Holiday roundup No 1 - week ending 26 July

I’m on holiday at the moment, in Brittany, so viewing Haslemere events (if such they can be called) from afar.

As might be expected in late July, there isn’t really much to report.  Nikki Barton has not updated her blog since last week a sudden rush of blood to the head led her to report on the last three weeks and so let us know “where was Nikki?”

The “Yellow Peril” haslemereparkingdotcom is reduced to reporting on a “victory” against increases in on-street parking charges – in the neighbouring (?) borough of Barnet (that’s to the north of London, in case you didn’t know).  They have picked up a foaming-at-the-mouth article from the Mail Online (I am not going to supply the link – I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of getting page views to boost their advertising revenues).

The leader of Barnet Council admits that the increases were introduced abruptly and “charmlessly” – I think that is code for “by Brian Coleman”.  Mr Coleman is a controversial, and now largely discredited figure, one time Member of the Greater London Assembly for Barnet, and local councillor, and chairman of the London Fire Authority.  His high-and-mighty arrogance has come to earth with a bump, with losing his GLA election, and now being convicted of an assault on a female resident.

But, for all his faults, Mr Coleman had a point, and it was not the usual “revenue raising” crap so beloved of the Mail and of parking libertarians like the yellow website.  Inconsiderate and uncontrolled car parking was making lives a misery for many Barnet residents.  The council plans to appeal.

Two interesting articles on the front page of this week’s Haslemere Herald.  Firstly, they report on the planning application for a bandstand on Lion Green.  It seems to have the town council divided.  Opposition mostly seems to come from councillors from the east side of town, such as Melanie Odell (Grayswood) and Michael Foster (Lythe Hill) although of these two it was only Mrs Odell who appears to have voted against.   She apparently suggested that it would be better to build a grandstand, if one is built at all, on the Town Green (corner of Tanner’s Lane with the B2131) rather than on the west side of town “where [according to another of our illustrious town councillors, also an east-sider]  the servants live”.

Secondly, Waverley Borough Council leader and Haslemere councillor Robert Knowles speaks out against fracking in Fernhurst.  It seems you don’t have to be a bearded, sandal wearing leftie to have grave concerns about the practice.  Councillor Knowles is concerned about various aspects, including the impact on ground water from the chemicals injected into the wells, and not least the significant burden on the A286 of all the construction lorries visiting the site.  Were it not for the fact that she presumably is on the same side on this particular issue, no doubt Mrs Barton would be making a fuss about the fact that he lives in Beech Road (ie near the A286), although is she were to say that, my response would be so what?  There’s loads of Haslemere people who live near the A286.

Fracking is also picked up on the letters page, by a Fernhurst Resident who ripostes to last week’s letter by Michael Edwards of Tennyson’s ridge – who seems to feature with letters of the “disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” variety from time to time.  The correspondent observes, correctly, that residents of Tennyson’s Ridge are unlikely to experience either the noise, smell, pollution etc attendant on living near the wellhead, nor the HGV traffic on the A286 serving it.

Of course, opposing fracking in Fernhurst is only honourable if you oppose it everywhere – passing the buck to people who live in, say, Lancashire, is not on.  A lot of tosh is spoken and written about fracking, implying that it solves the future for energy demand in the UK due to the vast reserves of shale gas apparently down there.  Trouble is, getting it out is going to be difficult, dangerous for local communities, and there are doubts about what proportion is actually accessible – possibly a tiny percentage of the claimed reserves.  Rather than taking advantage of this “fix” of pure heroin to put off a little having to deal with the crooked pushers from Russia and Kazakhstan and similar unappealing regimes, should we not be starting the methadone treatment of investing in low-carbon technologies for home heating, local transport etc and renewable electricity generating capacity other than wind, which we all now know is not free of issues such as cost and security of supply?  For example, a mere five miles from where I am sitting now, is the world’s first tidal power station, “L’Usine Maremotrice de la Rance”.  Tidal power is entirely predictable, as tides can be calculated both in times and sizes for millennia to come, from the movements of sun and moon.  It can also be stored, as it is at the Rance Barrage – the sea level can be allowed to build up on either side of the barrage by keeping it closed, and water permitted to pass through the turbines just when electricity is needed.

