Not Tonight Josephine – but Wednesday – Waverley Planners – will view the detailed drawings and Reserved Matters – concerning the first phase (55) of the Berkeley Bunnies new 425 home burrow – on the former Bonham Trust Land behind Stocklund Square in Cranleigh.
The mainly two storey dwellings will be three, four and five bed homes with access onto Knowle Lane.
Along with all the other developers in Waverley, they have convinced officers, and members alike, that the two and a half storey homes are just that. Well – just go and view other Crest Nicholson/Berkeley developments and see what you think. They are three storey houses in everything but name.
As you will see there is a very strong presence from Councillors representing Cranleigh!
Here’s what the parish council – the local watchdog – has to say, will anyone take one blind bit of notice… here come the diggers!
Strong concerns over the movement of construction traffic on Knowle Lane.
The dwellings are higher than those planned forAmlets Lane and the pitched roofs are considered to be too steep and should be reduced.
The proposed footpath is inadequate for pedestrians as there is only adequate space for one person.
This is a wetspot, highlighting flash flooding in the area at the carnival in 2016.
The roads are too narrow and should be made wider to support passing traffic.
The proposed garages would obstruct the highway, causing a lack of space for access.
Object to the ornamental entrance gate as the site must be inclusive, not exclusive. This also includes the brick wall which would create a separation and social exclusion from Cranleigh.
The SuDS scheme is not yet agreed and would need to be heavily relied upon.
Members would like a CEMP to be made a condition of this application.Additional response:
– Gate should be removed from the entrance
– Estate roads are too narrow, and cars will parkalong them restricting access for emergencyvehicles and refuse collection lorries.
– Plots 4, 51, 52 and 53 are 45% higher thanneighbouring properties. The two storey houses have been increased to make the three storey houses look less intrusive.
– Plots 4 and 51 are within a metre of the pavement, making them appear as gateways which would cause harm to the character and appearance of the lane as appears urban.
– Plots 4, 51, 52 and 53 are located opposite Snoxhall Fields ASVI and would be harmful as too bulky and large.
It is contrary to the Cranleigh Design Statement.
and.. last but not least.. the transport Statement refers to a roundabout being built to service a new private nursing home (formerly intended to be a replacement hospital) but its permission has now lapsed, so the developer should not rely upon this roundabout.
Needless to say – there is no objection from the county highway authority or the flood authority. Surprise, surprise!
Our creepy little friend tells us that The Protect Our (Little Corner of) Waverley Group isn’t happy that it lost the No vote for Dunsfold Park’s application to build 1,800 homes on the airfield – and is fuming that Waverley Planners said – YES.
Since that fateful December day – they have been scratching their heads and their scrotums pondering how to overturn that vote and…
low and behold they have found a way to scupper Good Ship Waverley below the water-line, by lodging a Judicial Review – Oh No! Not another JUDICIAL REVIEW!
Regular readers will be aware that its two-pronged attack – brought Matron Milton aided and abetted by Our Jeremy, to the aid of the party, persuaded the Secretary of State to call the application in.
For those who are not up to snuff with legal jargon, a Judicial Review (JR) is a legal challenge of the lawfulness of a decision taken by public authorities at local or central government level.
The key point here is:
A (JR) is not a re-run of the merits of a decision, but challenges the lawfulness of the decision.
SO- What’s all this about we hear you ask?
Well – it’s a bit like the Brexit Remoaners, just when we thought a decision had been made – at last! They are off again, and again .. and it will not be over until the Fat Lady Slims – in other words millions of pounds of taxpayers money is wasted… again!
According to our insiders Buried deep inside The Burys – it now could pick up the bill for a Judicial Review and a Public Inquiry – a double whammy just as the going gets tough for local authorities, countrywide!
Because:
Without Dunsfold Waverley won’t be able to meet the Government’s housing targets and risks another Daft local Plan biting the dust!
Below is a letter sent to Councillors this week on an application to build on the Green Belt in Elstead. Because, an Inspector has turned the world of Liz “The Biz” Sims and Graham ‘Sick-As-A-‘ Parrot upside down and inside out!
If you follow events in respect of WBC’s 5-year housing land supply read the Inspector’s decision on the Weyburn Engineering site in Elstead and ….
As you will see, even the planning department has insider creepy crawlies entering our little web!
Can this motley group either start getting wound up over ALL the other developments about to Be dumped on the borough’s countryside and Green Belt.
