News hot off the press is that at its meeting last night
(Thursday) Haslemere Town Council has
elected Libby Piper, councillor for Critchmere, as town Mayor, with Penny
Bradley, councillor for Shottermill, as Deputy Mayor. Both ladies are relatively new to the
council, having been first elected in 2011.
I could regale you with the experiences of my elderly
mother, suffering from Parkinson’s disease and Lewy-body dementia, at the hands
of her local Adult Social Services department – not in Surrey but I don’t
imagine Surrey is any better – but that could go on for page after page. In Haslemere, apparently all people have to
fuss over is the colour of some railings, whether they should be black, or
white.
Rather less space and attention is given to this:
Uproar? The Herald is
big on fury, uproar, anguish and similar emotions, but as ever its headline
doesn’t really relate to the contents of the article, more accurately
describing a “mini furore”.
But what about the substance of the story? How on earth can you cram 56 homes onto a
site of only 1.3 acres? By building
tall, that’s how. More apartment blocks.
Note also that 38 houses and 30 flats have already been
built on an adjacent site, and a further 36 homes are planned for the old
Drummonds site the other side of the junction, near the National Trust Café. There is no doubt that Hindhead has become an
attractive place to live now that the A3 is buried many metres below it, and it
has excellent access to the A3 just to the south at Hazel Grove, but there is
also no doubt that many of the new home-owners will be planning to commute by
train from Haslemere. Hindhead is too
far away to walk, and way too scary to cycle to and from, even if you don’t mind
the hill. Isn’t it lucky for those who
live in the adjacent streets to the station, who might otherwise have to absorb these extra commuters, that they will shortly have a resident’s permit scheme up
and running?
Turning to the letters page, there are two which touch on
the parking war and its final outcome in the County elections at the beginning
of this month.
This:
The reference at the end to Beech Road reminds us that there
is at least one battle left to fight in the parking campaign – the proposed
curfew parking scheme for Beech Road was deferred until “Phase 2” of the County’s
proposals, pending resolution of the detail of what hour would best be set as
the restricted time to co-incide with activities at the Hospital. The danger is that unless residents keep up
the pressure – and now with a councillor who is suspected to be unsympathetic
to their concerns – their scheme and indeed the whole of Phase 2 could be kicked
into the long grass. And if anyone doubts that Mrs Barton is still welded to the parking campaign, listen to her being interviewed on BBC Radio Surrey by Nick Wallis starting at about 1h 11m into the broadcast - you have until about 9am on Saturday morning to catch this before it is taken down.
The
next meeting of the Local Committee for Waverley – the first at which Mrs
Barton will (presumably) be present as a councillor – is scheduled for July 2nd
at 2pm, with oral questions from 1:30.
Surrey’s website does not as yet say where, but Councillor Barton on her
own website is suggesting that it will be at the Hale Institute Village Hall,
just off Upper Hale Road to the north of Farnham. The list of councillors for
the committee comprises all Conservatives, except for Mrs Barton at county
level and Councillor Brett Vorley (formerly Conservative, now UKIP) at Borough
level. While there appears to be some community of
interest between them on the parking issue, in all other respects I think they would
make curious bedfellows!
And this:
This from someone who I believe lives about 1 ½ miles away from the station and parks his car in a neighbouring street on his way to work in town. He is pleased for those etc - I am sure those of you who live in those streets and now expect a residents’ scheme imminently will be thrilled at his condescension.
How much do you pay?
Below is a table of the benchmark “Band D” council tax payable for the financial year 2013/14 in Haslemere and in some of the surrounding communities. The analysis splits the precept payable to the county council, which among other things is responsible for roads and streets, and the precepts payable to other authorities, namely the borough/district (eg Waverley, Chichester), town or parish, and Police Authority.
County
|
Other
|
Total
|
||
Surrey
|
||||
Haslemere
|
1,172.52
|
399.94
|
1,572.46
|
|
Sussex
|
||||
Fernhurst
|
1,161.99
|
325.14
|
1,487.13
|
|
Linchmere
|
1,161.99
|
329.58
|
1,491.57
|
|
Midhurst
|
1,161.99
|
321.75
|
1,483.74
|
|
Northchapel
|
1,161.99
|
360.83
|
1,522.82
|
|
Hampshire
|
||||
Grayshott
|
1,037.88
|
411.83
|
1,449.71
|
|
Liphook
|
1,037.88
|
408.17
|
1,446.05
|
|
It can be seen that Haslemere residents pay materially more
than residents of “feeder” communities to our west or south. Hindhead and Grayswood of course are within the Haslemere Town boundary.
