Public meeting about Elmbridge Borough Council’s Local Plan consultation - 19 Sept 2019

Cobham Heritage, Cobham Green Belt Group and its affiliated local groups from Cobham, Oxshott, Downside and Stoke D’Abernon, are pleased to invite the public to a meeting to discuss the Elmbridge Borough Council’s Local Plan consultation on Thursday 19th September 2019 at 7.30pm.

The consultation asks residents to choose between five ‘strategic options’ to help the council draft this Local Plan and is open until 30th September 2019. We will be joined at our meeting by our local councillors led by James Brownewho will be pivotal as this plan develops.

These Options include one that foresees 16,300 new homes in Elmbridge. This would nearly double our local population as our share of these new houses would be both in our further developed urban areas and in two or more large areas of our local Green Belt (see www.cobhamgreenbelt.org.uk for more details).

The meeting will give all local residents an opportunity to hear and discuss these options, and how we may influence the final plan.

The meeting will be held at St. Andrew’s Church, Downside Bridge Road, Cobham KT11 3EJ. There is limited car parking there and on the local streets. Free car parking in the Hollyhedge Road car park is available from 7pmonwards.

We hope you and all your friends and neighbours will be able to join us for this important event.

Elmbridge Borough Council (EBC) Local Plan consultation has begun

The Elmbridge Borough Council (EBC) Local Plan consultation has now begun and will remain open until Mon 30th September 2019.

A number of our Cobham Heritage Trustees are working with other groups as part of the Cobham Green Belt Group. Here is a progress update:-

Consultation Questionnaire Problems

The consultation information and online questionnaire are provided via the EBC consultation website which has had some technical problems, and some have had problems navigating the site and finding the questionnaire itself.

The technical problems seem to have been resolved but some are still having problems navigating the site. In particular, access to the online questionnaire is not obvious as it appears at the foot of the “A New Local Plan: The Options Consultation” page, which is not seen unless you scroll to the very bottom of the page.

Elmbridge Borough Council Public Meetings

The free EBC’s public meeting on the 2nd September 2019 for Cobham, Oxshott, Downside and Stoke D’Abernon is 'Sold Out'.

Despite pressing the council to provide an additional one for Cobham, Oxshott, Downside and Stoke D’Abernon, the council is refusing to either change the venue to one with a larger capacity or add an additional date to cater for the number of residents who wish to attend. Their only suggestion is to attend a meeting for one of the other areas. You can register to attend one of the other meetings (even though their focus will be on a different area of Elmbridge) by selecting one of the alternative dates. The dates of the meetings currently announced are:-

1. Tuesday 27 August 2019 - Weybridge area
2. Wednesday 28 August 2019 - Walton-on-Thames and Hersham area
3. Thursday 29 August 2019 - Molesey area
4. Monday 2 September 2019 - Cobham, Oxshott and Stoke D'Abernon area – SOLD OUT!
5. Tuesday 3 September 2019 - The Dittons and Hinchley Wood area
6. Thursday 5 September 2019 - Esher and Claygate area

You can only attend one of the meetings and you must have a ticket. To obtain your free ticket you must register online via the following link:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/local-plan-public-meetings-tickets-65086737183 

All these meetings will be webcast live so you will be able to attend ‘virtually’ via the following link:

elmbridge.public-i.tv/core/portal/home

Cobham Green Belt Group Public Meeting

The Cobham Green Belt Group (supported by Cobham Heritage and other local organisations) will be having a public meeting in mid-September (venue and date to be confirmed soon) to give residents an opportunity to ask questions about the process and hopefully get answers. Our councillors are being invited to join us at that meeting.

How to Respond to the Consultation

The Cobham Green Belt Group team is analysing the information provided by EBC and will be offering advice and recommendations via the www.cobhamgreenbelt.org.uk website by the 1st September 2019. This will enable our residents to take part before the end of the consultation on Mon 30th September 2019.

In the meantime, do register on the EBC Consultation website at

consult.elmbridge.gov.uk/consult.ti/system/register

and look at the information available.

One of the key EBC documents is “The Options Consultation Document”. For your convenience we have made it available via the following link in case you have difficulty finding it on the Elmbridge Consultation Website:

EBC Local Plan Options Consultation Document

For all the latest consultation documentation and the questionnaire, be sure to visit

consult.elmbridge.gov.uk/consult.ti/system/login

Save Our Villages and Our Green Belt!

As we reported recently, Elmbridge Borough Council’s (EBC’s) consultation on the new local plan starts on Monday 19th August at 9am and finishes on 30th September 2019. To take part in the consultation you must first register at www.consult.elmbridge.gov.uk  and to attend EBC’s public briefing meeting on Monday 2nd September 2019, go to www.elmbridge.gov.uk/localplan. 

It is really important that we all take this chance to comment on number, density and siting of new housing, the need to protect our green belt and green spaces from development and the necessity of adding appropriate infrastructure not just houses!

We set up the Cobham Green Belt Group to act as an umbrella bringing together our group and other local groups concerned about these issues so that we could all speak with one voice. Cobham Heritage is strongly represented on this group by four of our Trustees including Adrian Wise, one of our planning officers who is its chair. Please register for updates from them at www.cobhamgreenbelt.org.uk. This group includes Cobham Heritage and also the Chamber of Commerce, the resident’s associations of Cobham & Downside, Stoke D’Abernon and Oxshott and some other local interest groups. It is important we send a strong, single message to Elmbridge for our community.

EBC will offer five options in their consultation that includes one that would double our local population in only 15 years by building 16,000 new houses including a disproportionate share of them in Cobham, Oxshott, Downside and Stoke D’Abernon. These would be built over intensively in the built up areas and on our Green Belt, playing fields, allotments and other green spaces. Others options are almost as bad. Their Option 4 proposes no loss of Green Belt and the fewest houses - thus the smallest number of new people with the least impact on our roads, parking, pollution, schools, doctors, the environment, etc., but even this option with massively increased density is very far from straightforward.

We will be issuing further guidance on how you might choose to respond to the questionnaire as this develops over the next few weeks. The path to a local plan will be extremely contentious and we anticipate we may well end up in the law courts like in Guildford. So I cannot stress more strongly the need to get engaged in the forthcoming consultation and register with EBC as indicated at the beginning of this email. We are lucky to have such an experienced team with the legal backing to guide us as we move forward.

Please engage in the consultation and inform your neighbours as it sets the course for our community for the next 15 years.

Hollyhedge Car Park to be refurbished over the Summer (2019)

The Council car park at Hollyhedge Road in Cobham is undergoing a complete refurbishment, including slightly extending the car park and closing off the access onto Downside Bridge Road to create additional parking capacity. Once complete the car park will provide much improved facilities including Pay on Exit payments and additional electric car charging points.

The refurbishment scheme includes complete resurfacing works which will involve temporary closure to large sections of the car park on a rotational basis. To minimise the level of disruption, approximately 50 parking places will be kept available (currently there are 196) and the work will take place during August and finish early September 2019 when the demand for parking is typically lower.

As a result, car parking in Cobham is likely to be more difficult during this summer, although there will be more car parking spaces from September.