Finally, as evidence that we are almost in the silly season, the Herald has three letters on the subject of cycling.  The featured letter appeals to motorists to observe the Highway Code, and pass cyclists with as much space as they would leave for a car.  I am not sure that necessarily, in all motorists’ eyes, means more than two wing-mirror widths, but the Code illustrates what it means with a photograph – a car should overtake a cyclists with its own width, ie about 6 feet.

 

 

Two more letters pick up on a “name & address supplied” letter from last week moaning on endlessly about cyclists on the A31 slowing down motorists who wanted to pass them on the short stretch where the dual carriageway has only one lane width.  One protests last week’s writer’s views, and makes certain observations about why the writer preferred not to identify him/herself.  Certainly it does not appear to be because it would expose him/herself to anything more than ridicule for their antediluvian attitudes.

The other, unsurprisingly in view of its content, also prefers to remain anonymous.

None point out the oft-repeated canard in last week’s letter about “cyclists don’t pay road tax”.  Well actually, “name & address supplied”, they probably do – firstly, they probably carried their bikes down to the area on the back of their cars.  Secondly, there has been no such thing as road tax since 1936, when Winston Churchill himself abolished it because he feared that it would encourage motorists to assume a priority over roads which they were never intended to have.  Thirdly roads, like everything else, are paid from from general taxation as all the money goes into, and comes out of, one big pot called the “General Exchequer”.  No taxes, except the BBC licence fee, if you regard that as a tax, are “hypothecated” to a specific expenditure, despite what politicians may sometimes say.  If we assume that these cyclists are out at work when they are not cycling, then they probably pay income tax, as well as VAT, council tax, yada yada yada.

Finally, a highly thought-provoking letter from David Beaman, independent councillor on Farnham Town Council, writing about the petition for Farnham's "independence" from Waverley:

I have reported before on Mr Beaman’s letters to the Herald, where he similarly made some thought-provoking remarks about the need for any new house-building obligation to be commensurately served by the necessary improvements in infrastructure.  This new letter might, cynically, be read to suggest that Farnham’s independence would mean they had to provide for their own housing needs rather than dumping them on an outlying area such as Dunsfold Park (which would in any case hardly be a sustainable proposition for people who want to work in Farnham, even if it is apparently the view of LibDems on Waverley Borough Council if other letters to the Herald are to be believed).

I am not aware of any similar bid to gain independence for Haslemere – yet – although I wouldn’t be surprised if our directly elected mayor county councillor has that in mind for her next campaign after parking.  Anyone who hankers after such a dream (or should I say Vision?) however should sit up and take note of this letter.

News roundup, week ending 19th July

Well, Councillor Barton has emerged from hibernation, no doubt wearing her red and white knitted scarf and bobble hat, with a new entry on her website about her activities since her last report.

Curiously, when you consider how seminal it is in terms of the development of her political career, arising from the “parking wars” last year and in January, it doesn’t mention the Local Committee meeting on July 5^th.  Could this be because she wasn’t there, for her first such meeting?

On the subject of parking, she notes the proposed review of the residents’ parking schemes to be discussed at the December meeting of the committee – presumably she will make an effort to attend that one!

She has also “volunteered” David Curl, a Surrey Highways Dept  official with responsibility for parking, to receive “feedback”, giving his email on her website - david.curl@surreycc.gov.uk

Now, the review is not supposed to be a repetition of the public consultation exercises carried out last year.  Rather it is a technical review, looking at how in detail the schemes are working – traffic counts, and surveys of where, when, how many cars are parked in the individual roads to see if usable space is being left unnecessarily idle.  (For example, could limited daytime parking be permitted, if residents have left spaces to drive to work, so long as they can find space to park when they come home?). I don’t think Mr Curl is really interested in general expressions of objection or indeed support for the schemes, but comment on detailed implementation may be worth making.

For example, I’ll probably take a camera and a tape measure down to Bunch Lane and examine the northernmost block of parking bays, to see whether in fact there would be more road width and better sight lines if the spaces were to be shifted 20 metres or so further north.

 

Frack off!

 

 

Mrs Barton has also commented on the planning proposal submitted by Celtique Energie for “fracking” at Fernhurst, and has provided a useful link for further information.  From there, you can link to the South Downs national Park’s planning portal, where you can submit comments on the Celtique proposal.