Schemes are being worked up as we write, to build on the GREEN BELT –
For all our sakes POLCOW either Shut up or put Up- and…
Thakeham Homes application which has been re-submitted this week to build hundreds of homes in Alfold!
.Bakers Oates, Gardeners Hill, Faarnham?
Where were you all when the Weyburn Works in Elstead went to Appeal?
What about all the schemes covering Badshot Lea and Weybourne?
Where were you when the Berkeley Homes Application for 425 went to Appeal
Are you objecting to the Farnham Hopfields?
No, your entire raison d’etre and that of your MP colleagues – is to derail development on the largest brownfield site in the borough, Sod the rest of Waverley – which is heading towards meeting its Maker as he prepares to force down our throats an even bigger housing allocation!
The tireless efforts of the high rollers bank rolling the campaign to – Protect Our Little Dunsfold Acres – have decided that:
As some of those who voted in favour of (DP) were not members of the Joint Planning Committee, but substitutes fielded to stand in for those members who either couldn’t attend, – or like Jeannette Stennett- couldn’t vote because she had publicly pre-determined how she intended to vote by announcing it in the Surrey Ad letters page – the 8 to 10 vote in favour of the Dunsfold application, was in fact 5 to 7 against, that is IF … the Council only counted the votes of those who were members of the committee and discounted those who were substitutes.
Yeah, Really, because they didn’t like the result the Dunsfold Bemoaners want…
What’s betting they wouldn’t give one jot if the vote had gone the other way!
However, this is where ‘POLCOW’ gets down and dirty – it is not contending the vote was unlawful or unconstitutional per se, just that it was unlawful and unconstitutional for substituted members TO VOTE!
Now if they hang their little ‘POLCOW’ hat on that view, then the votes will swing in ‘POLCOW’s favour.
AND..
All ‘Your Waverley” has to do to appease them is to amend its record of the vote to demonstrate that permission was refused by 7 votes to 5. In other words – its threat – “no need to worry the Courts as long as you do what we say…
SO if POLCOW is right then..!
Stand by your desks planning officers – all leave has been cancelled as all the wannabe developers refused planning consent will being pouring over the voting records to see whether all the votes counted should have been! And… every campaigning group in the borough that has objected to a consented development will do likewise…
Sing-along with Brian ‘Your Waverley’s’ very own Howard Keel!
The last thing those over in the East of the borough want to hear are Waverley bloody councillors sobbing into their cornflakes over the misery they are inflicting on those “poor old villages in the East”
Councillor Anna James (Witley/Hambledon ) pictured above in a warm embrace with Planning Portfolio Holder Brian Adams (Frensham/Dockenfield & Tilford ) joined the Sobbing women brigade when she helped him dump another 265 houses on Cranleigh last week.
But whilst joining the overflowing “Chamber Pot” of councillors that is now ‘Your Waverley’ she smugly said how “very sorry” she was for Cranleigh and the villages –
” I feel sorry in my heart for the people of Cranleigh,”
she cried into her microphone. and continued …. saying said she had only been a councillor for five years and all she had heard from the get-go was “Cranleigh’s expansion.” First one development then another, the place was just getting wider and wider – a bit like Bordon in Hampshire.
Ending with – yes you guessed – “I feel really feel very sorry for Cranleigh and my heart goes out ………………..!” Well your heart may go out but it certainly doesn’t stop your hand going up, does it?
Followed by “I have every sympathy…………. Yeah, we get it…Yadah, yadah, yada You’re really, really, really sorry for Cranleigh – instead of crying crocodile tears, why don’t you just shut the hell up and give the place a break, why don’t you!
Well Councillor James, be afraid be very afraid, because if Dunsfold goes down, and we at Waverley Web think it’s all over bar the shouting at Dunsfold since the Deputy Dominatrix stuck her nose in, then there’s going to be a bloody great HOLE in the daft local Plan that’s going to be filled by dipping into the Green Belt. Which could herald development in fortress CHIDDINGFOLD, Milford, Elstead, Haslemere, around Godalming, over here in Farnham’s fields and even in Bramley, where the Green Belt has already been sacrificed… ask By-Pass Byham, who was only too happy to offer it up like a sacrificial lamb in aid of his Tory-Tosser friend!
Then John Gray (Dunsfold) joined the sobbing women, saying how sorry he was for Cranleigh – but not sorry enough to vote against more homes going onto green fields! Of course not… he’s too busy protecting that ruddy great Brown field on his doorstep! Whilst voting twice this year for development in the – GREEN BELT!
