Update 18th October

There was a serious road traffic incident (I hesitate to use the word “accident” – we don’t know the facts yet and in reality few road collisions are entirely accidental) on Wednesday afternoon around 5pm, on Lower Street outside the station.  It appeared, from the scene still present at 8pm, to have been at or close to the pedestrian crossing just by Kings Road.

A 17 year old girl suffered serious head injuries and was airlifted to St George’s Hospital Tooting. 

 

Lower Street is an unpleasant and dangerous stretch of road for pedestrians, especially the bit close to Fosters Bridge, where the road goes underneath the railway tracks by the station.  The sheer unpleasantness of this area must surely be part of the explanation as to why Haslemere is effectively cut in half, with old Haslemere to the east and Weyhill to the west.

Too many cars drive too fast through this stretch, but the real issue is the poor design of the interchange with the station concourse – tailbacks formed due to vehicles seeking to turn  into the station, either due to waiting for a gap in oncoming traffic or because the concourse is already packed solid, generate impatience and aggressive driving behaviour as motorists finally break free.

The whole area is a mess, and with the anticipated additional pressures on our transport hub owing to development in Fernhurst and Midhurst will only get worse unless some imagination is applied to the road design there.

Anyway, Surrey Police have issued an appeal for witnesses.  Call 101 and quote P13315006.

Finally, my daughter, a student at Godalming College, tells me that the girl is a fellow-student of hers.  They have heard in College that she has regained consciousness and is expected to recover.  Let’s all wish her well.

The front page of this week’s Haslemere Herald reports on the abandonment of the Waverley Core Strategy, and the departure of WBC Chief Executive “Mistress” Mary Orton (now Mrs Pett) “to develop her career”.  The mole in the Burys who blogs as Waverleymatters.com, who has long harboured unsympathetic sentiments about Mrs Pett, is said to be “over the bleedin moon”

The abandonment of the core strategy follows a critical inspector’s report and the planned imposition on the borough of a revised Strategic Housing Market Assessment of 8,500 new homes, or 470 new homes per year.  WBC had proposed 240 per year, which was judged to be inadequate.

WBC is between a rock and a hard place really.  There is no doubt that as a nation we need to raise our game significantly on building new homes, and with fledglings in the nest I am only too acutely aware of the difficulties my own children would have affording a home anywhere near their parents (always assuming of course that they wanted to live anywhere near their parents – as my daughter wants to go to Uni in Canada I might have cause to doubt that), but finding places to build these new homes is bound to go down badly with WBC’s existing constituents. 

As can be seen at Sturt Farm, where objectors are opposing plans to build 130 homes, 40% of which “affordable” for housing associations or shared ownership schemes, on a 33 acre site just off Sturt Rd.  Objections include concerns about the ability of utilities to cope with the extra demand (the utilities companies will simply build the extra capacity, if they see more sales, and the site is hardly remote) and the landscape value of the site (well, can anyone point to available sites around here which don’t have landscape value?)

Much of the opposition seems to come from residents of Sun Brow, who would lose the views of open countryside they currently enjoy.  Sun Brow was built as council housing, although much is now in private ownership.  It was built on land belonging – wait for it – to Sturt Farm!

Also in the Herald, the Fracking saga continues.  In an article on the front page headlined “SDNPA [South Downs National Park Authority – Ed] fracking meeting is attacked for being one-sided” the Herald reports on a presentation given to the Authority members, in public, on issues relating to fracking.  It was – like the Waverley Local Committee of SCC and WBC councillors - a meeting held in public, not a public meeting, so members of the public could not ask questions or make comments.

It was clearly felt by many that the presentation was heavily biased towards the “pro” camp.  One member asked

 

And then

And finally

 

 

At this point, I would like to draw your attention to a campaign which, if you share the anti-fracking point of view, you might like to join. “Wrongmove” enables you to find out whether fracking could be carried out under your property.  If so, on current law, you have the right to refuse permission for them to drill under your land because your rights to that land continue downwards, and are not confined to the surface.  That may not last – the government is looking at changing the law – but for the moment you could make a nuisance of yourself that way.  If enough people register their objection, it might become impossible for frackers to show that they are not drilling underneath an objector's property.

 

I circulated a note on this with a link to various people and it was interesting to see how some people reacted.  The commonest hostile response was to ask how feather-brained opponents of fracking imagined they would charge their iphones or boil their kettles without securing gas supplies.  This strikes me as a morally and intellectually bankrupt argument.  You might just as well ask if you think it is OK for people in Derby or Teeside or Didcot to be poisoned by emissions from local coal-fired power plants just so that you can boil your kettle, or for political prisoners in Russia to be locked up by a regime fed by gas exports.  You might also ask how out governments were so incompetent and lacking in vision that they got themselves into the position where they have to drive bulldozers over their citizens in a desperate scramble for energy to prevent the lights going out, when they could have been developing clean alternatives like wind, wave and tide for the last five decades – instead of which they blew it all on nuclear power development, so that they could collect the by-product fissile material for military use.