And indeed I did just that, with the following result:

Dear Ms Harding

Thankyou for your reply.

 If that is the case, then why have you opened a process for submitting comments?

 Regards

 

From: Lucy Harding <Lucy.Harding@southdowns.gov.uk>
To:

Sent: Tuesday, 16 July 2013, 11:03
Subject: SDNP/13/02126/SCOPE

Dear

 Proposed Oil and Gas Exploration Site near Fernhurst

 Thank you for your email regarding the above. I am responding on behalf of Tim Slaney, Director of Planning.

 An application has not been submitted and I am therefore unable to take your comments into consideration at this stage because they will not relate to the final proposal. You can however send you comments and concerns to Celtique Energie by using the community consultation line 0800 023 2148 or consultation@celtiqueenergie.com.

 As part of the early stages of a statutory process called Environmental Impact Assessment, we are currently seeking the views of relevant statutory and non-statutory consultees, such as the Environment Agency, to make sure that the Environmental Statement that will be submitted with the application contains sufficient information for us to be able to fully consider the environmental impacts of the proposal.

 When an application is submitted, you will be notified via a number of ways including a site notice, details provided on our website and in the press.

 We have made Celtique Energie aware of the concern residents have expressed to date in relation to the proposal and for further information about oil and gas development please see the Frequently Asked Questions document which shall in due course be placed on our website: http://www.southdowns.gov.uk/

 Kind regards,

Lucy Harding MSc

Minerals and Waste Planning Officer

Freedom of Information Request

I asked Waverley Borough Council for some information about parking in the town centre car parks under their management.  I hadn’t actually framed it as a FOI request, although that is how they chose to respond – no matter, the point is what information I got back from them.

I had hoped they might be able to provide information specifically on the number of hours’ worth parking tickets sold for each of the three central car parks – High Street (Waitrose), Chestnut Avenue, and Tanner’s Lane.  Unfortunately, due to various issues notably vandalism to the ticket machines (did I see someone hopping away rapidly on crutches one night?  Probably my imagination) this was not possible, but I did get the next best thing, annual sterling revenues and tables of hourly rates from which to estimate the number of hours sold.

I asked for 2008/9, as the last full year before Waitrose opened to replace the former Somerfield store, and the most recent two years.

I have made some calculations from this data:  converting £ revenues into hours of parking purchased by using the tabled hourly rates, and then hours per bay using the tabled number of available paid bays (total less disabled parking, which are free).

 

The calculations necessarily contain some approximations: 

·         hourly rates increased in February 2012 so there isn’t a clean comparison between the rates charged for the whole of the years ended 31 March 2012 and 31 March 2013.  I have assumed rates changing at the year end – the earlier increase probably means that slightly fewer hours were sold in 2011/12 than I have estimated; 

·         the number of available spaces in High St reduced significantly but I don’t have the date for that so I have assumed at the fiscal year-end;

·         I have assumed that 40% of High St tickets are 2 hours so the average in 2012/13, of 70p for one hour and 75p/hr for two hours, is 72p.  (Anecdotally, I am told that the great majority of High St tickets are one hour, so the rate is closer to 70p and the hours sold correspondingly, probably, higher).

The results are:

High St		Revenue	£/hr	Hrs	Spaces	Hrs/space
2008/9		229000	0.60	382000	164	2329
2011/12		274000	0.60	457000	164	2787
2012/13		275000	0.72	382000	134	2851
Chestnut Ave
2008/9		90000	0.50	180000	132	1364
2011/12		105000	0.50	210000	132	1591
2012/13		109000	0.50	218000	127	1717
Tanners Lane
2008/9		25000	0.25	100000	50	2000
2011/12		31000	0.25	124000	50	2480
2012/13		39000	0.25	156000	46	3391

So, what conclusions can be drawn from this?

·         Total parking sales increased materially in all three car parks following the arrival of Waitrose.

