Category Archives: Brookwood Farm

KNAPHILL AMBULANCE STATION TO CLOSE

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South East Coast Ambulance Service is to close the ambulance station situated on Bagshot Road (A322) Knaphill. We understand that the closure could take place before the end of October.

The KRA were receiving reports from residents about the intended closure of the ambulance station and when we questioned Cllr. Hussain he stated that no one had consulted or informed the local Councillors of a possible closure.

Yesterday, 25 September I came across an article on the website of the Ambulance service. The article is headed ‘Chertsey Make Ready Centre to incorporate more ambulance crews.’ It was only on reading the full article that what this meant was that the crews and vehicles based at Knaphill were being transferred to Chertsey. The article was published on the 20 September.

The ambulance service tries to argue that one of the reasons for closing the Knaphill station is because, and I quote, ‘it is not in the right location for current patient demand.’ What it should have said is that a developer is interested in buying the land and the ambulance service needs the money.

Knaphill ambulance service covers Woking west of the town centre including Goldsworth Park, St. Johns, Knaphill and Brookwood plus parts of Surrey Heath including Bisley.

The South East Coast Ambulance Service is already failing to meet national targets on response times to 999 calls, how is increasing the journey time to our corner of Surrey going to help. We keep being told that in the case of a full emergency time counts and that is why the target is a response time of within 8 minutes to 999 call.  How will an ambulance navigate the traffic at peak times from Chertsey or Ottershaw to Knaphill and be within the target time.

Another key question, who has made this decision. The ambulance service is an NHS foundation trust and as such has local politicians on its Board, who represents this part of Surrey on the Board? Were they not paying attention or sleeping on the job?

The KRA has written to both our MP, Jonathan Lord and our County Councillors, Saj Hussain asking for the closure of the Knaphill Ambulance Station to be put on hold until there has been a full, independent review of the decision including an examination, b traffic experts, of the travel times from Ottershaw to the area covered by Knaphill.

We await a response from both our MP and County Councillor.

 

Phil Stubbs

Footpath report to Woking Borough Council

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The new footpath that goes from Brookwood Farm pavilion to the canal towpath has been reported to Woking Council following several complaints about the surface of the footpath. The current footpath surface is unsuitable both for cyclists and adults pushing baby buggies. WBC have agreed to investigate but added that as the path goes across what will be a country park they will have to consult Natural England who approve all footpath surfaces in Country Parks.

Cala Homes to open sales office on Brookwood Farm

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Cala Homes have opened up the first area of the development site. The first house that has been completed will soon open as a Sales Office. There is a visitors car park and a large plan of the houses that will form phase one of the development. If you are interested in what Cala Homes are building take a short walk down the access road to their new Sales Office.

Footpath closed

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Footpath 13 has been closed by Surrey County Council. This footpath is closed from its start at the junction of Sparvell Road and Corrsbrook Way to Sheet’s Heath. The footpath has been closed to assist Cala Homes with the development of Brookwood Farm. The notice stats that the closure is for 6 months but the notice clearly states that this can be extended.

BROOKWOOD FARM SALE OF LAND

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Woking Borough Council have announced that CALA Homes paid £17 million to WBC for the land and grant rights on the 16-acre site. In addition the Council receive £8,596,000 through what they call Section 106 Planning Agreement. The money under the heading S106 will be used to pay for new school and footpath to Brookwood Canal. The third payment WBC receive is £2.8 million from the new homes bonus paid by central Government. This makes a total of £28 million coming to Woking Borough Council, how much will be spent on Knaphill and its residents?

What WBC have not said is whether the money from the sale of the land is more or less than budgeted. We know that the majority of the money from the land sale will go to wards the cost of the Hoe Valley Scheme.

Councillors express their disappointment with recent planning decisions

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At a recent Council meeting both Councillor Kevin Davis from Brookwood and our own Councillor Melanie Whitehand stated that they had lost confidence in Surrey County Highways handling of recent planning applications.

The above comments were made during a debate that followed a presentation by Surrey County Highways and Head of Planning for WBC on planning and transport infrastructure. During the presentation M. Green of SCC stated that where a new development would make an impact on the current road network the policy was that any proposed transport improvements should be cost effective. Mr Green went on to say that the County had a congestion strategy and took a proactive approach to infrastructure planning and what they were seeking to provide was journey time reliability. To me this means that if your journey to work say 3 years ago took 30 minutes but the same journey now takes 45 minutes as long as the County can show that 45 minutes is a reliable estimate of your journey time the County have met their objective.

The County plan for a population increase of 9% over 20 years. The last census showed that the population in this area grew by 10% over 10 years!!!

To show how the two authorities work together the speakers illustrated their presentation with two examples one of which was Brookwood Farm.