 

I think perhaps the most extraordinary response though was from one addressee who is an elected local government official, who responded with great asperity that he is sick and tired of receiving emails on this subject.  Well, excuse me, but isn’t that what elected officials are for?  Are they not elected to represent the views and interests of their constituents?  They are permitted not to like them, but I don’t think it is incumbent on them to ignore them or stick their fingers in their ears.

Just a couple of reminders: firstly, the Waverley Local Committee of SCC and WBC meets on December 13^th (probably Godalming Baptist Church) and will then review the Haslemere parking schemes.  If you have any comments, primarily technical comments or suggestions as it is not intended to make fundamental changes at this stage, you can make them to David Curl in the highways dept, david.curl@surreycc.gov.uk

It does look like comments in a couple of areas have been taken on board already.  The double yellow lines in Kings Rd were extended around the Royal Mail sorting office and Herons area because commuter cars were parking ever further out and causing a hazard.  Moe recently, it seems that Bridge Rd residents have commented on the explosion in parking on the south side of Bridge Rd, previously almost unoccupied, causing an obstruction to traffic.  It had its benefits, in that it slowed down traffic through there, but it was probably a hazard to appliances from the fire station departing in that direction on emergency call-outs, so, as the picture shows, the Police are taking action against cars which obstruct the highway.

 

It would be nice if they paid similar attention to West St, outside Roxtons (formerly Taylor & Roberts) where cars park illegally on the double yellow lines.  It had become almost out of control, and although it does seem to have got better I still see illegal parking there.  It too represents a hazard for fire appliances seeking exit in an emergency.

 

Secondly, if you have not already done so, please complete the Haslemere Vision survey, which can be done online here.  I assume you can still obtain paper copies with various retailers in town such as Nobbs, and drop off your completed survey if you prefer not to do so on-line.

Finally, it may not have escaped your notice that there was a teachers’ strike this Thursday.  We had a letter from Godalming College informing us of the strike and assuring us that the disruption to classes would be minimal.  My daughter attended college as normal.

The Herald had two letters this week on the subject, one supportive of teachers, the other critical.  It comes as no surprise to me that the critical correspondent should not wish to share his (or her) name with the Herald’s readership – judging by the arrogant, judgemental tone and the sheer inaccuracy of their rambling it was probably wise for them not to expose themselves to the ridicule of their neighbours.  Among their raving was this gem:

 

Compare this with the information received from Godalming College - from the Horse's Mouth, so to speak, so I have confidence in its verity (emphasis mine):

 

What we all share at Godalming College – teachers, support staff, managers, governors – is a deep concern at the levels of funding cuts which are being imposed on 16-19 education and which therefore affect sixth form colleges disproportionately. To put you in the picture, the difficult situation we are in can be summarised as follows:-

·         Starting in 2011 and continuing through to 2016-17 sixth form colleges on average are having to absorb a 25% real terms cuts in funding, far steeper than the levels of cuts which pre-16 education is having to absorb.

·         Because of this in the previous two years staff have not had a cost of living pay rise, and this year the pay settlement will be a token 1% rise

·         In addition, to absorb these cuts we have had to increase the caseloads of teaching staff who are now teaching more classes and students on average than was the case three years ago.

·         Unlike academies and schools sixth form colleges have to pay VAT on goods and services which costs sixth form colleges on average £250,000 per year. This anomaly is unfair and helps make our situation worse than it would otherwise be.

·         Changes to teachers’ pensions mean that contributions to the pension funds are increasing for both employers and employees and the retirement age will rise to 68 years. These changes too are eroding the standards of living of teachers.

The other writer clearly has little time for ignorant comment, writing here about a letter in a previous edition of the Herald, rather than the one just across the page of this week’s paper

 

 This writer goes on

 

 

He (or she, hard to tell from the name) goes on to observe that employees in the private sector have also suffered pay attrition, but that doesn’t mean that teachers should have to follow them in a race to the bottom, any more than teachers have historically been able to follow the rises in pay enjoyed in the private sector.

As for the stated cuts in sixth form education financing, all I can say is “Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first send mad”



Update 3rd October

After a couple of weeks in which there really didn't seem to be anything to say, a few things are happening at the moment.

Is Waverley’s planning policy toast?

The front page of this week’s Herald reports on rumours that Waverley Borough Council plans to withdraw its “Core Strategy” document outlining is planning policy for the next decade.  Well, for once (just once?) I am ahead of the Herald – the ruling Conservative group has issued a press release confirming that the full council meeting on October 15^th will take the decision whether or not to withdraw the document.

