THE East Street regeneration dream has become a nightmare and perhaps it is now time to call a halt to "this proposed gross over development" claimed Michael Murphy of East Street Action this week. The pressure group has organised an open meeting in Church House, Union Road, on April 20 at 7-30 pm where the case will be put for initiating "a more compatible replacement for the cinema and health centre sites to the benefit of Farnham". Said Mr Murphy: "It was the dream of many to rebuild the Woolmead in the scale and local materials more suited to the comfortable style of Farnham but the dream has instead been hijacked by a development combo of big business, aided and abetted by our Waverley Borough Council. "East Street redevelopment, so called, now has virtually nothing to do with East Street. There are no plans for replacing the 1960s' Woolmead buildings and the only possible benefit from the present proposed scheme is to put a new building of sorts on the cinema site. "The development proposed concentrates on the Brightwells area, removing the tennis courts, the bowling green, the gardener's cottage and its garden and replacing them with three, four and possibly more storey buildings to crowd out what little will remain of our open green space. "Who will benefit from the Brightwells Area Development (BAD)? The alien developers. That is for sure. Sainsbury's, the grocery chain who want a different store to the one that they have at the moment. "And last, but not least, of course, the people of Farnham whose interests are being looked after by Waverley Borough Council, who now control all those pieces of property that really belong to generations of Farnham people who bought and paid for them." The master plan for the scheme, according to Mr Murphy, promises the following: "1. Another health and fitness club, as if we did not have enough already. 2. A night club which will cater for some at the discomfort of others. 3. A theatre or a cinema - well maybe. 4. A meagre town square surrounded by oppressive monolithic multi-storey buildings, nothing remotely like the artist's impression. "5. Some 300 new dwellings generating over 1,000 extra vehicle movements per day and the need for hundreds more parking spaces. 6. Some new shops which, if they are to be financially viable, will either need to attract new custom from outside, needing yet more parking spaces, or leech out the trade from our existing shops in the present town centre causing many to close down to the serious detriment of the town we know and love. "A possible benefit might be the provision of some of the homes being called 'affordable accommodation'," said Mr Murphy. "I really do not know all of what that implies, but my guess is that such homes will be earmarked for those who are inadequately paid for the valuable jobs that they do for the community, this often appears to mean both partners working and probably needing individual transport, possibly private, needing extra car parking spaces over and above the present miserly provision." He pointed that Waverley intends to use a new consultative forum before any planning application is made. "Have we really only got this far after all this time and expense?" he asked, referring to matters still to be completed such as an environmental impact assessment dealing with traffic, pedestrian access, public transport and car parking. "We don't want any half-baked mixture of outline and full applications. We need a real commitment from the development combo for the whole scheme, not a piecemeal development in phases with the most profitable bits done first and the 'nice' bits left to be done sometime later, perhaps if at all, if the profitability runs out." Turning to financial aspects, Mr Murphy referred to a figure of £20 million to be received by Waverley "for Farnham's property". "That seemed a great deal of money but where has it gone? At the last count, this had somehow shrunk to only three million. And there is trouble ahead for the scheme. "Snags apparently unforeseen by our curators are beginning to emerge, all of which are going to cost large sums of money - for example a large part of the site is liable to flood. "Who will pay the extra costs involved? Not the developers, they are only here for profit, not charity. Will it be the grocers? I think not. So who does that leave? Well, WBC. With the remaining three million quickly gone, the scheme will slide into the red and then who will pay up? You guessed it - we, the council taxpayers of Waverley. "We Farnham folk are going to have to pay to have our assets stripped, our green lung spoiled, all for the profit of the developers and the enhancement of a Sainsbury's shop. "So what will we, the people of Farnham get for our substantial sacrifice? The loss of this green space in our town centre with its tennis courts and bowling green, the loss of over 500 convenient car parking spaces to be possible replaced somewhere else. But where? "WBC and the brains behind the scheme thought that they could vandalise the environmentally important green wetland riverside area between the back of East Street/ Guildford Road and the River Wey at Hatchmill but they apparently did not do their homework and have had to withdraw their own planning applications following the revelations regarding flooding and contamination. What a waste of time and money. "This all leaves one wondering is it all worthwhile? Perhaps it is now time to call a halt to this proposed gross over development and instead initiate a more compatible replacement for the cinema and health centre sites to the benefit of Farnham." A spokesperson for Waverley Borough Council said: "Both the Waverley Borough Council and the developers remain fully committed to the entire East Street scheme, and the people of Farnham have indicated that they want the scheme to be developed as soon as possible. "However, it is a fact that schemes of this size take a long time to work up. The format of the planning applications will be resolved as we go through the development consultative process."