Councillor May Foryszewski’s response to all the sobbing was – “I just cannot believe what I am hearing here tonight!” Really? Really? Really? – Come on, Cranleigh’s very own Valkyrie, how long have you been listening to this? It’s par for the course! And, let’s face it your colleagues aren’t going to give up until the East and the West are covered in concrete! Perhaps you should be having some strong words with you TT colleagues?
Oh Carole (Cockburn) then joined the sodding sobbers, saying she felt a bit like Cranleigh people – “Punch drunk.” and then proceeded to stick her Farnham mit in the air, saying when it was refused “last time” it was “isolated” but now that all the other sites had been allowed around it, this was no longer the case!
Then afterwards, they all went asobbing into their G & T’s whilst the Champagne corks popped for the Flying Dutchman’s – who is just another GRQ- Cranleigh developer.
And the sad thing is, there’s more to come, much more! Watch this space, cos you aint seen nothing yet!
another 20 or so on the Infant School site in Church Lane.
Around 90 on the Junior School site in the centre of the High Street off Parsonage Road,
Another extension to Horsham Road by Crest Nicholson (100);
But bring it all on why don’t you, because according to the late Cranleigh Councillor Brian Ellis, shopkeepers – “need more foot fall.” May he Rest in …..?
At this rate, footfall is all anyone is going to get in Cranleigh because the traffic from these developments is going to create the mother of all snarl ups. Maybe that’s the secret plan: bumper- to – bumper traffic in Cranleigh to ensure motorists look in the shop windows at they attempt to negotiate the High Street. Never mind, drive-ins, in Cranleigh it could be drive-bye…bye!
“SOD GROWING LETTUCES WHO NEEDS FOOD WHEN YOU CAN GROW MONEY” – BUNNIES EAT LETTUCE AND IF THUMPER NEXT DOOR CAN GET 425 THEN I CAN GET 265!”
Here at the Waverley Web we couldn’t decide whether the music to accompany the latest deluge of houses to be dumped on Cranleigh should be – Rubber Ball, or In Out, In Out and Shake it All about, BUT FINALLY WE DECIDED IT HAD TO BE ‘ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST’
– AS THE PLANNERS RIDE ROUGHSHOD OVER “POOR OLD CRANLEIGH”
The Knowle Park Initiative, West Cranleigh Nurseries, AKA A2 Dominion, AKA Nicholas Vrijland’s application for 265 dwellings in ELMBRIDGE has been bouncing in and out of Waverley for more than ten years. Just goes to show if you hang on in there shoving it in and out, you can bore your way into VICTORY!
As we predicted an approval was a foregone conclusion – because “Your Waverly has decided that Cranleigh New Town is-a-coming – whether they, the villagers over there in the East, like it or not! Well after all Cranleigh – ‘Your Waverley’ has given away our Farnham Town to developers so what chance your village?
Once again here at the Waverley Web – our flabber is absolutely ghasted!
Chief Planning Honcho Liz The Biz Sims forged ahead like a steamroller over fresh tarmac as she almost beat members of ‘Your Waverley” into submission in her efforts to get another shedload of houses onto the Cranleigh flood plains. Is she actually employed by the developers?- because she was so determined that application would go through COME HELL OR HIGH WATER! How much more partisan can you get? Can anyone out there remember the days when planning officers ADVISED councillors not HORSEWHIPPED THEM? Shouldn’t someone should be reining her in? So the final vote was 8 For – 8 Against with Peter Isherwood chairman’s casting vote in favour clinching the deal. Has he ever opposed anything?
What we want to know is? Why did six members absent themselves from such an important meeting. Cranleigh’s Stennetts have good reason ‘a pecuniary interest’ in the application, but why did Mike Band,(not that he turns up for any contentious applications) Pat Frost, Stephen Hill, Stephen Mulliner, and David Hunter not turn up? We accuse them of cowardliness and not wanting to vote on a very unpopular application, (although A Touch of, Pat Frost doesn’t usually care how unpopular she is!)
Liz Townsend and Mary Foryszewski were forceful, coherent and factual in their declarations, as were the Cranleigh Civic Society spokesman and the Cranleigh Parish Councillor, all to no avail. It wasn’t for the want of trying that they failed in their futile but passionate attempts to make the planners take Cranleigh’s issues seriously.
