SENIOR East Street figures have been summoned to a Waverley Borough Council meeting next Tuesday to answer questions on the impending development - but a group involved says that Waverley has warned them they cannot ask anything too contentious. The Waverley portfolio holders for East Street and for leisure, culture and tourism, and the directors of planning and development and environment and leisur , will line up at the meeting to answer "any question in relation to the decision-making process leading to the granting of landowner sanction for the East Street, Farnham, scheme". Among the organisations invited to question the panel are Farnham Chamber of Commerce, The Farnham Society, Brightwells tennis and bowls clubs, Farnham Town Council and East Street Action. But East Street Action secretary Eric Boyle has claimed that Waverley is trying to prevent the real questions that need answering from being asked. Mr Boyle referred to a letter that was sent by Waverley's principal committee secretary, Emma McQuillan, to the East Street Action chairman, Anne Thurston. It informed her about the meeting and stated that "in order to guarantee your participation", the chairman required questions participants wished to have dealt with to be submitted in writing by today (Friday). It also stated: "I would, however, caution you not to include anything in your submission which would relate to any issue which may be the subject of planning applications to be considered in due course by members of the council. "I would also advise you not to revisit matters which are currently, or have been, the subject of complaints pursued through the council's complaints procedure, the Local Government Ombudsman, or any judicial route." Mr Boyle said that the wording of the letter has made it impossible to raise some of the issues that East Street Action and other organisations wished to raise. And a member of the Brightwells Bowling Club, Bob Duffield, also felt matters that should be raised would be stifled. Mr Duffield said: "We are being forced to move, the development is forcing us out. "If the development goes ahead it will be untenable for a bowling green, so we are saying 'okay, you are forcing us out, so we have to go somewhere else'." Mr Duffield refered to a bowls club claim that a Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI) report that would have made it clear that the height of the proposed development would threaten the future of the bowling green was withheld by Waverley for more than a year. Mr Boyle said that the STRI report is now with the ombudsman and therefore cannot be mentioned at Tuesday night's meeting. A Waverley spokesman has responded with the following statement: "We understand that there has been a lot of confusion over the interpretation of the letter and we are currently working on another one to clarify the situation." She added: "It is to do with the fact that the select committee are only allowed to address issues in a certain depth and in a certain way. "We wanted to enable people who were going to ask questions to make the most of the time they had and ask the questions that were most beneficial to them." She could not confirm whether the original deadline of will still stand for those who wished to submit questions.
