News Roundup, Week Ending 15 March 2013

Waverley Borough Council has submitted its section 38 application for permission under the Commons laws to resurface the Fairground car park. It is anticipated that cars parking there will be leafleted shortly by an alliance of the Haslemere Action Group against the Parking Proposals (HAG), the Haslemere Society, Haslemere & Villages Vision, and the Haslemere Chamber of Trade – all the organisations with Haslemere in their name, as a recent correspondent to the Herald might have put it – urging people to write in and object.

You can of course write in to support the proposal as well - it's your choice.   The email address for comments is commonlandcasework@pins.gsi.gov.uk. The case reference is COM 454.

Haslemere Town Council has approached, or plans to approach, Waverley Borough Council to request the transfer to HTC of the “Fairground” car park site – the unsurfaced car park opposite St Christopher’s Green and next to the Shahanaz restaurant on Weyhill.

Members of Haslemere & Villages Vision – see below – presented a proposal to HTC at its meeting on Thursday evening, featuring a redevelopment of the Fairground site  with an underground car park beneath a small public square, surrounded on three sides by retail units.  They mooted the idea of inviting Marks & Spencer Foods to be the anchor tenant.  The presenters were hazy about where the funds for the development would come from.

The Waverley Local Area Committee  of Surrey and Waverley councils have responded to four questions from residents concerning car parking arrangements in Haslemere.  A copy of the document in pdf can be found here.  Notable points:

·         They refused the requests of residents of Beech Road, and the Hospital League of Friends, for an Exception Order, to expedite a modified version of the original proposal with a shorter parking curfew tied to co-incide with the hospital’s lunchtime closure,   citing “ numerous objections to the advertised proposals in this road during the statutory consultation on the grounds that it would be more difficult for visitors and patients to access the hospital”  notwithstanding the fact that many of those numerous objections relate to difficulties for hospital outpatients’ parking which Beech Rd Residents/ League of Friends’ request specifically addresses, thus implying that the decision has been made on the basis of the other objections, ie by visitors/retail workers seeking all-day parking

·         They do not intend to respond further to the request for a fuller analysis of objections and support so that the true balance between objectors and supporters can be understood.  This may now become the subject of a Freedom of Information Request.

·         Certain residents of Courts Hill Road West (where Surrey officers had recommended not proceeding with a ROP scheme, which recommendation was rejected by the Committee at its January meeting) appealed that although they have off-road parking, they occasionally need permits to park on-street due eg to bad-weather-related difficulties in exiting steep drives.  The Committee resolved that the Courts Hill Rd scheme would proceed “as advertised” ie with stricter limits on which residents can have permits, but agreed to send officers around to discuss residents’ difficulties with a view to finding a short-term solution before the Phase 2 review.  Apparently the appellants were not entirely satisfied with this response.

·         Residents eligible for ROP permits should expect to hear from Surrey “in March” about the timetable for introducing the scheme in the early summer, and from Guildford Borough, operators of the scheme, with application forms for permits in May

Haslemere & Villages Vision features on the front page of this week’s Herald, announcing their impending launch and a photo competition.  Every house in the town can expect to receive a flyer with further details shortly, inviting residents to call in at the Haslemere Hall on 27 April and offer their suggestions of how they would lke the town to look – although it does rather appear that they have decided what residents will want to do with the Fairground car park before asking them.

Members of the H&VV team feature in a photograph on the front page of this week’s Herald.  Three of those present can be clearly identified as members of HAG, the group which did not apparently think it necessary to ask the residents of several central Haslemere roads  for their opinions before lobbying hard against introduction of residents’ parking controls.  The leaflet urging objections to the Fairground carpark proposals also discloses that H&VV is allied to the Haslemere Society, the Chamber of Trade, and HAG.

You might draw your own conclusions about the organisation's impartiality.