THE long-awaited first East Street redevelopment consultative forum has finally been set for Thursday, June 16, to be held in the Waverley Borough council chamber at Godalming starting at 4 pm. The venue has apparently been chosen to ensure that members, particularly those directly involved in the development control forum, "interested parties" and the public, will be properly accommodated. The venue will also enable the meeting to be web-cast so that others can view it, either at home or using one of the work stations at the locality offices. Waverley Council is in the process of inviting representatives from a range of organisations that represent different aspects of the development - the "interested parties" who will give feedback at the forum following a presentation by the developer, Crest Nicholson /Sainsbury's. Others who want to make their views known will be asked to do so in writing to Waverley, and their views will be passed to the developers. Further meetings are pencilled in for the next two months, but dates will be determined by the extent of any changes that may flow from the consultative forums. Waverley's portfolio holder, Chris Mansell, said: "I am delighted this stage of the process is now under way." After the consultative forums, which are intended to elicit pre-application responses to the detailed plans, the developer will then submit the formal planning application for what is expected to be a £100 million development. The full application, with all the drawings and supporting material including the important environmental impact statement, will be displayed to the public in due course. Referring to statements made by the scheme's critics in last week's Farnham Herald, Chris Mansell said: "There were some factual errors and misunderstandings in the comments." He said he was surprised that the degree of cross-party support for the scheme was not appreciated, pointing out that 38 Lib Dem and Conservative members voted in July 2004 for landlord's consent for the developers to proceed to the planning application, with five votes, also cross-party, against. He confirmed that, contrary to one claim made, that the cross-party Special Interest Group for East Street had met twice under the Lib Dem administration, but not since July 2004 when the landlord role, which it was supporting, ceased to be central. He also pointed out that both the overview and scrutiny committee and development control forums were cross-party. Chris Mansell rejected the allegation that he took policy decisions on his own. "Councils simply don't work like that," he said. "The executive as a whole approves policy at meetings which allow for statements and questions from other members, with potential participation also from members of the public. Both overview and scrutiny and full council have the facility for debating the executive's deliberations." He welcomed the letter from the bowls club stating its support for a move to the Riverside. And, turning to other points made in letters to The Herald, Mr Mansell said: "I was sorry to read that one correspondent thought there was any doubt about the green lung (or heart): that is absolutely sacrosanct, however it is used." He also confirmed that a letter claiming a link between density and viability was correct. "The summary of the contract published two years ago, soon after we took office, and made widely available, stated - the structure of the financial assessment means that a reduction in the scale of the development will impact directly on Waverley's initial return. "The real issue for Waverley is public concern about the project," he went on, "but we must be reasonably sure we are responding to the views of the mainstream, and not a minority, however vocal, intense and persistent that minority's view may be. "That was the objective of the NOP survey, which was not, as is still being alleged, a flawed process skewed by the fact that Crest Nicholson paid for it. "The core of the survey was face-to-face interviews that were representative of Farnham's key demographic factors (age, sex, working status) but from households spread randomly across the town. "The advantage of this methodology was that, as far as possible, the sample was representative of the population of Farnham, as opposed to the other self-selecting responses such as the postal survey." The main conclusions, said Mr Mansell, were that 75 per cent were spontaneously aware of the development, 49 per cent of the sample were in favour of the scheme and 21 per cent were not in favour. "Waverley councillors from both parties accepted the conclusions of the survey and acknowledged the consequential changes in the developer's plans by sanctioning the developer to proceed to the planning stage."