In one valiant effort after another Councillor Mary Foryszewski did her damndest to parry Liz the Biz’s blows. – Where was the Cranleigh Representation? The Stennett Duo again, or the mealy-mouthed Ellis who together with her late departed husband worked tirelessly to get the application called in more times than balls bounce at Wimbledon! Couldn’t she have filled in for an absent colleague to support the one lone Cranleigh vote in the stinking Chamber Pot that has become – ‘Your Waverley.’ Cowardly or what!
Questions must surely be asked why the late Brian Ellis’s seat on the JPC has not been filled by another Cranleigh Councillor – it is quite obvious to everyone in Cranleigh – that Elizabeth Townsend has been prevented from taking her rightful place? She was allowed to speak But NOT VOTE – WHY? CRANLEIGH PEOPLE DESERVE AN ANSWER!
Perhaps because she knows that they know that the KPI fails the vital Sequential Test and that the homes built there will have higher footings to fend off flooding – but what about all the other homes in Elmbridge that don’t have that protection? Do they run for the hills?
It must be quite sickening for people in the Eastern villages to listen to the constant stream of “sympathies and condolences” extended to “poor old Cranleigh” by Waverley councillors. Surely the time has come for Cranleigh Parish Council to hold a PUBLIC MEETING and to call all their elected representatives to account?
Brian Adams – Portfolio Holder for Planning was condescending, almost to the point of rudeness, when he insulted the rights and intelligence of every elected member by suggesting that because the site is in the Daft Local Plan they had to vote for it!! He also claimed that the Secretary of State had “really put the cat among the pigeons by Calling in the Dunsfold application.” We think he probably means – put the diggers into more green fields.”
Claims of “Blue Asbestos in the water supply” effluent in the stream chortling its way to poison Bramley and overloaded stinking poo factory, crowded roads, antiquated school buildings, inadequate GP facilities, and overdevelopment fatigue were – totally ignored. So were fractured water pipes, highway problems and road closures! Why because the East, in particular Cranleigh , has become your Waverley’s Promised Land – overflowing with – ‘shit and money’ much of which will be coming from its countryside clothed in concrete.
Out go jobs and lettuce growing – a horticultural tradition in Cranleigh about which the Flying Dutchman boasted the country needed – for 50 years (mainly when he needed planning permission Oh! and didn’t he take his neighbour to the High court and win damages for his lettuces? – and in comes concrete and bricks. Out goes top quality agricultural land – in comes the Wandsworth Wanderers and the Wimbledon Wives, hope they bring their green wellies with them! . Because If you can Adam and Eve it one officer said: that the land was “only subject to flooding when there were flash floods that quickly subsided , so no-one would be trapped on site for long!! Well that’s alright then!
Cranleigh’s Boudicca bowled a googly at the officers when she told them that there was now an advertisement in Cranleigh for new houses on the five-year old Swallowhurst development – asking buyers to: “Make me an offer.”
It is well-known locally the million pound homes on clay subsoil are suffering from settlement problems and flooding!
Every resident over there in the east should listen to the first part of the Webcast. Start at 3 mins 20and hear for themselves the good reasons eight councillors opposed exactly the same application they had also refused only six months earlier. Is that the Cranleigh sewer we can smell or is it – ‘Your Waverley’?
Cranleigh Parish Councillor Richard Bryant for the Cranleigh Civic Society and Councillor Brian Freestone for Cranleigh Parish Council excelled themselves, and it was horrifying to hear of the litany of infrastructure/water/sewage/flooding problems which villagers have and will face in the future. And…did we hear the distant sound of “Legal Challenge’ mentioned.
But it was Councillor Liz Townsend who told her colleagues on the council she so recently joined Cranleigh’s mood was turning ugly and villagers felt under represented and their views and concerns were consistently ignored by Waverley’s planning decision makers. KPI Was “unsustainable” and was the least favoured site in the vital Sequential Test – Hewitts was now coming forward with 120 homes and the School site in central Cranleigh with over 90 – and, why was a new Recreation Centre being planned with a KPI contribution, without any consultation to Cranleigh PC on the parish owned – Snoxhall Playing Fields, she asked?
WW wonders if ‘Your Waverley” intends to do away with the ‘local voice’ altogether – so watch out all you other parish council out there – it could be your turn next!