The issue is that “the provisional Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) for Waverley has indicated that over 8000 homes will be needed in the borough over the next 20 years. The findings mean that it is likely that Waverley's Core Strategy will need to be resubmitted in order to consider accommodating this number of homes, which will necessitate the re-designation of the Green Belt and Areas of Great Landscape Value (AGLV). “

WBC has until now planned for 230 new homes per year over the next 20 years, believing that this is the limit which its residents and electors will tolerate.  The SHMA, a target imposed on WBC by the government regardless of their wishes, calls for 400 a year.  WBC in effect finds itself between a rock and a hard place – to build the numbers of homes demanded will, they believe, cause a backlash from voters as greenbelt, areas of outstanding natural beauty etc, will no doubt be eyed up by developers banking on the SHMA forcing such proposals to be approved. The Conservative press release is not particularly complimentary about their colleagues in national government who are imposing this upon them.

On the other hand, if insufficient new homes are built in our area, the supply/demand equation will inevitably mean prices inflate and first time buyers will be priced out of the market.  Our own children will not be able to live nearby, and our firemen and teachers will have to continue commuting in from Littlehampton or Portsmouth and all the other far-flung places where they can actually afford to live.

In a Pickle about parking

Of course, local authorities, including and indeed perhaps especially Tory authorities, are used to defying the wishes of their counterparts in Westminster, who have a tendency not to practice what they preach about devolved government and local decision-making.  Fresh from his posturings about forcing councils to resume weekly refuse collections, which almost all councils have now abandoned in favour of alternating fortnightly refuse and recycling collections, in the interests of cost saving and encouraging more recycling – and remember that they have also got plenty of stick about daring to increase council tax precepts by the 1.99% which is permitted without a local referendum – Eric Pickles has been mouthing off about parking.

First it was to say that he thought that anyone should be able to park on double yellow lines for up to 20 minutes to “pop in” to a shop to collect a newspaper.  I’m afraid even my diseased imagination can’t picture Pickles “popping in” anywhere, although I can certainly imagine how he might not be able to haul his carcase further than kerb to shop door and so need freedom to park anywhere.  He seems to imagine that councils paint double yellow lines just for fun, or as a means to trap honest, god fearing, “hard-working” residents into paying more “tax”.

Now, he announces plans to prohibit councils from using CCTV to enforce parking restrictions and issue fines, which of course they do purely as a revenue raising measure.  Or at least about a third of councils do (use CCTV, that is) – Surrey and Waverley are not among them so his proposal does not affect us.

So imagine, his own local authorities of Basildon and Southend-on-Sea, covering his parliamentary constituency, have defied him.  They say that they need the cameras to enforce compliance and prevent obstruction of the highway.

 

We could do with CCTV enforcement in Haslemere.  Last Sunday I observed that the whole of West Street, end to end, was parked up, entirely regardless of the double yellow lines (which mean no parking at any time) outside what is now Roxtons and opposite Waitrose.  This is despite the fact that on Sunday, parking in the borough car parks is free, and at that time there was plenty of spare capacity in both the High Street and Chestnut Avenue car parks.

The situation is getting out of control.  The reduction of the entire length of West Street to a single lane means that traffic backs up on the High Street as it waits behind a car attempting to turn into West St but failing, because of a continuous stream of oncoming vehicles on the “wrong” side of the road which have nowhere else to go to permit traffic to pass.  Worse, it presents a very real obstacle to fire appliances leaving the fire station on a "shout", where minutes may mean lives

 

Double Vision

I have attended two meetings of the Haslemere Vision project recently, a “visioning” workshop on Saturday, and a meeting of the Transport group this week.

I confess I was sceptical about what HV might be able to achieve, but what I find is much more encouraging. Certainly some of the “imagineering” gets a bit carried away, but to some extent that is deliberate – you have to dream something up before you can knock it down, if you don’t, you’ll never know whether it might have flown.

At the visioning workshop, to talk about what we thought residents might want the town to be like in 20 years’ time, I was struck by, in fact surprised by, the discovery that one of the key concerns residents have is the need for more affordable housing – not specifically cheaper housing (although that is a factor, that my interest in a high value for my house works against my children, who won’t be able to afford to live near me, even in the unlikely event that they wanted to when they grow up) but homes managed by housing associations, or sold in “shared ownership” ie the occupant buys, and can sell, say a half-interest only in the property so that a housing trust can ensure that the property remains in the hands of “key workers”.  Everyone is apparently concerned that some of our firemen commute up from Littlehampton, and our school teachers travel up from Portsmouth on a daily basis because housing in this area is unaffordable.  And another area of concern was ageing population, so you can add nurses and care workers to that mix.

What consequences that might have for development in the town, the NIMBY problem, wasn’t really tackled, but I did detect not an enormous amount of sympathy over the proposed development at Sturt Farm, where it is promised that 40% of the 130 or so homes would be Affordable Homes.  Of course there are concerns over the capacity of utilities (the electricity supply, drainage etc)  to cope with the increased demand, but we agreed that these are now in the hands of private companies, who can invest in infrastructure in the knowledge that they will collect revenues for the services they provide.  

One participant commented that much of the opposition to Sturt Farm comes from Sun Brow which, ironically, was originally social housing (council housing) sold off under the Thatcher right-to-buy but now in many cases in the hands of subsequent owners, at least one of whom has written in the past to the Herald to bemoan the fact that the open country view she purchased may soon be blocked and, in a further irony, was constructed on land which previously belonged to – Sturt farm!

