News roundup, week ending 28 June

Waverley Local Committee meeting, next Friday

Just to remind you that the Waverley Local Committee (ie the Surrey councillors for Waverley and an equivalent number of Waverley Borough Councillors) have their quarterly meeting next Friday, July 5th, at 2pm in the Hale Institute Hall, Upper Hale in Farnham (to the north of the Castle).

Apparently any written questions, statements and petitions which you want to be considered for that meeting need to be submitted by midday on Monday, 1st July.  You can email them to David North - d.north@surreycc.gov.uk   

Haslemere’ s parking is not on the agenda for this meeting, and in fact is not due to be discussed again until the December meeting, which is slated to be held at Godalming Baptist Church on 13 December.  (Details of the forward programme for meetings are included in the agenda papers for the July meeting here http://mycouncil.surreycc.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=195&MId=2970&Ver=4 )  Those of you equipped with a calendar will have figured out that this is a mere five months after the schemes commence, in Mid July, which is not observing the minimum six months of operation which the committee undertook to wait before commencing a review.

 

To my untrained eye the agenda doesn’t look terribly exciting, although there is one item – resolving to form local task groups, focused on highways and parking matters within the context of the county’s Local Transport Plan and, in the case of the Haslemere & Villages taskgroup, the “Two Parks” (ie New Forest and South Downs national Parks) sustainable transport fund.  Nikki Barton will be on that taskgroup as one of the two Surrey councilors for the area, and is nominated as the Two Parks Champion, in succession to Steve Renshaw.

Back to written questions:  the ROP schemes will of course not have been implemented by the time of the meeting – that is due to happen around mid-July – but if you have any questions, concerns or views about the schemes so far, this might be a good opportunity to keep them in the forefront of the committee members’ (plural, not Mrs Barton) minds.  If you want to follow up your written question with an oral question I think you will need to be at the meeting in Farnham from 1:30pm.

It will be interesting to see whether any of the parking objectors take this opportunity to have a go - one of them has already had a tweet-moan about the new signs:

 

Quite a lot in the Haslemere Herald  for a change, with more or less the entire front page given over to stories of some relevance.

As previously reported, but not in time for the Herald’s copy deadline last week, the proposals for the Weyhill “Fairground” car park have been referred to a public inquiry, probably in 2014.  Here is just a snippet:

 

That’s right.  “Residents” have proposed that, instead of upgrading the carpark, we should build another – car park!  As it involves an “ambitious” (ie expensive) proposal, I think we can take it that it, too would be a paying car park.

By “residents”, the article is referring to the Haslemere Vision project.  To date this is a select band of individuals which includes our new county councillor Mrs Barton.  To be fair, HV plans to launch a consultation process over the summer which might well put this proposal to the test of popular opinion.  Who is to say that it won’t find popular favour.

Anyway, HV has announced it is pleased to see that a public inquiry is to be held.  Which sheds light on a rare example of dissent in the ranks, as the life-president of the Haslemere Commons Preservation Society apparently wishes the inquiry not to take place:

 

In case it is not obvious, Mr Serman thinks it would be a bad thing if the inquiry ruled on the return of the site to open common land!  Oh, and in another example of that Herald nostrum of "so good, they printed it twice", almost the entirety of Mr Serman's remarks are then repeated in his letter featured on the letters page inside.  They hang on his every word!

 

Another element of the sometimes united, sometimes divided town mafia also thinks the inquiry is a good thing.  Stephen Mulliner, for all his faults, does at least have a business head on his shoulders, as this quote attests:

One of the HV members who presented their sketched proposals to the Town Council a while ago, on being asked for an estimate of the cost, suggested a figure of between £10m and £20m for the proposed piazza, retail development, and underground car parking.  I think we can safely assume that anyone putting up that much moolah for a development would be looking for a return on capital employed, on top of amortisation of that capital plus a weighted average cost of capital, as we bean-counters are known to describe it.  I’m not sure the kind of tenants who could afford the rents (or motorists who would pay the parking charges) are quite what Julianne Evans,  former chairman of the Haslemere Chamber of Commerce and propertor of JL Nobbs, , had in mind.

Which makes a neat segue to the next front page article.