·         Some of that gain was clawed back in the latest year, although apparently there was some transfer from  High St to the other two.  This may be attributed to the Lower St gasworks and the severe winter we had in 2012/13, compared with 2011/12, but also evidently the reduced number of available spaces (due to building works) had an impact, as the hours sold for each available space increased again

·         The reduction in High St sales appears to be more about the extraneous factors than the pricing – the increase from 60p to 70p does not appear to have deterred people from parking there if they can find a space

·         Although the price of the High St car park has increased again, to 80p for the first hour from April 2013, the increases have followed several years in which prices did not change at all, indeed prices for  Chestnut Avenue and Tanner’s Lane have not changed at all since before April 2008.

Not much in this week’s Haslemere Herald.  The front page has an article – “Tories break ranks over planning row” - about the Core Strategy, rejected by the inspector recently because it made insufficient provision for housebuilding.  The battleground seems to be around Dunsfold Aerodrome site, and it is curious (not) to note that one councillor firmly opposed to the notion of a large housing estate there, and therefore remaining with the main Tory fold,  is Richard Gates (Bramley – in other words, in the path of all the traffic emanating from Dunsfold in the direction of Godalming and Guildford).  Even uncuriouser are the identities of the dissidents:  Mary Forysewski (Cranleigh Rural) and Janet Somerville (Cranleigh East) who “crossed the floor” to side with the two UKIP councillors Diane James (Ewhurst) and Brett Vorley (Cranleigh East) in opposing.  Question one:  where are several hundred houses proposed on “Greenfield” sites close to the village centre?  Question two:  Cranleigh may be “The largest village in England” but doesn’t it seem a tad over-represented judging by this array of talent?

And finally, this letter from the Chairman of Dunsfold Parish Council

 

Yes, as I said last week:  Dunsfold does not have a consent for “unrestricted” aviation movements, merely no restrictions on movements related to aircraft maintenance and repair.  Dunsfold is not about to become the new Gatwick, and the number of movements will still be low.  This was merely an attempt to scare local people and the planners into accepting a large housing development on the basis of fearing something worse.

News roundup week ending 12 July

Where's Nikki?

So, come the first Waverley Local Committee since the County election, ergo the first local committee to be held since Nikki Barton became the county councilor for Haslemere, and one tweep asks:

 

Not attending the Local Committee, at any rate.

Apparently, when the committee chair asked the officers to advise which members they had received apologies from, the response was that Mrs Barton “may be late”.

So late, in fact, that when the meeting finished she had not been sighted.  Perhaps the Ladies’ Final at Wimbledon went on longer than she had anticipated?

Anyway, consider this statement quoted in the Surrey Advertiser (on-line edition) at the end of January this year:

Nikki Barton, of Scotland Lane, who heads the campaign group, said: “….. anyone who witnessed the shambolic meeting can only conclude that the LAC structure is not fit for purpose.”

 

Mrs Barton evidently believes that there are problems with this committee.  Who's to say that she is wrong?  If so though you’d think she would want to get to work straight away on trying to reform it.

So, I’ll ask again:  where’s Nikki?

Many residents will now have seen evidence of the arrival of the new parking restrictions.  I had wondered when the one closest to my heart, Bunch Lane, would be done but even as I pondered this Surrey’s Finest were painting the double-yellows from St Christopher’s Green northwards to just beyond “Coniston”.  At time of writing the white-line marking of the parking bays was yet to be done but the road was coned off to permit the liners to work.

Having seen it on the ground I do have one technical reservation about the northernmost group of parking bays – the sightlines are not especially good and the road is rather narrower here than it is a few metres to either side.  I’ll have to go down there at the weekend with a camera and a tape measure to gather some measurements.

This week’s Herald has a piece about the Haslemere Vision.  HV has put up an online questionnaire on its website here.  I would urge you to complete it – it is really quite good, even if it does conflate traffic calming with the “holistic parking solution” chimera.  I have linked to the on-line survey but there is also a means of downloading the survey in print form here.  If you want to have your say about the issues which face Haslemere - and make your own suggestions for what to do about them - now is your chance.

Also on the front page of the Herald, a piece on the outcome of a planning enquiry for Dunsfold Aerodrome.

 

 

Well, not exactly.  Waverley Borough Council won the planning appeal against its refusal to grant permission for housebuilding on the site, on the grounds that the development was unsustainable.  (I have been here before.  1,000 homes on fields – and forget the “brownfield” tag, the vast majority of the site is covered by virgin grass – some miles from the nearest settlements with shops and schools, even further from decent transport links and with below-mediocre road links, is not “sustainable” whatever the “Flying Scotsman” Jim McAllister, owner of the site, may say)  The owners then said “OK, in that case we want to use it as an airfield, so we’ll ask for unrestricted movements permission” to replace the current consent for a maximum of 5,000 movements (take-offs or landings) per annum.