In going through the decision making process for Brookwood Farm SCC admitted, for the first time in a public, that the development will have a significant impact on congestion in the area of the A322. The authority also confirmed that the road network within the Brookwood Farm estate will comprise of private roads and therefore issues like parking are not a responsibility of either authority, or is the upkeep of the road surfaces. The County Authority appeared to be more interested in the creation of a pedestrian/cyclist road across the farmland from the rear of the new school to the canal towpath rather than solving the problems that will come from the increased congestion on the A322.

In the question and answer session the authorities were asked why the study of the Brookwood Crossroads corridor, now being considered, was not carried out before the planning application was submitted to the Planning Committee. No answer was forthcoming.

It was pointed out to the Highways Authority that the transport assessment and the Planning Officers report totally ignored the impact the development would have on those residents who use Oaktree Road. Again, no answer was forthcoming.

Mr Devine of SCC agreed with Councillor Saj Hussain that the residents living in Sparvell Road will not see any improvements to their living standards once their road is connected to the proposed housing estate. In fact the additional traffic will have a negative impact on residents living standards. Mr Devine’s reasoning for joining Sparvell Road to the proposed estate was that it would improve the traffic flow for all motorists using the A322. So residents in Sparvell Road have to take a hit for the betterment of others.

Councillor Melanie Whitehand related the opening statements from both SCC and WBC to their handling of the development at 15 High Street, Clifton’s. Councillor Whitehand argued that Surrey County Highways had failed to follow their own methodology in the handling of this application especially in the timing of a site visit. In answer to a separate question the County Authority stated that they do carry out safety audits on changes to the road network and that these safety audits are in three parts. It will be interesting to see if a safety audit was carried ut on the Clifton’s site.

No improvement for traffic until after 2020?

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At a meeting of Surrey County Councils Local Committee on the 06 March a paper was presented by Surrey Highways Authority on the congestion around the Brookwood Crossroads and adjoining roads. It is a pity that this debate was not held before the Planning Committee had to vote on the development on Brookwood Farm.

In presenting their paper SCC stated that as the major work programme from now until 2019 had been agreed they recommended that the congestion on the A322 should be considered as part of the review of major road schemes in 2015 for the post 2019 programme. This means that any major scheme designed to reduce the congestion on the Bagshot Road would not commence until 2020 at the earliest. This would be 3 years after the completion of all the new houses on Brookwood Farm and the opening of the new school.

The plan from SCC was vigorously challenged by the KRA, Brookwood Residents Association and the majority of Councillors who spoke during the debate. Cllr. J. Kingsbury put forward a suggestion that the in-depth study of the A322 and surrounding roads should start this spring. The study will take 18 months to complete and cost £50,000. Officers from Surrey Highways took the request away and will respond in the coming weeks.

One suggestion in the paper presented by Surrey Highways was that for short journey’s that is a journey of up 5 miles residents should consider walking or cycling rather than using a car. Phil Stubbs asked if this meant a parent living in Knaphill with a child attending the school in Bisley should walk or cycle the journey Knaphill/Bisley four times a day. Or the Brookwood resident from Brookwood going shopping at Sainsbury’s should take their bike rather than the car.

Brookwood Farm update

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The majority of you will know that on the 29th January the Councillors who make up the Planning Committee approved the application from Cala Homes to build 297 dwellings on the land at Brookwood Farm. I came away from the meeting both angry and disappointed.

Angry because the Council Officers totally ignored those people who current live around Sparvell Road, Oak Tree Road and Coresbrook Way. It is these residents who will suffer the most from the increased traffic, its related noise and air pollution.

All the Councillors who spoke during the debate expressed reservations with the data included in the Planning Officers report on traffic levels. Although there was unanimity amongst the Councillors for a deferment once the Deputy Chief Executive, Head of Legal Services and Head of Planning applied verbal pressure on the Councillors not to vote for a deferment and accept the plan the majority caved in. All those Councillors not directly connected with Knaphill or Brookwood fell under the pressure and voted against a deferral and for the plan.

So yes disappointed with the fact that the Councillors did not stand by the views they expressed when they spoke for a deferment.

Why was so much pressure exerted on the Councillors? I believe there were two main reasons, first the Council have set themselves a target of 4,964 new dwellings between 2010 and 2027 (an annual average of 292 per annum). Secondly money, around two thirds of the land to be developed is owned by Woking Borough Council and that will now be sold to Cala Homes. That money will go to pay off a loan that the Council took out to pay for the work that was carried out in the Hoe Valley close to the Leisure Centre and Westfield Avenue.

