The (Local CPRE has repeatedly said it is against ANY development at Dunsfold Aerodrome.
However, here is its latest country-wide view on where homes should be built first!
Tag: Local Plan
What a difference a plan makes?
Butter our butts and call us a scone – as they say in the West Country – but ‘Your Waverley’ is changing the habit of a lifetime and has begun turning down housing development in the countryside!
Ewhurst is the first village to benefit from having a ‘sound and approved Local Plan’ and so thick were the praises being heaped on planning officers for achieving this miracle that you could double up on a huge dollop of West Country clotted cream!
The borough of Waverley has not had the protection of a Local Development Plan since 2002! And, until recently has consistently objected to two of the largest brownfield sites in the borough being developed! Dunsfold Aerodrome and Hewitts Industrial Estate in Cranleigh!
‘Such a wonderful report,’ ‘the officers are marvellous,’ ‘they have worked soooooo hard.’ Pass the sick bowl – Alice! All because planning officers have done a complete volte-face just months after recommending approval of a development at Firethorn Farm, Ewhurst of 58 dwellings on a field under WA/2017/0369, behind Larkfields in Horsham Lane, Ewhurst, and on the same day it recommended approval again, in a 79 PAGE REPORT FOR A REDUCED NUMBER OF 49 DWELLINGS BECAUSE – its benefits would outweigh the harm. Then on the night it then recommending refusal, in a one-page report, because its harm would outweigh the benefits!
CONFUSED?
NOW YOU SEE IT ON THE AGENDA FEBRUARY 2018
NOW YOU DONT ON A SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT FEBRUARY 2018
But Ewhurst residents may not be able to hold their breath for too long. The applicant landowner Mr Peter Nutting has also registered a planning appeal.
Councillor Stephen Mulliner, a member of the JPC, suggested the applicant should be talking to the Parish Council which is in the process of producing its own Neighbourhood Plan. “I don’t rule this site out forever, the applicant should be seeking discussions with the parish council for its inclusion in the Neighbourhood Plan.
Former Portfolio Holder for Planning Councillor Brian Adams said: ‘This site has never been compared with other sites in the area. He now believed, ‘as the site was, now on the radar, it could come before us again in the Local Plan Part 11 in 12 months time!’
A Touch of Frost nips the ankles of Godalming’s new boy!
A little outburst about the adoption of ‘Your Waverley’s Local Plan by Councillor Paul Follows brought a moment of theatre to The Towers when a council veteran waded in to rebuke the new boy on the block after he received a round of applause!
Never one to be outdone – The Frosty one, poked Councillor Paul in the eyes, with her increasingly blunt stick – in the hope that the voting fodder would actually believe that the past Local Plan failures, were of course, not the fault of Tory Tossers, but the Liberal Democrats!
Is that chattering the sound of icicles forming on the Frosty one’s lips that we hear? Is she fearful of losing yet another of her Farnham seats? Pat Frost lost her county council seat to her Farnham Residents rival, Councillor Andy McLeod last year.
We say bring those 2019 elections on!
Is the Cranleigh Society shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted?
Here’s the latest message from Cranleigh’s ‘former rather weary watchdog’ that suddenly appears to have a new lease of life. But, as Cranleigh sits on the cusp of becoming Waverley’s fourth town, is it now too late to save its rural character?
The Committee of Cranleigh Civic Society announced this week that it has been strengthened and energised to fight the growing avalanche of proposed housing.
In the wake of the adoption of ‘Your Waverley’s’ Local Plan, far be it for us at the Waverley Web to want to pee on anyone’s fireworks, but isn’t it all over bar a lot of shouting? 41 councillors voted for – one was against – and three councillors abstained! All Cranleigh members voted for the plan, which will undoubtedly lead to yet more housing in Cranleigh. But then, why wouldn’t they?
Most of them were taking part in secret meetings with developers and planning officers long before the ink was even dry on the Daft Local Plan to determine just where thousands of new homes on the countryside would go! And, as one Cranleigh councillor, the late Brian Ellis, stated at the time – Cranleigh shops need more footfall!’ Now those same councillors actually believe an adopted local plan will minimise the harm! Do they? Do they really? Whilst most of them were busy opposing development at Dunsfold Aerodrome, believing Cranleigh should become a New Town, they were also busy meeting with developers, even in their own homes, planning Cranleigh’s demise. They should be careful what they wish for – soon they may get the worst of both worlds!
The new man heading the CCS, Terry Stewart, was Chair, then President, of Dorset CPRE (Campaign to Protect Rural England) for eight years. Whilst there he was faced with the threat of housing developments throughout the Poole and Bournemouth Green Belt so lead a team of six villages and communities to defeat the proposals. This included MPs speaking to a demonstration outside Parliament and a procession to Downing Street to present a petition to the Prime Minister (see photo). The proposals were defeated – as were plans for a new village at Lytchett Minster. (See photos below).
It says experience shows that attacks on the Green Belt and unprotected beautiful countryside can only be defeated if there is a strong, professional team leading an active, widespread community with clear objectives. So the new Civic Society Team includes a retired Solicitor, two experts on building and infrastructure, an insurance expert and environmental and wildlife specialists – meeting on a fortnightly basis or more often if needed.
The society understand that villagers may believe that, whatever they feel, the Council and Government will do whatever they want to do, but the successes referred to above demonstrate that these battles CAN be won! Apathy only plays into their hands – do you really want this to happen?
It claims, ‘CRANLEIGH IS UNDER AN INCREASING THREAT FROM DEVELOPERS – changing your quality of life and the Cranleigh we know and love.’ Since 2014, Waverley Borough Council has approved the building of over 1,300 houses in Cranleigh. Think for a moment the huge impact this will have on the A281, our B-roads and country lanes, our already overloaded and inadequate sewage treatment works and the crumbling infrastructure – and the increased flooding risk. Also, please remember that we are the only main settlement in Waverley without a railway station.