What they got – and not before 2018 – is confirmation that the original 1951 planning consent could be relied on.  That permits unrestricted movements for the manufacture, repair, maintenance and flight testing of aircraft.  It does not permit the aerodrome to be operated as an airport, or a “Business Aviation” (ie private jet) terminal, or a cargo terminal, or anything like that. It permits aircraft to arrive and leave for the purposes of undergoing maintenance and repair, and to be flight-tested during such maintenance and repair.  (As commented on in the article, the third aspect of use, ie manufacture, can be seen separately.  They don’t have to include manufacture, and it is unlikely that there would be any demand for it).

I was sad to see that the local Friends of the Earth have spouted so much guff about this issue, although I will give them credit for making at least one sensible suggestion.

 

Exactly – I am no expert on the aviation industry, although as a former pilot I perhaps know a little more than most, but I suspect that a serious commercial operation to repair and maintain airliners and business jets could not actually use the 5,000 movements per annum envisaged in the current temporary permission.  Take a look at Lasham, in Hampshire, where an airliner maintenance facility shares an aerodrome with the gliding cub. 

Indeed, if it could, I can’t imagine that Gatwick Airport or the Civil Aviation Authority would tolerate it.  It is far too close to published arrival and departure routes for Gatwick’s traffic.

 

Other front page features relate to the Haslemere Food-bank, and to Fracking in Fernhurst.  It is shaming to think that in a town like Haslemere, there are people whose circumstances are such that they have to rely on a foodbank, but hats off to the local churches and generous residents who have supported this.  On fracking, the management of our Haslemere Hall could do something useful, and offer to show the documentary film “Drill, Baby, Drill” which is to be shown in the Fernhurst village hall this weekend, for we are not unaffected by this even if it is five miles away.

Meanwhile, on the letters page, we have this response to Graeme Spratley’s letter published last week.

OKaaaay – Graeme and I must have been smoking something then, when we could have sworn we saw and heard a group of individuals representing themselves as from Haslemere Vision gave a presentation to Haslemere Town Council, observed by (since) Councillor Barton and Robert Serman, on their proposals for the Fairground site back in March!

Then, eventually, after a lengthy holiday from parking letters, we have this:

Generally a thoughtful letter, which is more than can be said of all correspodents to the Herald, but I think it contains some misconceptions:

·         Neither Waverley, nor Surrey, nor the Town Council, have any control over business rates.  Rateable values are determined by the valuation office of HM Revenue & Customs, and the “multiplier” is set nationally, by national government.  Local authorities collect the money but they have to hand it over to the Treasury, which then doles it out across local authorities – and you can be sure that what gets doled out to Waverley etc is considerably less than what gets collected by them.  Our local authorities don’t really have any financial interest in business rates

·         References are made to the “cost” to WBC of the afternoon tickets, but they know full well, as the proceedings of the committee meeting show, that this cost is entirely theoretical.  It implies users would have parked for 2 ½ hours each day Monday – Wednesday and paid the standard charge, which of course they would not.  Nor does it really represent much of a loss to users – the point is to encourage them to park in the High St car park at less busy times of the shopping day by offering them a flat fee and escape from the current bind of rummaging around for loose change.

·         Of course the offer is for a small proportion of people – 0.3% or whatever – but it is a pilot.  As Councillor King said in committee, “I intend to retain the trial to 50 permits initially but propose to review this each quarter throughout the year and adjust it as appropriate”.  The point is, if it works, ie if it increases footfall in the nearby shops by improving the utilisation of parking spaces at otherwise quieter times of day and week, and also thus increasing availability of free spaces at the busiest times through displacement effect, then it may be offered more widely and more permanently

There are plenty of people – and one prominent town centre retailer is among them – who believe that the real issue for declining footfall relates more to the quality and variety of the retail offerings we currently have.  Some, such as Cockerills Shoes, have clearly sussed it, and whatever it is they have, they should bottle it and sell it to their neighbours.  Others do less well.  As Michael Clayton says, we have – for example - no mobile phone shop, and that would be a helpful additional to our retail mix.

