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.