By-Pass Byham obviously wants more traffic on Bramley’s roads – he couldn’t wait to stick his mit into the air. Ah! but of course it is only Dunsfold’s traffic he opposes isn’t it. But his parish council happily trousers a cash hand-out for all those HGV’s thundering through his High Street on their way to deposit their loads at Cranleigh Brick and Tile. Judas!
Following the unedifying great big row that has been going on over there in the East of Waverley – we’ve been thinking about the huge role politics now plays in local government at its grass-roots.
In happier times – local parish councils and borough councils consisted of a bunch of incredibly dedicated local people who wanted to donate their time to making a difference to the communities in which they were proud to live and serve.
We are asking ourselves here at the Waverley Web… “What actual purpose do national parties serve on our local parish/borough and town councils?”
Let’s take a look at what they do – because their powers and functions are really quite limited – and said powers are reducing with every day passing day.
At National Level – then yes, we agree, political parties are part of our democracy – twas ever so – but locally? Politics with a big P should be dumped and soon. It is, quite simply, unhealthy – particularly for the poor old voting fodder. What possible purpose do national parties serve on local councils?
‘Your Waverley’ has, for many years, been controlled by the Conservative party. The borough is made up of 29 wards with 57 seats.
The Tories hold 51; Farnham Residents 5; and there is just ONE Independent. Until last year it was, pretty much 100% Tory controlled – but thankfully Farnham Residents have created a small chink by scaling the walls into Waverley Towers!
That cannot be right it is unhealthy. No checks, no balances, just – We’ll Do It Our Way!
Councillors are elected for four years to decide how the council should carry out its various functions and duties They should represent the wider public interest as well as individuals living within the ward in which they serve.
When it comes to voting at ‘Your Waverley,” the other parties are largely an irrelevance and they are treated as such. Watch a few webcasts and see for yourselves how disgracefully Farnham Resident councillors are treated. Lesser mortals could wither and die from Fat Prost’s finger of ice! We disrespectfully suggest – it’s time this woman stepped aside?
The Conservatives can carry any vote they wish subject only to the proviso that they vote together.Which they almost always, do!
The council’s largest function is planning policy. (It has no power over transport and education which are decided by Surrey County Council or over matters such as defence, foreign policy or taxation which are dealt with at Westminster.)
Its planning role is to apply a set of Government rules and guidelines called the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), in a non-political way. The vital ingredients that qualify councillors to make these decisions are diligence; getting to grips with the facts (which requires quite some reading,) fair-mindedness, and a sense of responsibility to ALL Waverley’s residents.
Sadly ‘Your Waverley’s’ Conservatives cannot claim these qualities. Having a large majority, in fact, allows members of the majority to be lazy or, in the case of the Joint Planning Committee – don’t bother to turn up! Most of the more important decisions are taken behind closed doors in the committee rooms, away from prying eyes.
Lets’ face it – the debates – just a handful of us watch on the webcast , if it is working, are just a little bit of theatre to placate the voting fodder and where individual councillors can tow the ‘party line’ rather than form their own opinion.
The most important job of an elected assembly is to scrutinise the work of Executive and the full-time council officials. Scrutiny is an essential part of the checks and balances in government. Even they recognise they haven’t performed that duty properly. That’s illustrated by the failure to scrutinise numerous issues – that is until Farnham residents turned up!
Another core function of the council is to maintain standards in public life. The “Don’t Mention The Fraud” cover up perpetrated by Waverley’s head honchos, and which could have affected the 2015 local elections – is quite simply a disgrace.
Neither have Waverley Conservative councillors done a half-decent job of implementing a new local plan. Work began in 2009. Two Daft Local Plans have failed and after spending millions – a new 2017 Local Plan in 2017 – still remains to be examined, and following a decision by the Secretary of State to call it in – now contains a huge hole!
Some argue that Waverley/ Guildford Borough and Surrey County Councils all Tory controlled, have greater access to, and influence at, county and national government and at agencies such as Highways England or Natural England because it is controlled by the Conservatives. Now the blue on blue rows are escalating over that ‘memorandum of understanding’ between ‘Your Surrey” and the Government – that’s another fine mess they have got us into?
There are some very troubling questions about of independence and impartiality among Conservatives in Waverley. Some and we stress, some are using their party as an instrument of political power rather than as a means to represent the interests of the people they are there to serve.
Isn’t it high time that residents took back control of their councils by voting for individuals who will represent THEM rather than those who are SERVING THEIR POLITICAL AMBITIONS AND THEIR POLITICAL MASTERS ?
….
eart for the people of Cranleigh,”