So, does it feel to you like we residents of Haslemere are
subsidising residents of these other communities, which I understand Waverley
Borough Council believes to account for about 80% of the commuters parked
around Haslemere railway station, by allowing them to park for free in our
streets? Of course, it is worse than
this, because West Sussex and Hampshire have no responsibility whatever for the
Surrey roads budget, and it is going to get worse still, if Chichester and Sussex
permits hundreds of new houses to be built at the King Edward and Syngenta sites
with no thought for who is going to bear the burden on infrastructure which
those houses will impose.
Why, then, are we not doing something about this? Why do we not require commuters to pay a fair
daily charge for using our streets?
Surrey had proposed a maximum of £5 a day – a little more than the
charges in the Waverley car parks, to encourage commuters to park off-street
first. Have you taken a walk along the
streets to see what sort of cars are parked there? (Actually, I am sure many of you are only too
painfully aware of what sort of cars they are, at least for another few weeks
until the restrictions commence) Do they
look like they belong to people who are down to their last fiver and thus would
face the choice between parking and eating?
Thought not.
Why are we not doing anything pending the construction of a multi-storey
car park at the station – a project which is by no means certain to happen
anyway? Could our community not have benefited from the revenues raised from commuter parking, for example to pay for more pedestrian crossings, traffic calming, or pothole repairs?
Quote of the week
Parking is the third
rail of local politics. Touch it, and
you die. (Andrew Gilligan, Boris
Johnson’s London Cycling “Tsar”, this Wednesday)
What a laughing stock the Herald will make itself! It is fair enough that resident in Shepherds Hill shoudl have the right to comment on the new railings there but front page news? Really!
ReplyDeleteThe article does however reveal more than the triviality of the Herald's news values. Mrs Barton just couldn't help making a snide remark about her predecessor who went to all the trouble to secure the finding to replace the railings, just as the residents had requested, complaining about the "lack of engagement" on the design. First point is - Physician, heal thyself, we didn't see much sign of "engagement" by Mrs Barton with our concerns about uncontrolled parking in our road, just a determined attempt to prevent us succeeding in our appeal. Secondly, as Steve Renshaw points in the article, the scheme was approved by Haslemere Town Council and Waverley planning department. But then we have seen that the Town Council is rather good at flip-flopping, just as it did over the Petworth Road zebra crossing, which firstly they approved and later they objected to following intervention by the Haslemere Society and one stroppy retailer nearby.
Really, do we not have more pressing concerns to fill the front page of our local rag? Only recently I read that voluntary groups in teh town had prepared food parcels for residents.
ReplyDeleteFood parcels? Are there really people in Haslemere who are so down on their luck that they need food parcels? Now that really is a story - how come the Herald has had so little to say about that?
It is easy for mediocre reporters to give accounts of village fetes and "outrage" about some trivial complaint, rather harder for them to produce some real journalism.
I will not name the HH "journalist", whose literary output includes "The Wizard Book of Spells", "The Faery Garden" and "Mermaids", but the subject matter that interests her perhaps explains the nature of her reportage. She was Nikki Barton's mouthpiece during the parking issue and truth and accuracy were glaringly absent in her reports.
ReplyDeleteI personally think the new railings in Lower Street are an improvement on the old. Black recedes and is a good colour in my view for such street furniture. I have long treated the HH as bit of amusement; serious jounalism is not their thing and they allow themselves to be highjacked by those with loud voices. Why has a complaint about the railings only now come to the fore, they have been up for several weeks without comment.
It is not entirely the reporter at fault here, but the subeditor and edtor too. The subeditor presumably is writing the headlines which so often bear no resemblance to the text of the article - "fury", or "dismay" at something or other. Earlier in the year we had some such exaggerated reaction to the proposed Petworth Road zebra crossing, but the text of the article showed that in fact most of the neighbouring retailers interviewed by the paper were pretty non-committal really, they could see some sense in the proposal and couldn't get worked up by it. And now in last week's issue the "uproar" which the article describes as a "mini-furore" for which read - one person objecting noisily.
DeleteThe railings issue is, as you say, getting quite whiskery now, and when you look at the text you can see that again there is only really one resident making a fuss.
As for Mrs Barton urging the council to allow the residents to choose a colour for the railings, I didn't - and don't - detect the same enthusiasm for allowing residents to have a choice over parking permit schemes in their own roads!
Rumor has it that the secretary of state has ordered a public inquiry into Waverley Borough Council and its behavior into wanting to start charging at the WeyHill Fairground site. Big brother is watching. I think some the councillors involved must be feeling a bit queasy.
ReplyDeleteYou make it sound like a public enquiry in the sense of Leveson or Hillsborough. Enquiries are routine in this field and are no cause for concern for WBC councillors - apart from possibly causing the prohibition of parking on the land under section 34 Road Traffic Act 1988. Not an outcome that I should imagine that "Anonymous" is looking for! As WBC are not collecting revenues from parking here and say they have no plans to, I suspect they are rather less bothered.
Delete