A DATE in May has been provisionally earmarked as decision day for the East Street redevelopment, after Crest Nicholson and Sainsbury's lodged their planning application for a reduced and almost completely redesigned scheme this week. Sent back to the drawing board after Conservatives took control of Waverley Council at last year's local elections, architects for the developers have been working since September on proposals "more in the Farnham vernacular". "A bit of twiddling here and tweaking there wasn't going to do the job," Crest Nicholson director Greg Vincent told The Herald. "We have accepted that you can't ride roughshod over what people don't want." He went on to blame Waverley's original brief and advice from "government quangos" for previous styles that were more suited to a newer town like Basingstoke. "In Farnham you have a very solid historical basis and we have picked up that is what people want - more of the same. We have listened to what people have said and tried to react to it." According to Waverley, the application will take some time to validate and will not be available for the public to view until the end of the month. The date of Wednesday, May 28, has been provisionally earmarked for the all-important planning committee debate on the application. In the meantime, the developers have pledged to arrange an exhibition of the proposals before consultations close. What the public will see is a scheme that the developers have budgeted to cost them £78.5 million. It would - thanks largely to doing away with 70 per cent of the underground parking planned - take two years to construct. compared with the previous scheme's four-and-a-half years. As anticipated, the original eight-screen cinema has been reduced - to a 874-seater facility which Crest hope will still be operated by Vue. The number of homes in the scheme has also been substantially cut, but will inevitably continue to court controversy. The reduction is from 294 to 239, whereas "230ish" was Waverley's actual target decrease. Mr Vincent said there is now more variety in accommodation sizes, from one-bedroom flats that could sell for around £160,000, up to penthouse apartments. Gone are the much criticised flat-roofed blocks and where accommodation is four-storey, roof spaces have been used to keep the heights lower. "We think the broad population who are open minded will look at the elevations and find they are more pleasing to them in terms of what they expect for Farnham," said Mr Vincent. There will be less retail, restaurant, café/bar space than originally envisaged, and a wider mix of retail unit sizes has been incorporated, with one anchor unit facing East Street and another onto the new town square. The square itself has been re-orientated to retain two important mature trees and to improve the gateway into the scheme from South Street. Softer landscaping and a redesigned "Brightwell Park" with an improved vista to the river are also being promised. Crest is also hopeful that the new scheme will persuade will persuade owners of the privately operated public car park on the former cinema site, to finally release their land for the scheme without the need for the complications of compulsory purchase. Mr Vincent said discussions with FNC, who own both that plot and the unloved Woolmead buildings, were progressing well now the new scheme is proposed. Changes for the better in the Woolmead are even a prospect, he added, once everyone was "comfortable" with the East Street scheme. "I think they, like the people of Farnham, weren't enamoured with the architecture. They didn't want to get fully on board because they were doubtful whether we would get planning permission," Mr Vincent explained. He believes the resulting scheme will provide the financial rewards that Waverley want and meet the needs of Crest's investors and shareholders, although he added, in the current difficult housing market, "margins are thin". Any need to reduce the scheme further would, he warned, result in reductions to infrastructure improvements on the site. "If the scheme is reduced any further, everyone gets squeezed." Waverley is chasing well over £2 million that it has spent furthering the scheme so far over many fruitless years, not including the value of the land it will bring to the project. Mr Vincent nevertheless estimates the asset value of the scheme to the council at in excess of £10 million, once initial payments, a brand new Gostrey Centre and tennis centre and a profits share of several hundreds of thousands of pounds a year are totted up. "This will be beneficial to both parties," he stressed.