There is a brief letter in this week’s Herald, perhaps from the same correspondent, whose apparent concern over wider environmental issues with the site is not entirely disinterested:

 

I have no view on this or on the issues raised about the land being in an area of landscape value – what land around here isn’t – or the potential for traffic issues in Sturt Road which is becoming increasingly congested. I can however see an advantage in keeping new settlement within walking distance of the town centre and railway station, with the nearby footpath into Longdene Rd being upgraded and made available to cyclists, instead of creating a car-dependent community in the middle of nowhere half way to Midhurst and adding further to our commuter parking problems.  Also, God knows we need the affordable housing.

The second meeting, about transport, was rather dominated by parking, as many attendees ruefully predicted that it would be.  We learnt about the financial dynamics inside South West Trains, the Dept for Transport and the Treasury – various acronyms which I no longer recall about revenue statements and funding obligations and franchise renewals etc – which boil down to a multi-storey car park at the station being at the very least a distant prospect, if it ever happens at all.  Not that I am sorry to hear that – I favour the Prince Charles view of such things, as “carbuncles”.  In any case, at present (although Haslemere Vision is not about the present, rather the future two decades from now) the capacity for commuters in the car parks and on-street where unrestricted is not yet fully utilised.  SWT is not much motivated to facilitate more commuters into Haslemere because the trains are close to capacity already – a fact to which I can attest as a daily peak hours commuter:  most trains are not full at Haslemere, but by Guildford and certainly by Woking they are overcrowded, and a train from Portsmouth has to have the capacity to accommodate the numbers of passengers on it by then, not just from Portsmouth.

On a more positive note, there was great enthusiasm for measures to improve the lot of pedestrians and cyclists around the town, to make the two town centres (or possibly one, if we can create a link between them) more attractive and to improve the pedestrian access from High St to Weyhill and from both directions towards the station.

Back to work everyone - news roundup week ending 13th September

Despite the “silly season” now being over, the schools re-opened and the summer holidays all done, not a great deal is happening in Haslemere at the moment.  In fact, there was so little happening last week that I didn’t see any point posting at all.

Frack-Free Fernhurst is planning another protest against the plans by Celtique Energie to apply for a natural gas  fracking licence.  Following their demonstration of the potential impact of heavy lorries passing through the A286 and the Critchmere/Camelsdale quarters of Haslemere, they now plan to launch a barrage balloon over the proposed drill site, at the estimate height of the rig, to show how it will impact the visual amenity of the area.

Apart from this, there was nothing much of note in the Haslemere Herald this week either.  There was a slightly cryptic letter from Mrs Diana Serman about local politicians responding to letters to the editor, and observing that apparently “at least one borough councillor unashamedly” doesn’t read the Herald or “cast an eye over social media”.  Whoever could that be, and I wonder why???

There is a small feature buried in the middle of the Herald this week – an initiative by the County Council for a “Cycle SMART” campaign to follow the existing “Drive SMART” programme.  The really interesting thing about this however, which seems to pass the Herald’s newshounds by (perhaps because their general modus operandi is simply to regurgitate, verbatim, the press releases they receive from various quarters) is that serious injuries to cyclists have increased from 50 in 2008 to 124 in 2012 – a 150% increase in four years!

 A little bit of journalistic enquiry might then lead them to the discovery that Surrey’s expenditure on road safety, by any measure, overall, per head of population or per mile of road – is materially lower than that of Hampshire, and its casualty toll is, unsurprisingly, materially higher.

 

 

The next meeting of the Waverley Local Committee of Waverley and Surrey councils is to be held next Friday, 20 September, at 1:30pm,, at Cranleigh Village Hall, Village Way, Cranleigh GU6 8AF.  I think there is just about enough time to get in a formal written question for the meeting if you email it to David North by close of play Monday – email  d.north@surreycc.gov.uk

There is nothing on the agenda specfically relating to Haslemere, but there is an item on cattle grids on Hindhead Common and these items concerning a recommendation to reduce the speed limit on the A286 between Grayswood and Brook from 60mph to 50mph – not before time, in my view.  The bend by the railway bridge just south of Brook Nurseries is notorious.

The next time that Haslemere’s car parking is due to be discussed is at the meeting on 13 December (venue not yet announced) when officers are due to report on their technical review of the operation – so far – of the resident’s parking schemes.  Be sure that the forces of opposition will be active in attempting to overturn them already – although that is not the intention of this review, which is confined to dealing with small technical issues with how they work.  (For example, to act against dangerous but not illegal parking on Kings Road in the area of the GPO sorting office and the Herons, where I believe the yellow lines have now been extended.) If you have positive evidence of their benefits, this might be the time to let them know – david.curl@surreycc.gov.uk

 

 

On the subject of Feedback, if you have not yet completed the Haslemere Vision Engagement Survey, you might want to do it now.  You can do it online, or you can print off the survey as a document and fill it in to post in

 

Elsewhere in the forest, the Yellow Peril Online (The Haslemere Parking Action Group site) has been fairly quiet recently, but has squeaked a couple of posts this week.  One relates to an item in Surrey Advertiser’s online site Getsurrey about squeezing more free street parking spaces into Cranleigh.  It seems  though that not all Cranleigh residents think that what the town needs is yet more cars crushing in.

