News Bulletin - 20th November 2011

Newspapers

We are pleased to report that our plight made the front page of the Ash & Farnham News & Mail again this week.  The newspapers are now contacting us, instead of us contacting them.

Our Website

We hope that you’ve found our website informative, useful and easy to use. We have had some extremely nice comments back via the site, and for those, we thank you. We also note, with interest, that it’s reported in the local paper that the developers will soon take the unprecedented step of launching their own website, “for members of the community to keep up-to-date with their plans and leave their comments”. This is excellent news, as it shows they are now chasing us, and we’ve only just got started with our campaign. They possibly didn’t get enough bad feedback at the Consultation Event!

They obviously need to re-assure the community that concrete is good, the more houses they can build on green fields the better for the environment, the roads will be safer for our children and it really doesn’t matter that you will no longer be able to drive out of your road. Why you should want to live in a village, when there are millions of pounds to be made, is incomprehensible.

News From The Government

It has come to our attention that Communities secretary, Eric Pickles, has for the third time in less than six weeks refused planning permission for a major housing development in part on the grounds that it would undermine local plan-making.

Last month, Mr. Pickles dismissed plans for a proposed 1,300-home development in Cornwall, stating that granting planning permission would "deny the local community the opportunity of determining its preferred choice of housing sites".

The developer had applied for permission to build up to 1,300 homes on land north of St Austell and had appealed Cornwall Council's decision to refuse planning consent.

The decision follows two other recent appeal verdicts in which large housing schemes were refused permission on similar grounds.

Final Request

If you have a local friend or neighbour who hasn’t logged onto our website or given us their e-mail address, please encourage them to do so. This will mean a great deal later in our campaign.

News Bulletin – 13th November 2011

THANKS

Firstly, let us send thanks to some people.

• To all those people who took clipboards and pounded the streets, knocking on doors, to collect signatures for our Petition

• To those few people who stood outside Tongham Community Centre on Friday, in the cold wind, to encourage people to sign our Petition and to show “Bewley Homes” and “a2dominion” that we are serious in our fight

• And finally the biggest “Thank You” of all goes to all of you who turned out on the night to show your anger and frustration at what is proposed, and show your support for what we are trying to do. We had some nice comments from people, and they are much appreciated

Newspapers

The next piece of news is that we have made contact with the various local newspapers, and for those of you who buy them, you will have noticed that we made the front page of the Ash & Farnham News & Mail this week.  The newspapers will be used again as our campaign progresses

Consultation Event – 11th November 2011

Well, what an evening. We estimate that well over 1,000 people turned up to see for themselves what Bewley Homes and a2dominion plan to do to our community. As you know we were there to collect more signatures for our Petition, collect e-mail addresses so that we can keep you informed of progress, and collect a small “fighting fund”. The fighting fund will be used purely for small direct expenses we are incurring for things like land searches, setting up our website, notifications etc. For your information we collected £332 on Friday, and this was more than we had hoped for.  Thank you to everyone who donated.

As far as we were concerned, the so called “consultation” was an unqualified success, we’re not sure that Bewley Homes feel the same way. They now realise they are going to have a massive fight on their hands, and we know, from your reactions as you left the event, that you are ready for the fight.

We know that we “got to” the Bewley Homes people because one of the male representatives in the hall, when asked yet another question he didn’t like and couldn’t answer, blurted out “well you shouldn’t have bought a house backing onto open land that had potential for building”. The resident was taken aback, as he has lived in Ash Lodge Drive for over 30 years. The Bewleys man then apologised for his outburst, but these people obviously believe that anyone, anywhere, who has a house backing onto open land should be prepared to have a housing development adjacent to them.

We also overheard two of Bewley Homes representatives discussing that they had never had such a massive response to one of their “consultation events”, nor one so hostile and passionate. WELL DONE EVERYONE.

Website

Finally, if you are reading this you have discovered our new Website. We will be publishing News items on this site, and any other information we think will be of interest.

You will notice that you can contact us by e-mail from this site using e-mail address info@ashra.org.uk. Can we please request that, those of you who have been in contact in the past using Graham’s private e-mail address, now use this new Ash Residents Association address. This address is accessed by three people and you can be assured of a quick response. Obviously if you want to contact Graham privately, you still can on his private address.