Planning Proposals for Holly Parade, Cobham, High Street

The developer has now submitted an application (although it has still to be registered as of 8 Aug 2016) to develop 1-7 Holly Parade, Cobham - the empty shops in the High Street opposite Farrants. The proposed development is quite stark with a flat roof and in our view quite out of keeping with the architecture nearby of pitched roofs and gables. As soon as the application has been registered it will be published and the clock will start ticking for comments. This could happen any day now or in the next week or two. As usual we shall email the grounds on which we shall object and the points on which we shall be basing this Trust's objections.

As you know the developers have carried out extensive consultations involving the community. Indeed they wrote to over 2000 residents and stakeholders and over 200 attended their meetings - more, they say, than for any previous McCarthy and Stone development. We believe that the majority who attended would have expressed deep reservations about the architectural style of the frontage above the shops and the flat roof but our evidence is only anecdotal. All those who have attended any of the meetings or responded to the developers will have received a newsletter in the last week and a reply card requesting feedback.

In the Newsletter it states "...these proposals were shaped by the local community. Following the feedback we received from residents we have carefully reviewed the scheme and made a number of design changes...." this is just not true because the community would not have shaped the proposals to include a flat roof furthermore in the changes that the architects have made (and, to give them credit, these are improvements) no mention is made that they are not responding to requests for dispensing with the flat roof.

For those who have received their newsletter and the feedback form and feel the same way as us may we ask you to submit the feedback form making a strong comment that you still believe that the flat roof and frontage above the shops is wrong for this High Street and pays no regards to the architecture around e.g. at Farrants opposite. We must not leave it on record that the community acquiesced with their proposals or even worse helped to frame them.

Once the application has been published we shall consider it and write to our members within the timescale for objecting, with our views.