The other quotes from an article on Guardian Online, and to say that it is selective would not do justice to the term.

Now look at what the gentleman quoted above has to say immediately before those remarks:

 

Do you see any reference to parking in his three key priorities?  No?  Neither can I.  Indeed I would submit, your Honour, that his observation about small towns having a “niche” relates directly to his three points, and has no connection with parking.  He is saying, as many others have said, that small town centres need to look at their offering, and distinguish themselves from the large shopping towns and malls – something which Haslemere certainly needs to do.  In saying this, he is responding to remarks earlier in the article by “Bill Grimsey, a businessman and former chief executive of Wickes and Iceland, led the alternative review into the future of our high streets.” Who is advocating conversion of unused (and probably now unusable) retail space into residential, to bring back life to town centres:

“Our high streets are being overwhelmed by structural change. Online shopping has grown by 222% in the past five years while year on year bricks-and-mortar growth remains flat. Consumer behaviour is rapidly changing, and some high streets are never going to survive on a retail-only model.

But that doesn't mean they cannot become vibrant communities once more. We need to change the perception that the high street is only about shops. History tells a different story. The best high streets were never just about shopping; they were about a sense of community.

Many high streets are struggling with declining footfall, and what better way to start to repopulate town centres than get people living there? High streets can no longer be seen just as temples of commerce: disruptive technology has put paid to that. They need to be redesigned to meet community needs.”

Finally, the resounding silence emanating from Barton Towers continues for yet another week.  Her “Councillor Update from recent Weeks” was posted on 14 August – a month ago – and there has been nothing since.  That was “recent weeks” because the preceding post was a full month before that.  What happened to her promise to update fortnightly?

The next Waverley Local Committee meeting is to be held next Friday, 20 September.  There is nothing on the agenda relating to parking in Haslemere – do you suppose she will be there?  If not, should we now be asking again – where’s Nikki?

Last news roundup of the summer

(I know that in some quarters “Summer” is defined as the months of July, August and September, but to me, the school “rentrée” signifies its end.)

Andrew Tyrie is a NIMBY

 As member of Parliament for the constituency of Chichester, which covers much of West Sussex including Fernhurst, Andrew Tyrie was “unavailable for comment” when asked this week by the Haslemere Herald for his reaction to the protests being launched by the residents of Fernhurst against the fracking licence application being submitted by Celtique Energie.

Unavailable for comment?  Isn’t this a matter of great concern to his constituents?  Should he not have something to say to the local newspaper which no doubt many of those constituents in the Fernhurst area will read?

Well, the Herald article does report that Mr Tyrie supports fracking – but not in his back yard.

 

 

(FFF, by the way, stands for Frack-Free Fernhurst).  I do hope that the Mr Marcus Adams quoted above doesn’t share Mr Tyrie’s view – that fracking is fine for northerners or poor people, just don’t spoil my countryside with it.

However I would agree that the government has no mandate to support fracking – just like it has no mandate for dropping bombs on Damascus, and look where that policy got them!

The Fernhurst Frackers are also the subject of this week’s featured letter in the Herald.  Mr Hingston, a Haslemere resident, evidently deplores the “orchestrated mob” which descended on Balcombe and hopes that no such thing happens at Fernhurst. 

I don’t share his view – the protestors at Balcombe certainly did not observe all aspects of the law, but nor were they violent, intimidating or abusive, and the police response was heavy-handed, to say the least, with at least one member of parliament arrested for simply sitting on the ground.  The correspondent whose letter features immediately next to Mr Hingston evidently agrees with me there.

 

Fernhurst will need all the help it can get.  Best would of course be that they get it from their nearer neighbours, who will no doubt also be adversely affected, as FFF’s demo run with a 32 tonne lorry through Camelsdale and Liphook,  reported on the Herald’s front page, was aimed at showing, but “any port in a storm” so they say.

 

The proposals to seek planning permission to build about 150 houses on land at Sturt Farm, as reported last week, have provoked the predictable reaction, from a resident of a nearby street.

 

 

Everyone?  Speak for yourself, Mr Toms! I can certainly see that residents of Sun Brow, accustomed to looking out over fields from their back windows, would be adversely affected, and they are entitled to object on that basis. And they have my sympathy, but nobody owns a view in this country – unless you also own the land which makes up your view or which stands between you and your view.  Many people who have bought seaside properties have learned this to their cost over the years.  Any loss of agricultural land, whether AONB or however designated, or not, is a pity but, does Mr Toms have children?  I do, and I fear for them – where will they live when they grow up, and how on earth will they ever afford to buy a home somewhere near (not too near, you understand, but not too far either) their parents?  Shortage of supply, exacerbated by pitifully low levels of new building, have driven prices up beyond affordability for anyone other than investment bankers or their children.  Is not Sturt Farm a better option than the old Syngenta site at Fernhurst, which is truly in the middle of nowhere and will certainly impose huge burdens on local schools, roads, parking around the station in Haslemere, etc?  At least Sturt Farm permits residents easy access on foot to teh station or town centre, via the footpath linking them to Longdene Road.

