LEADING local Conservatives have called for an inquiry into a Waverley Borough Council planning row which has provoked bitter political mud-slinging between the the Lib Dems and Tories.

The row centres on the new blue-topped sports pavilion in Weycombe Road, built as part of a multi-million pound regeneration scheme for the Kilnfields estate, and erected just yards from the homes of two residents.

Residents were horrified when the footings went in opposite their homes. They claimed that its positioning on the recreation ground had been altered five times, without any consultation with neighbours.

Further problems arose after Waverley Borough Council recommended that it should buy the two homes concerned, believed to be worth in the region of £250,000 each, and rent them out to key workers.

The recommendation, which was overturned by the Lib Dems at a full council meeting in September, brought with it bitter recriminations from Conservatives and the public, over the failure of promised consultations over the pavilion.

The Lib Dems also responded saying that to buy the two homes was an "irresponsible" way of spending council taxpayers' money.

The Herald has been inundated with letters on the matter and this week, as the political backbiting continued unabated, Jeremy Hunt, the prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate for SW Surrey, stepped in, branding the Lib Dems' decision not to buy the homes as "an absolute disgrace".

Mr Hunt believed "a mistake was clearly made and a very fair scheme to recompense the owners of the two houses was agreed by the council and overturned by the Lib Dems for political motives.

Mr Hunt said it was "scurrilous to suggest that the purchase of these two houses would cost Waverley the full market price because they would become an asset that Waverley would be able to sell at a profit in the future."

Mr Hunt said he would be writing to Christine Pointer, the Waverley chief executive, "to make sure the facts of the situation are clearly spelled out and not distorted by party-political point scoring".

In a letter to The Herald this week, one of the residents at the centre of the storm, Ann Spilberg, likened the new building to a "fish-packing factory".

Responding to a plea from Haslemere Town Council to change the colour of the pavilion's bright blue cladding, she said that "all the paint in the world" would not make it look any better.

And to the Waverley and town councillors who, she says, still feel that the residents had brought the misfortune on themselves by not taking advantage of the consultation procedures, she declared: "I have to say once and for all, wake up at the back of the class!

"Waverley has already admitted that the consultation process failed, or to put it another way, there simply was no consultation regarding the fifth pavilion site plan."