Challenge Redgrave arrogance

Sir, – I have watched with interest as your columns have been filled week after week with letters deploring the loss of the Redgrave Theatre.

I have been wryly amused that in the face of this outpouring Waverley Council and its councillors have not made the slightest response. No doubt they hope this will just go away like the Farnham pin or any other minor inconvenience.

More surprisingly I have noted that two of Farnham's leading councillors at Waverley, Messrs Burden and Munro, are the keenest to be rid of the Redgrave in spite of what hundreds of voters are saying to the contrary.

It's all about money apparently. An unencumbered site can be more attractive to a developer. The same developer might be persuaded to cough up quite a lot of money in the name of 'planning gain' and no doubt that could be put to good use. Perhaps that's how councillor Munro proposes to fund a 'skate park in every town', for that it seems is the height of our leisure portfolio holder's ambitions for leisure in the Borough. And of course it was money that was the downfall of the Redgrave. Too much of it into a lost cause. Or so goes the myth. We can, however, pour money into the Maltings, a worthy cause indeed but why more worthy than the Redgrave?

Mrs Bottomley, our longstanding MP, praises Waverley for its careful husbandry in being the fifth best council in the country at collecting money. This one time member of the most discredited Conservative government in living memory, does not comment on whether Waverley spends its money wisely. Balancing the books in the current year is what councils are about and you are unlikely to see any exciting ideas about living ever coming from their direction.

So why are we letting them get away with it? They ignored a petition with over 6,000 signatures on it. They are ignoring all of these letters and soon we shall have a load of boring new shops and offices whose rents will be so high only major companies will be able to afford them.

We shall have minimal traffic change because it takes guts to tackle our traffic problems and tinkering with Downing Street is not the answer. And of course we may keep our skate park because Mr Munro has so decreed. And very soon we will look like Milton Keynes or Basingstoke (with apologies in advance to those two places).

So come on Farnham and let us see some democracy in action. Don't let them do it. Write to your councillor and remind him or her that they are only there because you said they could be. De-listing Brightwells as part of the ongoing drive by Waverley to be rid of the Redgrave is not acceptable. Such arrogance should be challenged.

Malcolm Walton

Ex Waverley councillor

Beavers Road, Farnham