And finally – pondering what has happened to our local county councillor, whose photo or quotes seem to have featured in virtually every edition of the Herald for the last several months, I made a search – not manually of course, I used a search engine on the on-line edition – with this result:

So, where’s Nikki?

Perhaps there’s a clue in her current Twitter profile page:

Could she be hibernating?

 

 

 



News Roundup week ending 5 July

The July meeting of the Waverley Local Committee, of Surrey County Councillors for Waverley divisions plus a selection of WBC councillors, met this Friday. Having had an urgent hair-washing appointment (or as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot would have said, sorting my stamps in order of size) I was not present, and it is too early for the minutes.

However, at least two questions were submitted as written questions for the public for the committee’s attention. Both concerned the apparently indecent haste with which the committee seemed to be embarking, in December, on a review of the residents’ parking schemes which have not, as yet, even commenced. I’ll report responses in due course, although I have heard that the responses are likely to be unsatisfactory to the questioners.

Update:  I have now learnt that Nikki Barton did not attend her FIRST meeting of the local committee for Waverley!

Certainly, the Haslemere Action Group against the parking proposals (HAG for short) is beginning to wake up again, after a hibernation period since the parking schemes were resolved on and their website’s “Volunteer Editor” took on a new role as Nikki Barton’s election agent. It seems they have demanded a response from Councillor Pat Frost, local committee chairperson, on the subject of filming their proceedings. The demand was copied to Communities and Local Government Secretary, Eric Pickles, who will no doubt tear his attention away from his campaign to force local authorities to resume weekly refuse collections to study this missive with due interest.

Waverley Borough Council has apparently this week approved a proposal (Appendix Q) for a small-scale, time limited trial of a pre-pay weekday shopper’s permit for the High Street car park. 50 permits in total will be offered permitting unlimited parking between 3pm and 5:30pm, Monday-Wednesday, for twelve months. A permit holder requiring just one hour per week would be slightly out of pocket but one who wanted to use all 7.5 hours per week would save substantially.

The proposal arises from meetings with Haslemere Chamber of Commerce, and states (in tones which imply that they find the argument far from convincing) that

“town centre parking is considered one of the main issues of concern among retailers, with the two specific issues being the cost of parking and the inconvenience of having to find the right change..”

It goes on to say that it is impossible to predict the take-up, or usage, of such a scheme or what impact it may have on town centre footfall. The proposal memo suggests that a small scale trial would provide useful information on these points but it doesn’t go into any detail on how this would be measured.

 

Unsurprisingly perhaps, one of the Barton/HAG tendency has had a good moan about the proposal:

 

Well doh!  Surely one of the fundamental objectives of an incentive scheme like this is to enhance the utilisation of parking spaces, by incentivising people to use them at less busy times so freeing up spaces in the peak hours?  The numbers indicate that in those morning hours, the High St car park typically issues over 8,000 tickets a month, compared with only about 5,000 a month in the three hours from 3pm.  If this trial is successful, it will inevitably lead to a loss of revenue for Waverley in those concession hours, in pursuit of the mission to get more parkers – ie more shoppers – into the car park overall.  Surely our good shopkeepers can see the sense in that?

Well, they have welcomed the scheme, as reported in this week's Haslemere Herald, but there is a touch of the Judean Peoples' Liberation Front about their response:

Eh?  Put forward by local shopkeepers but not the right one?  So, why did they put it forward, if it is not the right one?

Perhaps because the "right one" was this:

(Mrs Evans, by the way, is incorrectly identified by the Herald as president of the Haslemere Chamber of Trade.  Not any more she isn't) That's right:  they wanted the council to pay for it!  In any case, there is no reason why they should not also implement a refund scheme if they wish.  After all, Waitrose has done it since their first arrival here.  As Councillor Carole King, WBC Portfolio member for parking, was reported as saying:

Yes, retailers could fund this themselves if they wish, and if they think it would be effective.  For WBC to give back money which they have taken off parkers primarily as part of a strategy to optimise the utilisation of their car parks, to the benefit of all including town centre retailers, would make no sense - it contradicts the very stategy they have put in place.

