FORTHCOMING  EVENT

Brighten up the gloom of January and austerity, and bring your friends to the Society’s winter dinner on Thursday 24 January at 7.30 pm in the small hall at St Peter’s Church. Tickets price £18 will be available from the Treasurer. This is always a popular event, so book in good time. We hope to see you there.

LOCAL NEWS

Town Society members alerted the Borough Council to damage at the Town Hall and the Old Fire Station, which are both empty. Vandals had climbed the perimeter fence, smashed the back door of the Fire Station and broken glass in the arched doorways. It turns out that the Council have sold the building outright, not just a 35 year lease as reported, and so have no interest as owner. However they still have a responsibility for the care of listed buildings, and the Planning Dept and a local resident together arranged to secure the building and raise the perimeter fence. We do not know if anyone has inspected the interiors for damage. Meanwhile the company who were running the pub in the Town Hall have advertised the building for sale.

Many thanks to everyone who objected to the ugly railings on the riverside at the Bridge Street car park, and who signed the petition organised by the Society vice-chairman Jackie Wand-Tetley. We are delighted that the Borough Council have listened to residents and removed the railings, using them at the Sunbury skate park instead. The Society offered to pay for a hedge in place of the railings, using Cllr O’Hara’s grant for Conservation Area projects, but this was declined on the grounds that the car park may be redeveloped soon – a prediction we hope is disproved.

At Birch Green none of the proposed changes have yet been implemented, except that holes are being dug in the common for new bollards. Certainly cars must be kept off the grass, but the existing bollard sites should be reused to minimise interference with the common. We understand that the plan to remove the boundary wall and fence, and expose Birch Green to the traffic noise and pollution of Fairfield Avenue, has been dropped.

An application for residential development at the Memorex site, 96-104 Church Street will be made soon. The elegant front building with its listed railings will be retained as offices, but the industrial buildings behind it will be replaced by 16 houses and 35 flats. The site is obviously suitable for housing, but a smaller number of units would make a much better scheme, more suitable for the area. The blocks of flats are at the back of the site, overlooking Island Close, instead of in the middle where their impact would be reduced. Society representatives have met the planning officers to make the case for a smaller scheme to higher standards.

Applications continue for flats in the town centre – a reasonable idea in principle, reducing travel from outlying areas and perhaps having a civilising influence on the High Street. There are several plans for individual flats in vacant space above shops, and a more dramatic one for 14 flats in two new storeys on top of 1-5 Thames Street, the building on the old Johnson & Clark site opposite Debenhams. The high mansard roof on this building is actually a false front which can be removed, while the flats will be set back from the edge, so that the building would not appear very much higher. We agree with the applicants that the existing building is dark, drab and monolithic (and indeed said so when it was planned in the 1980s), but feel that the proposed remedy of turning the whole frontage white may be going too far.

Members may be pleased to hear that 7 borough councillors have donated sums from their Better Neighbourhoods allocations to repair the Sweep’s Ditch pump. SBC is the operating authority for Sweep’s Ditch and is working with the Environment Agency to restore it eventually to a natural watercourse, not needing a pump.

The promised railings to protect the replica London Stone have not been erected.

NATIONAL NEWS

The Government is proposing further changes to planning law to encourage development. The scope of Permitted Development Rights, listing what does not require planning permission, will be extended to include conversion of space over shops into two flats, rather than one, to some industrial alterations, and to large domestic extensions of up to 8m (26 feet) long for detached houses and 6m (20 feet) long for semis and terraces. Well-planned schemes would have got planning permission anyway, so the effect will be to allow flawed extensions and conversions which will adversely affect neighbours. There is consultation on this until 24 December and it is at www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/extendingpdrconsultation.

Other proposed changes will make it possible for developers to overturn Section 106 agreements to provide affordable housing; and will require planners to give full detailed reasons for refusals even when there is an overriding objection in principle, such as the site being Green Belt.