and working with the EA and SCC (it has been WBC officers keeping the councillors up to date). Lots of people dealing with fallen trees and other issues quickly and professionally too. Our WBC Comms team, resilience and sustainability managers have also been indispensable over the weekend and today (many working some silly hours in the process!)

Residents have been fantastic at getting us information about what is going on. I also want to thank the councillors I have been in contact with over the weekend, right across Waverley that have been on the phone and text to me, on social media and in general dealing with residents queries.

The Borough Council will conduct a lessons learnt excercise (standard practice). So please let me know if you have any feedback you would like to add. I have raised a few points myself (one being – why is it GBC provide sandbags when WBC does not).

Cllr Paul Follows
Deputy Leader, Waverley Borough Council
Godalming Central and Ockford Ward

 

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Elmbridge Road in Cranleigh where Thakeham Homes fought tirelessly, with the help of Waverley planning officers,  to build homes in the flood plains – and won against  massive local opposition. Homes that cannot get insurance? Look at that massive moat in this video!

Watch right to the end of this (or scroll to 4min 25), as 3 cars almost collide, and cause a wave over the windscreen of the third car. Remember its hard enough to pass oncoming traffic without floods on Elmbridge Road. Idiots!


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Broadbridge Heath Shalford: Which Guildford Borough Council intends to take out of the Green Belt – so it can build more homes.86489088_585070188748965_1971811140472143872_o

Mill Lane Godalming (road goes toward station) Where developers want to build a Care Home – against local opposition including the Town Council. 

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Lower Weyburn Lane, Badshot Lea – where parking is for permit holders only!

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Horsham Road, Ellens Green: Where developers are lining up to build more homes.

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And finally in Catteshall, Godalming, after £5 Million flood defences installed and flood barriers erected today- nothing, nada!

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*** Update*** Looks like Godalming’s flood defences have worked. They have saved the allotments!! Thanks Tim Trout for the Drone Photo

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Whatever the weather – the dog must find a tree?

 

Please Waverley Planners – can we have more concrete?

What we need is more concrete to collect run-off!

While the world was looking back over this past weekend the people of Haslemere were looking forward too!

The Waverley Web did a reccy on our Haslemere Patch in Scotland Lane which was flooded out this weekend and where cars were abandoned. Other parts of the borough were also under water.

Isn’t this an ideal spot to put another shedload of new properties? A site earmarked by Waverley Planners for 30 homes in Part 2 of its Local Plan. A plan which has been withdrawn for “further consultation?”

Where are you now POW? Helping the people of Haslemere to protect their countryside?

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My my! – What high manhole covers the BB’s are building in Cranleigh.

FINISHED FLOOR LEVEL – Otherwise know in Cranleigh as F**k the Flood Levels!

 

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 What high manhole covers the Berkeley Bunnies are installing on their site in Knowle Lane, Cranleigh!

An eagle-eyed resident who took this photo forwarded it to the Waverley Web as they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing. ‘Surely, this must just be a positioning exercise?’ was the question they posed. One of our many Cranleigh correspondents wasn’t so sure and, after diligently checking the planning application came back and said, ‘Nope! What you see is what you get’!

Bluntly, both Berkeley Homes and Waverley planners knew that the Knowle Lane site wasn’t sustainable under the sequential test but they pushed it through anyway and the manhole covers will need to be this high above ground level in an effort to avoid flooding.

Few Cranleigh residents will forget the flooding in these fields – and elsewhere in Cranleigh – during the heavy floods of December 2013. But neither the Berkeley Bunnies nor  Waverley Planners care because they won’t be living in the houses the next time Cranleigh Floods.

Have we heard a peep out of POW about the ‘sustainability’ of this development? Not bloody likely? 
Where were POW when Cranleigh residents were fighting, tooth and nail to oppose development on a site that, in addition to flooding, is on a narrow country lane, betwixt and between the rear entrances to Sainsbury’s and Marks & Sparks – both of whom receive daily deliveries from HGVs – and a business, called Kerbside – which does what it says on the tin! – causing traffic chaos.

Not to mention CVNT’s (Cranleigh Village Nursing Home Trust’s) plans to build a private nursing home with a 28 flat apartment block adjacent to it, just a hop, skip and a field away across the lane?

If ever a development was unsustainable – one of POW’s favourite refrains – it was this one!

But, despite its name – Protect our Waverley – the only part of Waverley Capt’n Bob and his cohorts are interested in protecting is their own little corner, over there in Dunsfold. They really couldn’t give a damn if the good folks of Cranleigh see their furniture floating down the High Street as, memorably, happened in the great floods of 1968 … Nik Pigeon and Chris Britton hope to have sold their houses and wiped the dust of Waverley off their boots by then and Capt’n Bob, like Noah, will sail serenely on with Stacey Strumpett & Cliff Clavin on the Good Ship POW!

What a crock of crap poor old Cranleigh is sitting on thanks to the greed of the Berkeley Bunnies, the stupidity of Waverley Planners and the selfishness of POW and its supporters!

We simply console ourselves with the thought that what goes around, comes around and, talking of crap, just how is Awfold going to cope with the affluent’s effluent emanating from Thakeham Homes’ scheme at Springbok? No doubt bosom buddies Betty Ames, Chris Britton, Nik Pigeon, & Crystal Tipps Weddell have all the answers! And we just can’t wait to hear them … we could do with a good laugh in face of the latest crisis in Cranleigh!

And, we thought we had it bad over here in Farnham – beginning to make Crest Nicholson look like Mary Poppins.