Why were Councillors seeking a deferment? The Planning Officers report, the main document that is being debated and voted on, is only produced a week prior to the meeting and therefore there is not a lot of time to take on board all the detail that goes into a major development like Brookwood Farm. Let me put into context, in the past the Planning Committee deferred to a second meeting the applications to develop the Clifton’s site in the centre of the village and the extension to Sainsbury’s in Redding Way. Brookwood Farm is a much bigger development than either of the above and therefore why was the Deputy Chief Executive so opposed to the Councillors deferring a decision until they fully understood the proposal that the Planning Department and Surrey Highways were putting forward? That is a question for Woking Council to answer.

Unless a Councillor has been following the debate since the application was submitted last April then they rely on the Planning Officers report being accurate and objectively cover all aspects of the application. This report failed to achieve that objective.

For example The Planning Officers report states that there will only be a 33% increase in traffic levels going down Sparvell Road towards Bagshot Road between todays figure and the traffic levels once the development is completed. In words of the County’s Road Planning Manager an average of one additional vehicle per minute during peak times. Compare that with the figures in the Transport Assessment, a report produced by consultants as part of the preparation for the production of the Planning Officer’s report. The Transport Assessment shows an increase of 127% in the morning peak and 133% in the evening peak. The Councillors, and ourselves, wanted a deferment so that those differences could be investigated.

Another example of where the Planning Officers got it wrong. With reference to the length of the queuing traffic from the Brookwood traffic lights back up the Bagshot Road. The report states;-

‘The applicant’s Transport Assessment acknowledges that Bagshot Road is already heavily trafficked and that queuing develops, particularly at Brookwood Crossroad during peak hours to the extent that occasionally, southbound queue at the crossroads block the Redding Way signal.’

What a complete understatement, the queue is regularly beyond The Broadway never mind Redding Way.

There is a legal requirement that where a developer wants to build close to a heavily congested road they have to make recommendations on changes that will not significantly add to that congestion. In April 2012 I along with other representatives of local residents associations plus a number of Councillors met with Iain Reeve, Assistant Director Strategy, Transport & Planning and Greg Devine, Road Planning Manager both from Surrey County Council. We asked whether they believed the traffic management plan proposed by Cala Homes would somehow mean that the additional traffic would not add to the congestion. The response was that the proposed changes to the traffic light systems were unproven and that in their opinion would not meet the expectations of the developer. So what has changed between April 2012 and January 2013? As far as I know Cala Homes have not changed their proposed modification to the traffic lights systems. Maybe the KRA should invite Mr Reeve to another meeting so he can explain the change in the position of his department.

People have been asking where can we go from here. We the residents do not have the right of appeal. The only people who have the right of appeal to a decision made by the Planning Committee are those who submit the application. So if the Councillors on the Planning Committee had rejected Cala’s application Cala Homes could appeal and that would have gone to a Planning Inspector and probably a public inquiry. I cannot see how, following a public inquiry a Planning Inspector could have come up with a worse result than the one we got on the 29th.

This does not mean that the KRA will give up the fight, we have already asked Woking’s Head of Planning to explain the difference in figures for traffic in Sparvell Road.

We will keep you informed of any information that we are able to obtain.

The State of Planning

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The plans for Brookwood Farm have been passed. Rightly or wrongly many residents feel abused by ‘the system’ and feel that the council has not performed their duties as well as they should have. This article is more of a collection of thoughts than a narrative of failings so any official reading through should not take overt offence but do feel free to leave comment.

Housing targets

We all know the government has set planning targets for each and every council in the land; these targets have to be met which requires new homes to be built. In the south east the demands are great – it’s a desireable place to live and housing costs are high but the landscape is pretty built up already. What green space there is is normally hard to get permission for building on and decent sized brownfield sites are hard to come by. People may disagree with the targets set both by government and borough councils but they are here to remain. There is a whole other argument as to the rationale behind the targets but that is for another time and place.

Where to build?

This is one of the key questions; the crux of the matter really. Building a huge number of homes piecemeal is not cost effective and will not make up the numbers adequately. To build in numbers you either build flats upwards or you build houses outwards and it’s the latter that really grabs the landscape. This is why whenever you see new proposals there are usually a number of flats thrown in – it sweetens the deal by making up numbers that the council need desperately.

So what of locations and where to build? Woking is simply short of them and that is why plans such as those for Brookwood are passed. There is no single place where a lot of houses can be built and not upset the residents, and I believe the residents understand, although maybe not agree with, that.

Soon to be up is Moor Lane and I guarantee a similar situation is occurring as we in Knaphill have experienced. A similar situation was shown on BBC’s ‘The Planners’ on 30th January – large swathes of land given over to developers.

Many people mention money in respect of these developments. It’s true that the councils will make money, or at least in the case of Brookwood Farm they will but not being an accountant I can’t comment on huge debt versus submitted plans.