Meanwhile, our Independent Shopkeepers’ county councillor, Mrs Barton, has had her ha’porth:

 

There it is again, that word “consultation”.  I wonder whether many of the residents of the various roads who now eagerly await the commencement of their parking schemes can confirm the quality and extent of consultation which they have received from their county councillor, who even now is rumoured to be hell-bent on having those schemes abandoned entirely at the earliest opportunity, before any review determines what improvements, if any,  might be made to them?  And is a meeting between WBC and the Chamber of Trade (membership open to all retailers and other businesses in the town, and taken up by most of them) not “consultation” – at least rather more so than has been the case with Mrs B in, say, Beech Road?

 

And this is not the only distortion to feature in Mrs B's statement, as expanded below.

Turnover, or churn

Meanwhile, as hinted at above, information has come into my possession which shows that the peak rate (in any one hour) of purchase of parking in the High St car park was 3009 over a month: an average of 111 per charging day against a capacity of 169. As the information doesn’t distinguish between one-hour and longer tickets it isn’t possible to say how close to saturation it got, and in any case it is a Monday-Saturday average.

The same hour in Chestnut Avenue scored 1,246: an average of just 46 a day, in a slightly smaller (capacity 134 spaces) location. Evidently, the premium imposed for parking in High St has not put very many people off!

Nor have the attractions of Tanner’s Lane, with 2 hours parking costing a mere 50p, been able to draw motorists away from High St. While it appears that between 400 and 600 tickets per month are sold before 9am, suggesting local workers or commuters buying a full day’s parking occupy about half of the 50 available spaces, barely ten per hour each day are sold during shopping hours.

Our friends at Haslemereparkingdotcom have, predictably, managed to conflate the parking permit story with the increase in charges for use of the High Street car park, as seen on their website:

 

So evidently the “33% increase since 2012” (ie two years’ increases measured from immediately before the first increase to immediately after the second increase, a – shall we say – tendentious way of looking at it) has not obviously driven away custom, judging by the hourly issue rates quoted above.  This in the context of increases at High St while Chestnut Avenue and Tanners' Lane charges have remained largely unchanged.

You may also note that the yellow peril website is not the only one to play fast and loose with parking facts.  Mrs Barton's comments quoted in the Herald above imply that charges increased by 58% "immediately following" the gasworks road closures.  Well no, actually:  this is two increases, 14 months apart, one before the gasworks and one after, and both following a period of several years with no increases at all.  Also, in choosing the highest value in the table, she has been highly selective because it is simply not representative - who on earth would park for four hours in that car park?

I hope in time to have more information on town centre parking trends over a more extended timeframe.

 

Rotten, to the core?

The main theme of the Herald  letters page this week is the rejection of Waverley’s “Core Strategy” planning document by the inspector. I won’t rehearse the rights and wrongs of this situation, except to lift a short passage from one of the letters, from the chairman of the Planning Committee of the Farnham Society. 



 

Immediately adjacent to this letter is another one, from the local Labour Party membership secretary, in very similar vein.  Another correspondent from Farnham.  Another demand to revisit Dunsfold Park as a “brownfield” site for development.

Perhaps what goes on in Dunsfold, stays in Dunsfold, but there are wider  implications:  Waverley has no influence over them, but broadly similar sites at Fernhurst and Easebourne, W Sussex (the King Edward Hospital site) which are also designated as “Brownfield” but are possibly not what government had in mind in introducing the concept – old factory sites requiring clearance and possibly decontamination – present similar problems for our local authorities in Waverley and Surrey.  Residents would almost inevitably gravitate to their nearest town with a mainline rail connection to London.  More pressure would be placed on the roads system, and more parking congestion would arise as commuters look for somewhere to park around the station.  Unpalatable as it no doubt is to Farnham residents to have more homes built around their town, pushing the problem away to somewhere like Dunsfold merely shifts their problem to someone else, for example in Godalming or Guildford. 

For all that the fundamental problem, of an insufficiency and unaffordability of housing for local residents, such as our own children in the future, isn’t solved by it, I can see where Waverley is coming from in its policy on Dunsfold.

 

And finally

No doubt prompted by this article from last week's Herald

 

 

we have a letter, from local resident Graeme Spratley,

 

 

I couldn’t put it better myself, so I won’t.