Despite all this, more and more new planning applications are regularly being received.
Just a few days ago we heard that Dunsfold Park is virtually assured of being given approval for 2,600 new houses – and that is just the beginning! Just think of all those extra cars entering and using the A281.
We have heard credible accounts of a developer acquiring “options to buy” large tracts of land down Knowle Lane – is the idea for Cranleigh and Dunsfold to merge? Are we to become another Crawley?
Or does the Waverley Web dare to suggest … Crandun-for!
Cranleigh Civic Society needs YOUR support so please visit our website – www.cranleighsociety.org – Facebook and Twitter links and join our membership. We are working hard on YOUR behalf to protect our very special village, its environment, and wildlife.
Is someone going to ask the Pope if they should be allowed to build at Dunsfold?
AFTER ALL, THEY’VE ASKED EVERYBODY ELSE!
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER …
We’ve all heard the old adage ‘he thinks all his Christmases have come at once’! If the Secretary of State doesn’t pull his finger out of the proverbial, that could be the verdict for the Flying Scotsman – always assuming, that is, Sajid Javid makes a positive decision when he finally gets around to making it!
Here at the Waverley Web we wonder – is there anyone who hasn’t commented?
Our moles – both within Waverley Borough Council and PoW (and, no, the PoW mole doesn’t know s/he’s a mole, s/he’s just too trusting of his / her intimates!) – that the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government has written, this week, to ‘Your Waverley’ – copies to every Tom, Dick & Harriet who have expressed a passing interest in the decision – except of course, His Holiness.
Saying: “The Secretary of State is considering the report of the Inspector, Philip Major who held a public local inquiry from 18 July 2017 into the [Dunsfold Park] planning application … [and he] takes the view that the recently published Report on the Examination of the Waverley Borough Local Plan Part 1 and the associated Final Schedule of Main Modifications include new information which may be material to the application before him.” The upshot being that “The Secretary of State considers that a period of two weeks to submit representations is reasonable in the circumstances of this case” and arising from that he “considers that he will not be in a position to reach a decision on the application by 15 March, as previously notified … he will now issue his decision on or before 31 March 2018.”
How long does it take one man and his army to make a decision that’s as plain as the nose on his face?! It’s like pulling teeth trying to get a decision out of the Ministry of Housing! No wonder there’s a chronic shortage of housing in this country if they keep putting off making a decision.
In other democratic countries, the application would have been issued in half the time and 1,800 houses would have been built and occupied! But here in the UK, where every mouse, bat, and bullfrog has to be consulted – – it’s taken 10 years and counting … so what’s another three months here and two weeks there …?
We’ve heard that PoW is having a pow-wow as we type, taking “the opportunity to submit further written representations ”because it “affects the case [they] put to the Inspector at the inquiry.”
We can just see it now, winging its way over the ether:
Dear Mr. Jewell
Inspector Jonathan Bore has surprised no-one – least of all us! – by the conclusions reached in his report on the Waverley Local Plan Part 1; he has not wavered (no pun intended!) from the position he took during the Public Examination last summer when he unjustifiably ‘talked up’ the housing need target to the unsustainable level of 590 dwellings per year. Waverley Borough Council, to their detriment and shame, did not challenge that at the time or subsequently, and the result is a Plan which blights every part of the Borough but especially our corner of it.
Once again, local opinion has been ridden roughshod over and ignored. Neighbourhood Plans seem to count for nothing and the most unsustainable site for development, Dunsfold Aerodrome, has been elevated to almost ‘holy grail’ status by Mr. Bore. The report, which in its own words correctly states that it is strategic, has none the less placed a disproportionate reliance on this single, remote site for delivery of the unsustainable quantity of homes to be built in the Borough over the Plan period.
Mr. Bore talks at length about his own assessment of the environmental and transport credentials of Dunsfold Aerodrome, without the benefit of the full evidence properly being considered in the separate Call In Inquiry, the conclusion of which was not expected to be announced by the Secretary of State until 15th March. At the same time, Waverley Borough Council has proposed handling a ‘free gift’ worth between £10m and £16m to the owners of Dunsfold Aerodrome by exempting them from all-important Community Infrastructure Levy – money the whole borough desperately needs and would benefit from.
POW believes the residents of Waverley – and especially the residents of Awfold and Duncefold – deserve better!
Yours sincerely
Bob Lies
Chairman of the Campaign
Protect our Waverley Campaign
… is a group formed to campaign against the development of Dunsfold Park New Town on the Dunsfold Airfield and other un-sustainable planning applications throughout the Borough of Waverley – not that we can be bothered to do or say anything about applications in the rest of the Borough because we only really, truly, madly, deeply care about Awfold, Duncefold, Ker-Chiddingfold and Where-Has-All-the-Traffic-Come-From… Horsham? But we’ve been told it’s not PC to let the people of Cranleigh, Godalming, and Farnham think we don’t give a Donald Duck about them!
Now, dear readers, once you’ve picked yourself up off the floor, where you’ve no doubt been rolling, and wiped the tears from your eyes, we’ll break it to you gently … we didn’t make that letter up – well, OK, we might have used a touch of poetic licence describing POW and its supporters, but the rest is a reproduction its latest Press Release, written in a fit of pique when Inspector Bore’s Report was published.
Seriously, folks, we couldn’t have made that up if we’d tried. Yeah, we’re tongue in cheek and on a good day we can be funny but that was hysterical … all the more so because they actually believe their own PR! And… if they don’t get their own way they will…do what Violet Elizabeth Bob did and they will…