I would also take issue with his hyperbole.  The houses are not being “crammed”.  True, many east-siders are used to having upwards of an acre of garden all to themselves, but the density proposed here, of 150 houses in 33 acres or slightly below 5 per acre, is relatively low density by modern standards, and not significantly denser than the housing in Camelsdale or Critchmere.  There are not going to be “hundreds” of them, and they certainly will not have “thousands” of residents – unless perhaps Mr Toms envisages each house accommodating a football team.

Godalming College appears to have had its planning application, to build housing on its old playing fields and replace those playing fields with new ones on land provided by Ladywell Convent, rejected by Waverley Borough Council.  This matters to us, because that is where the great majority of Haslemere’s sixteen year olds will go to school for their A levels or vocational qualifications – even many of those who attended independent schools up to GCSE.  In addition to the new playing fields, the development would have released money to fund a new teaching block at the school.

I am not qualified to judge the validity of the reasons given by Waverley planners (who certainly have a fearsome reputation for being “The man who likes to say NO”) but surely it is barking mad to suggest, as the Herald reports Godalming Town Council as saying in their objection

Excuse me?  I know this is not quite as extreme as Dunsfold Park, or Syngenta at Fernhurst, but the Milford Hospital site is far more remote from amenities such as schools and shops, is only served by a stopping service on SW from Milford Station and unquestionably requires constant private car use to make it viable.  Those cars will likely also hammer up and down Tuesley Lane, a single-track road which goes into the back of Godalming – not a million miles from the College!

Why oh why did Waverley give consent for the Milford Hospital development if it will not for Godalming College?

And finally, no reports of moaning by our retailers this week about hard done by they are over customers being asked to be something south of a quid – probably less than their petrol bill for their trip – to park in the town, but as further “uplifting” evidence that not all commerce in the town is in the doldrums, this article from page 93 of this week’s Herald.

 

Bank Holiday news roundup

A slow news week this week, perhaps not surprisingly as it is in the thick of the holiday season.  Certainly Nikki Barton’s website haslemerefirst.com has nothing new to report since she last updated on 14 August.

The wasp-yellow website haslemereparkingdotcom has twice covered the “story” of penalty charge notices going up in the short-stay car park at Weyhill Fairground.  Apparently this penalty, for parking more than four hours in the western area on the other side of the barriers from the all-day commuter section, has been in force for several years so it doesn’t seem unreasonable that it should be properly advertised - as indeed my moles tell it has, as the signs have in fact been there for several years as well.

HAG also reports that a petition is being got up against the penalties, and can be signed in various local shops, including Woodie & Morris – a couple of paces only from Weyhill (eh??).  I will not be signing – I can’t imagine why anyone would need to be there for four hours to go shopping, and permitting such long stays denies spaces to customers who actually want to buy stuff in the Weyhill shops.  Shorter limits increase turnover of spaces and so total numbers of drive-in visitors, which is good for business.

The main feature on the front page of the Haslemere Herald is the proposal to develop “up to a maximum” of 150 homes on the site of Sturt Farm, a 33 acre undeveloped site immediately to the south of the Herons’ leisure centre.  Details can be seen on their website here.

 

Outline of development site, with Herons in top left corner

 

Apparently a previous developer was refused permission to build twice that number of homes, and the average of about 5 per acre is low density by modern standards.  No doubt it will upset some of the immediate neighbours, such as the lady in Sun Brow who bought her house five years ago because (?) it had a view over fields.  However, Waverley has a critical shortage of housing, and the borough council has not exactly done much to resolve that so far.  WBC are however right that thousand-plus housing developments on beige-field sites in the sticks like Dunsfold Park are not the way to go – a guaranteed anti-sustainable development which would inevitably greatly increase car-dependency, and young first-time buyers these days face the choice – if they can afford a home at all – of either a car, or a home, not both.  At least residents here could easily walk down to the station and town centre via the footpath to Longdene Road.

 

Also on the front page, news that the Poachers Pocket restaurant in Petworth Road is to close down.  Apparently its owners no longer consider it viable to maintain the premises on the level of business they have been able to attract in recent times. 

It is sad news, as we come to rely more and more on chain restaurants – Pizza Express, ASK and occasional rumours of Nando’s or Wagamama – but surely the Herald has got itself in a muddle if they think, as indeed they say, that  it is the only independent restaurant in the town?  What about Shahanaz, Curry Nights, Kritsana Thai, Good Earth?  Are they not restaurants?  Or is the Herald simply displaying its east-sider prejudice against Weyhill?

