Mount Hermon West
Planning application on Blackness Lane
Residents have expressed some concern about a planning application which has been submitted for nine houses on Blackness Road, off the junction at Guildford Road and Claremont Avenue. This comes on top of previous development at the bottom end of Constitution Hill and a recent successful application for four new properties at the old Peartree Lodge site.
I am opposed to this application on a number of grounds. Blackness Lane serves as a pedestrian entrance to Woking Park and is wholly inappropriate for use as an access road to the potential new houses. The junction onto Guildford Road is also a tricky one with a restricted line of sight and multiple attention points and so is not suitable for use as road access for the new development. More generally, I am concerned that this part of Woking, which is quite far south from the town centre where the bulk of the new houses and flats have been built, is not suitable for this kind of in-fill development.
Some fears have been raised by the Woodlands Community Group that additional development at this location could have land slippage impacts, and they have also drawn attention to a covenant which requires the council to keep the area as parkland. These fall outside the scope of material planning considerations and I would encourage anyone who wishes to object to focus their representations on the impact on traffic flows, loss of amenity and concerns about the suitability of the access road.
As I live in Constitution Hill it would not be appropriate for me to make representations or to speak on this application at committee. I have, however, had lengthy discussions with the Residents’ Association and I understand the other Mount Hermon councillors are aware of residents’ objections and are working to ensure that these issues are fully considered before any decision is taken.
Woking Park play area
After consultation with residents, Woking Borough Council will take forward refurbishment of the play area in Woking Park over the next few months. The work begins today and will likely last for several months. The improvements include extending and re-landscaping the play area, fencing off an additional area as a ‘dog free’ zone, and also landscaping the grass verges at the bottom of the ramp to the swimming pool in preparation for the installation of a refreshment kiosk.
Obviously the timing of this work is far from ideal as it coincides with the start of the summer holidays. However, I have been advised that the repairs need to be done during a period when the weather is dry and that delaying until after the summer break would have pushed the work back into the autumn and winter. There is also a safety element to the decision to proceed now, since the retaining structure on the bank of the stream has been off-limits for some time. I am told a large part of the project will involve re-landscaping and reinforcing this side of the riverbank to bring it back into use.
The work should be completed by the week commencing 22nd September and I will be monitoring the situation closely to ensure that this does not over-run and that residents are kept informed in the event of any delays or further disruption.
Election Results
Thank you to everyone who turned out at the local elections in Mount Hermon East on Thursday and helped re-elect me as your councillor for a second term. I am grateful for the support that people gave me during the election and for all the kind messages I received both before and after polling day. I will do my best to continue to make sure that your views are well represented and to help resolve any problems whenever they occur.
Overall the Conservatives increased their position on the council, with my colleague Rizwan Shah winning the traditionally Liberal Democrat seat of Goldsworth East, Debbie Harlow taking the third Knaphill seat, and Colin Kemp beating the leader of the Liberal Democrats in Horsell West. They are joined by the extremely talented Ayesha Azad, who takes over from Simon Bellord in Mayford & Sutton Green.
While it was a great night for the Conservatives in Woking, who again bucked the national trend to increase our vote share and representation on the council, it was sad to see Dorothy Farrant lose out by a small margin in Byfleet. Dorothy was an assiduous local champion and I have no doubt she will return to the council when the Byfleet seat comes up for election again next year. It was disappointing to lose in Maybury & Sheerwater, although elections in that community are always unpredictable. My friend Colin Scott also spent a lot of time and effort working in Mount Hermon West and would have been a fantastic councillor, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough to get him elected this time around.
Both the Woking Advertiser and the Woking News & Mail have written extensively about the elections and you can get a detailed summary of the results here and here.
Boundary Review
On Thursday councillors will debate changes to the ward boundaries for local elections. The purpose of the boundary review is to make local elections more balanced by ensuring that all councillors represent a similar number of voters across the borough, and to reduce the number of councillors from 36 to 30, in line with recommendations set out by the Boundary Commission. The council undertook a public consultation on the proposed new wards earlier this year, with displays in the Peacock Centre and Mercia Walk. A total of 195 responses were received, the bulk of which were supportive of the changes.
During the consultation representations were received from Pyrford residents about the boundaries for the new Heath ward, which would have included Pyrford village, Mount Hermon East and parts of Maybury and Sheerwater. Residents were concerned that the new ward would split the historic community of Pyrford across two different seats. At a public meeting about the boundary review last month, some residents also expressed opposition to Pyrford being included in the same ward as Sheerwater – considered to be a very different community in terms of character and needs.
In response to these objections, a number of alternatives were considered which sought to ensure that Pyrford remained within one ward. The new ward will now contain the entire area within the current Pyrford division as well as the Maybury estate, but will exclude Sheerwater and Mount Hermon East. Mount Hermon East will instead merge with the bulk of what is currently Mount Hermon West to create a single Mount Hermon ward. The new seat will run from the Old Woking Road in the east, along White Rose Lane in the south and the railway line in the north, and will extend all the way along York Road and Mount Hermon Road.
I am glad that the new boundaries will retain Mount Hermon as a distinct community within Woking, as this would have been lost under the earlier proposals. The new wards will ensure we have the right number of councillors in the borough to represent residents’ interests. I look forward to supporting the changes when they are debated later this week.