The plans for development at Brookwood Farm are going to be put in front of the Planning Committee on the 29th January. It is highly likely, almost certain in fact, that these will be pushed through despite community concerns over traffic and a range of other issues that have categorically been ignored or marginalised.
There is now a requirement imposed by the LEA for a new school; the new school is designed for 210 new places but must accommodate 240 making the school unsuitable before it’s built. The school has resulted in the requirement for secondary road access via Sparvell Road, a quiet road never designed to accommodate high volumes of traffic.
It should be noted that although the requirements placed on the residential (Cala Homes) development by the LEA for a new school will result in even higher volumes of traffic, the plans for both residential and school will be treated separately. In essence this means that WBC planning can ignore any traffic analysis for a new school on the site in their consideration of the residential plans. They will then be obliged to pass plans for the school irrespective of the traffic analysis and the absolute linkage between the two proposals. It’s a ridiculous situation and frankly the thought that they have been split is specifically for this reason; if considered together as they should be (being wholly dependent upon each other) the proposals would never be passed.
As many people including us have pointed out many times, the traffic on the A322 is already at or over capacity; the junction at Redding Way/Bagshot Road cannot sustain an increase of the volume being proposed, despite what an unproven and highly questionable traffic model might claim, and that’s just for the residential development. The School will add a further predicted 182 daily arrivals and 179 departures. Presumably some people stay in school overnight. Interestingly, it has been predicted that a development of 300 dwellings will produce approximately 2/3 of the amount of traffic of the school. Some arbitrary assumptions of people walking to the school has been made to reduce the scary figures but even so the reports have stated that with the school the junction will be operating significantly over theoretical capacity.
Moving traffic outlet to further up the A322 (from Sparvell Road) is a folly as they must turn left. That is of course unless SCC are overturned on their assessment of it being unsafe to turn right? Perhaps a new roundabout will be placed there but that is pure speculation and would add to traffic disruption in it’s own right. So, in order to turn right from this exit, traffic must turn left and then right into Chobham Road, another residential street with a primary school (Knaphill Lower) and impassable at peak times due to parking and other traffic issues. Cars will either perform U-turns near Birds Grove or head all the way up and turn right through the village centre or turn left back toward the A322. MADNESS!!
Will the plans be approved? Almost certainly.
Recent traffic report can be seen here.
myKnaphill 
Is there a plan for a representative from KRA to speak at the Planning Committee meeting on 29 January?
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Hi Sharon,
There is. Phil Stubbs, KRA secretary is intending to speak and has encouraged ALL residents interested to attend.
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Dear All
I will be attending on the 29 Jan. I live on Coresbrook Way and I am horrified generally with the size of the development on such a small piece of land, the impact on the local services etc, but now even more so by the plan to open up the Sparvell Road rat run. We already struggle to get onto the A322 and this change will cause mayhem for local residents. Another aspect I consider really important is the extra impact on parking in the area, which often makes roads even more impassable.
Mr Stubbs, good luck with your 3 minutes, I really hope you can make an impact (and don’t you love the fact that objectors have 3 minutes).
Trouble is once this development is complete we can say told you so as often as we like but it will be too late and we’ll be suffering from the mess. No doubt in 5 years time they’ll be forced into reconsidering the bypass.
Lets try and beat the idiots by I’m not confident. Please as many as possible turn up. They rely on apathy.
Ben
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At 1.oopm today 28 January the final report from the County’s Highway Authority is not available to memebrs of the public. The highways plans are an important element to the development of Brookwood Farm so it is important that we can study the report in good time before the Planning Committee meets. If you go onto WBC’s web site and try to open the Highways Report you get the message ‘document awaiting decomposition’. This is totally unacceptable and I have written to the chairman of the Planning Committee asking him to withdraw Brookwood Farm from the agenda until such time that the Council make all key documents available to the public.
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Apathy prevailed. All the councillors objected but then at least two of them changed position for no reason at the last minute. Had more people been present perhaps they would have felt under more pressure.
So Knaphill will get what it deserves; a traffic black spot for years to come.
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At this point in time I am still pulling together my thoughts and I wll write a longer piece on events of last night later today. Just to say democracy died in Woking last night. I was always given to understand that local government officers were there to serve the Council last night it was the officers who were in charge not the Councillors.
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Phil, thanks for a lucid and well thought out (if brief) representation last night. It was an outrageous thing to watch, with so many councillors voicing objections but then, because they hadn’t prepared a well though out position in advance, bottling it under pressure from the officers. It started badly being told half our local councillors could not speak for us (partly due to a convetion that will be changed in a couple of weeks time) and then moved downhill from there. If there is anyway we can challenge the decision and the traffic assessments that no-one but Surrey council officer accepts then please do.
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Just to let you know Phil has a summary underway but letting the fumes vent before launching.
I just watched ‘The Planner’ on BBC and saw amazing similarities of the planning process – they all disregarded anything to do with decency and infrastructure! Still, who needs roads you don’t queue on, enough school places or somewhere to go if you’re ill..?
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Disgraceful !!
Brookwood and Knaphill will be changed beyond recognition as a result of this hideous development. Traffic black spot, increased crime due to more teenagers with nothing to do, strain on GP, dental and educational resources, loss of Green belt and local wildlife…This is truly a failure of local government..the planning officers should all resign
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Your experiences with the council are all too familiar to us down in Westfield Common. We are expecting the same treatment when the planning application for Moor Lane comes up.
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