According to the Herald, the owners had this to say about their location:

 

So, we are back to the old pre-occupation, nay obsession, of the Herald – car parking.  Taking such a relentlessly negative view on the relationship of parking to commercial health of town centre businesses must surely be a self-fulfilling prophecy.  And in any case, who says that parking is not easily accessible?   The Waitrose (High Street) car park, which is free of charge after 7pm, is a mere 300 yards walk away, as the map below shows.

 

 



 

 

Finally, trust the Herald to be truly up to the minute with the news as always, with this report headlined:

This story has been reported at least once before – twice, I think – in the Herald.  Have they forgotten they have already covered it?  Or is it just a laudable effort at recycling?

Note how, just caught on the image, Julianne Evans manages to get her ha’porth in.  Prefaced by “Haslemere Chamber of Trade called on the borough...” etc, they quote from the former president of the Chamber.

Yes, former president, although it is not clear that she knows it yet.

 

 



News roundup, week ending 16 August

Well, here I am, back in town rested after my break on the Côte d’Emeraude.  (Do not fret Nick - it was only a holiday)  The weather was fabulous – sunny most of the time and not much rain or wind.  One should not have too high expectations of north Breton weather if one is not to be disappointed, but the scenery is always breathtaking and I can look at it for hours, even through the rain.

Being August, there has not really been all that much going on, but a little.  The Haslemere Herald reported in its 2^nd August edition on road safety in Kings Road following the introduction recently of the residents’ parking restrictions there:

 

 

Well, the Herald can always be relied on to misrepresent a story in its headline, although even they do not usually dare to falsify the body copy of the story itself – as can be clearly seen here, Mrs Berry is pointing the finger not at the resident’s permit restrictions, but at the lack of restrictions, eg double yellow lines, further along the road where commuters might be expected to move if they are willing to walk the extra distance to the station.  And Mrs Barton can’t resist the temptation to say “I told you so”, although I would bet my pension that had the SCC proposals been to double-yellow along towards the Robertet/Herons stretch of Kings Road, the HAGs would have howled in protest – see below on the subject of Tanners’ lane.

Moving, for a moment, away from the Herald, Mrs B has again emerged briefly from her estivation* with her “Councillor Update from Recent Weeks” (whatever happened to those fortnightly reports eh, Nikki?) reporting among other things on Parking in Kings Road:

Concerned residents in Kings Road have been in contact about the hazard presented by the growing number of cars parked on the bend of Kings Road by the industrial estate.  SCC Highways are planning double yellow lines via a temporary traffic enforcement notice that should be in place by the end of August.

The Kings Road parking situation is the result of inevitable car displacement following recent additional yellow lining and the introduction of resident only parking schemes in Haslemere. SCC Highways are planning to assess the impact of the schemes in the autumn before the December parking review.

To be fair, her reportage is fairly neutral, although she gets in a dig at the end of her piece about empty ROP bays.  (Again, more on this re Tanners’ lane below)

*    Archaic English word.  Kind of the opposite of hibernation, ie tuning out for the summer.

So, to Tanners’ Lane.  Someone (or two) called Anonymous has commented on my last post, to observe that the ROP bays opposite railway Cottages have lain empty, apparently not taken up by the Cottage residents.  Instead it seems they avoid the need to buy a ROP permit by parking further up the lane towards the green, where in the view(s) of Anonymous, the lie of the road makes this unsafe.

I guess this is only a natural reaction – why pay if you can park for free a few yards away?  I am inclined to agree with Anonymous about the dangers of parking closer to the green – certainly when I cycle through here en route to the shops of a weekend I feel a little nervous about this bit – but it should be noted that the original SCC proposal for Tanners’ Lane envisaged that apart from the Railway Cottages ROP bay, the whole of this stretch would be double-yellowed, and it was one of the HAG’s small victories that this did not happen.

Finally on this subject, Mrs B refers to the impending review ahead of the December local committee meeting (will Mrs B manage to make that one?).  As one of those to raise questions about this at the last meeting, I was disappointed by the response I got but it has to be said that the review is not intended to be a revisiting of the entire scheme, simply a technical appraisal of how it is operating in its early days.  Evidently one resident has already made her point about the Kings Road situation and it looks like SCC is responding promptly to that.  This is not an opportunity to object to, or support, the schemes as though the November 2012 consultation was being re-run, but if you have any detailed comments of this nature, do make sure to bring them to the attention of the parking officers at SCC - david.curl@surreycc.gov.uk.

Before I move on chronologically (and before I get on to fracking, a theme throughout the period) here is another thoughtful contribution from independent Farnham councillor David Beaman:

 

One thing Mr Beaman doesn’t comment on is this:  it is not just a question of how many homes need to be built in our area over the ensuing years, but what type.  A shortage of supply not only denies people, especially younger people, a place of their own to live, it also forces up prices through the well-established effect of supply and demand.  However, housebuilders only want to build what they want to build, which normally means tightly packed but nevertheless detached “executive-style” houses, because that is what is most profitable to build.  They only want to build on Greenfield sites, or even better on what I will call “beige-field” sites (brownfield, but without the real issues about site clean-up and ground pollution etc of a real factory site) as planning consents are perceived to be easier for those.  Dunsfold is a beige-field site.