 

Much has been made of the increase in the number of empty premises lately, but there is apparently some good news:

Polo - oh my!  A fitting complement to the Aga shop (which some cynics think is the only shop people are really interested in coming specifically to Haslemere for).  Shame then that the town council and Haslemere Society were so opposed to an application to develop a polo facility on land near Barfold Wood/Lythe Hill. 

And no doubt we can look forward to a few more branches of Isawyoucoming.com, to add to the two or three we already have.

But then there is this:

That's more like it!  Another charity shop!

And, to conclude, it is evidently possible to succeed as an independent retailer in Haslemere, as Cockerills Shoes has proved.  Whatever they have, they should bottle it.
 

The third big story on the front page was, in a third week of reports, the response of Waverley Borough Council to the Inspector’s rather abrupt dismissal of their Core Strategy planning document.  (Don’t yawn – this is important).
 

WBC is in a bit of cleft stick really.  Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.  None of us will be very keen on having a pile of new homes on our doorstep – as last week’s letter from a LibDem worthy in Farnham, suggesting that houses be built in Dunsfold instead of on available land in his town, eloquently illustrates. 

David Beaman, Independent councillor on Farnham Town Council, has written a very thoughtful letter on this issue:

 

Indeed.  Or, one might ask why central government permits, nay encourages, unsustainable development.  One example is the presumption in favour of "brownfield" sites which has encouraged rapacious developers to launch bids to carpet-bomb former isolated quasi-industrial sites such as Dunsfold aerodrome or Syngenta at Fernhurst with high-density housing for which we, as council taxpayers, will have to stump up oodles of cash to fix the inadequate infrastructure (because as sure as hell the developers won't) or watch ever-growing numbers of commuter drivers scrapping over the dwindling supply of available free on-street parking spaces outside our houses.  Does it not make more sense to encourage development close to existing settlements, so that residents have facilities such as schools, shops, bus routes, rail stations, libraries, etc etc within walking distance?  Do all those single-person households (divorcés, for example) really have to have detached three-bedrom "executive" homes?

There seems here to be an assumption that just because someone wants something, they must have it.  I'd like my own executive jet, so I take it this government will facilitate that?

News from Barton Towers

In her latest fortnightly report on her activity, our county councillor reports:

Met with WBC Cllr Stephen Mulliner to discuss the possibility of a MSCP at the train station. It is a complicated situation involving a number of parties with South West Trains renting the land from Network Rail which holds the site as part of its regulated estate.  At present no party is interested in funding the project as it is not considered economically viable due to a number of factors including an unfavourable revenue support agreement between SWT and the DoT, and a lack of willingness to invest by SWT as its franchise is up for renewal in 2017. 

Well, No Shit, Sherlock!

Then this:

Haslemere business vitality

Invited representatives from Waverley Borough Council, Haslemere Town Council, Chamber of Trade and other businesses in Haslemere, including Waitrose to meet to discuss possible initiatives to boost trade.

 Footfall in many businesses in Haslemere has fallen significantly over the past year, there is a growing number of empty shop units. All high streets are under competition from internet sales, and general economic recession, but businesses in Haslemere suffered exceptional pressure during the 3 month gas works disruption when the High Street was effectively ‘closed’.  This was followed by two increases in parking charges in the Waitrose car park and one in the Chestnut Avenue car parks, as well as the extension of charging until 7pm.

 High parking charges were identified by the representative from Waitrose as a barrier to shoppers extending their stay to shop in Haslemere beyond the free hour (60p of the 80p charge) currently refunded by Waitrose. The inconvenience of searching for change to feed the meter was also identified as a reason for deterring shoppers.

Eh?  The gas mains works closed Lower Street.  I don’t remember noticing the High Street being “effectively closed” – unless you can’t be arsed to drive round the other way to access it.  Sure there were increases in parking charges, but they were hardly crippling.  As for not wanting to buy a second hour to add to the first paid for by Waitrose, then perhaps that is because people who park in the Waitrose car park are primarily there to shop in Waitrose, and not have to carry their groceries a hundred yards or so to another car park – after all, Tanner’s Lane charges only 50p for two hours and my (anecdotal) experience suggests that there are as many cars parked in Tanners lane as there are empty spaces in Waitrose on a typical weekday afternoon (ie a dozen or so tops).

The point about change is fair enough, but it seems that will be addressed when WBC re-lets the parking contract later this year, with cashless payment options being considered.