Planning capability

Understanding of planning regulations and the local differences up and down the country is a thankless job. No-one loves a council planner but they deal with what they’re told to deal with and do so with what they’re told to use. Recently, Woking Borough Council were recruiting a proportionately large number of staff, to my mind something resembling the whole department in number. Whether this had any bearing on the Brookwood decision is anyone’s guess but it won’t have helped and the reasons for needing so many new planning office staff at once raised a few eyebrows.

The biggest wonder is exactly what the procedures the council follow actually state as the documents appear not to allow for any amount of community or residential response to be taken into account. WBCs housing strategy 2011-2016 has a couple of stated aims of creating a strong community spirit… and a clean, healthy and safe environment. The planning process abjectly fails to do this and seems to act against it.

How can the planning process help build community when the process itself does not engage with the community as a part of the plan? Speaking of my own experience of dealing with the Brookwood plans – from conception the developer had 3 meetings with the public (only 1 of 3 were widely publicised); at these there were no actual plans to discuss, only concepts. The staff were provided by the developer and had no understanding of the area, demographic or planning in general. In fact the most useful and knowledgable member there was the landscaper! From the point of plans being submitted (i.e. when the planning process kicked in) it was statements all the way from WBC; letters announcing plans had been receieved, amended and finally going to the committee. Documents found online did not appear to give the entire view and some key documents were witheld from the public prior to the committee meeting, ‘awaiting decomposition’. Although the last letter from WBC invited everyone to speak, in fact only ONE person is allowed to have their say (presumably on everyones behalf) for a maximum 3 minutes. Hardly enough time to cough and say hello. The point here is that there is no real intent at community engagement, only getting the plans through the process. Mentions of ‘community’ have been just that, mentions and nothing of substance.

With regard to Brookwood Farm, major concerns remain with regard to traffic, roads, school places and medical cover provision. Houses must be built, but the infrastructure supporting them must be an imperitive also and no-one can see where this has been met. Records from a few years ago stated the maximum number of houses supportable on the A322 was 200, not the 300 now passed by committee. A new school being built adds to the problems in several ways, firstly it doesn’t provide enough spaces for pupils but it also necessitated another entrance to the development and even more traffic movements. Figures stated were predicted. We went and did our own number checking by actually counting the traffic movements and the predicted numbers are way off.

Being practical

The point above is that a more practical approach is required. Using untested traffic models and saying ‘we must have the houses’ is not good enough. If communities are to be built, as the council purport to be adamant about, then effort is required and a little bit of legwork wouldn’t go amiss either. If a lot of people are practically shouting ‘there is a traffic problem!’ then the chances are that there is a traffic problem, it’s not a trick. Go and count some cars. Get cold, get hot and get stuck in the fumes but make damned sure your numbers are fact-based and not pie in the sky. If the number of cars don’t stack up then do something about it – reduce the number of dwellings or find another way of reducing traffic. Telling people to walk or get the bus is not one of these. The planners, the councillors and the council all know there are issues when large scale plans are up for debate but precious little is done to allay their fears.

300 new homes and a school are to be built, so what about medical cover? What’s it like at the moment? Over-burdened? Well perhaps some form of mitigation there would be in order then; make it a part of the plans (not a condition, an actual part of the plan).

What of other plans submitted? 15 High Street (with flats above) is a good one. Does a village require 3 supermarkets in close proximity? Like a hole in the head. Common sense (not part of the planning process) would suggest that 3 huge players (Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Co-Op) in the retailing game would put local traders out of business. It is not competition, it is the death of community. A look at the plans also show that deliveries can only happen if certain parking spaces are vacant which should, surely, have raised the question of ‘is this really the best idea?’. Incidentally refuse deliveries for that development will have to be made via the kerbside, another point for questioning the plans.

The Point

There is no benefit to examining in detail any plan. The point to be made here was that the planning process is just plain wrong, for starters there is no planning involved, it’s just going through the motions.

To councils up the land –  More community engagement would go a very long way with most people and be demonstrating just a bit of thought over what the plans are showing you. Thinking of the resultant activity and impacts will inevitably lead you to a better solution. Some might call this actual planning – deliberate thought over the impact of intended changes for the betterment of an area and community. Show that you value the area you have stewardship over and the people within it, and not that you are really just after the cash reward.

A simple request goes out to all of you planners – start to think about what you’re doing and stop ticking boxes.

Last thought

Last year the taxpayer footed the £50m bill for the West Coast Main Line franchise bid going pearshaped after Sir Richard Branson questioned it. He was in a unique position of wealth and influence to do so and by that factor alone unearthed what people have known for some time – the process was wrong. Where’s Branson when you need him?

Brookwood Farm considered 29th January

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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.