What young people however want, and what entry-level buyers want, is a home of their own, never mind whether it is detached, or terraced, or indeed not even a house at all.  Indeed, there are distinct advantages to apartments in terms of security and maintenance.  They also, by and large, want to live near town centres, with easy access to clubs and bars, shops and jobs, and the transport links to London.  They want to be able to have a night out without worrying about how they're going to get home.  (Unlike, perhaps, their parents' generation, which is not nearly queasy enough, even now, about driving home having consumed a few) 

 

Will they get them?  Not unless the housebuilders are forced in that direction.  In that context, I was recently pointed towards this excellent entry in Wikipedia about the Israeli Social Justice Protests of 2011.  One of the areas of protest was about availability and affordability of homes.  Interestingly, the government response to this complaint was to promote the building of more smaller homes and apartments, incentivising builders by supplying them with government land with a 50% reduction in the land price if they agreed to build small apartments there.  (Cynics might say they solved their housing shortage by stealing more Palestinian land.  I couldn’t possibly comment)

 

Now, to fracking.  The last three issues of the Herald have featured stories, or letters, or both on this subject.  Opinion is clearly divided.  It is also quite evident that you don’t have to be a bearded leftie to be uneasy about the process – our own Waverley Council leader and Haslemere WBC councillor Robert Knowles is uncomfortable about it.  Michael Edwards, a local resident safely tucked away in Tennyson’s Ridge, where the big trucks will not be going past with their loads of sand and chemicals or tanks of liquefied natural gas extracted, and where it does not appear that any wells are proposed, has had the indulgence of the Herald in being permitted to write three times on this subject, in support of fracking.  Graeme Spratley contributed an excellent letter with some interesting technical information about the process,

and the Herald indulged me this week by publishing my thoughts on the diversion this causes from addressing our long-term energy security problems.  (Having spent three weeks just a few miles from the world’s first industrial-scale tidal generation facility, the “Usine Maremotrice de la Rance”, I am keen to advocate serious research into the potential of tidal power, as it is the one truly predictable renewable energy source).

 

Meanwhile, I read  today that water companies have concerns about contamination of their resources by the chemical used in the process.

“Nick” left a comment on my past post urging us to stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Fernhurst, and to set aside our differences about car parking to be united on this.  I agree, although sadly it is not a matter on which local government has much power to promote, or prevent it happening.

 

And finally, back to parking (the end-note for this week, I promise).  The Herald has picked up on a report by the RAC foundation to get back on its hobby-horse about parking charges.  As ever, their reporting is fair and balanced:  

Do they?  I doubt it:  they are reporting on an entire nation’s local authority parking accounts and while I dare say they highlight the larger cases like Westminster, I can’t imagine Waverley merits special mention.  Indeed, their press release for their report, dated 1 August, cites the top ten local authority parking surpluses but the lowest of these, Hounslow, makes more than three times what Waverley made.

As ever, the body of the report contains a little more of the truth.  Professor Stephen Glaister, the chairman of the RAC Foundation, remarks that many councils make deficits on the parking current accounts, and even those which make surpluses may not be in the black after including their capital accounts.  I don’t know whether they mention the authorities’ fiduciary duty  to manage public assets properly, but Waverley’s car parks represent extremely valuable real estate, on which any private landlord would expect to make an appropriate rental yield – how would our parking objectors react if they were to start letting council housing tenants live rent-free?

Mind you, in places the article is economical with the actualité, as Alan Clark once put it:

Oh yes?  Forum?  It’s a long while since they have accepted contributions to their website, and comments are no longer welcome.  Comments were only ever welcome if they agreed with them, as a number of dissidents found out when they tried to post, and did not see their comments get through the “moderator”.  I managed to get a few through – I think they must have had their guard down when I registered – but even then I had to challenge them more than once about suppression of contributions.  As the contributions in question were pointing out potential defamatory statements they were making about other individuals, their response was not to post the correction, but simply to remove the offending original article.

And, to wrap up:

The “cash cow” argument is the hoariest chestnut in the cabinet.  Motorists are being charged for a service.  The charges are almost invariably lower than would be sought by a private car park operator.  They represent a return on capital invested for the landlord, and are a fiduciary obligation (balanced against legitimate governance matters like promotion of local trade) of the local authority as custodian of our assets.  Surpluses from parking fund other council expenditures and so help to limit the general council tax precept – it is swings and roundabouts for most Waverley residents as most have cars, but it also maintains the principle that one resident should not be called upon to unduly subsidise another through his council tax.  Especially when that resident is elderly, or prevented from driving by disability, or unable to afford to run a car of their own, while the motorists are (on balance) likely to be healthier, wealthier, and younger than the non-motorists. 

 

Amen