Regarding your article about Brightwells Gostrey moving to Wrecclesham (Farnham Herald, June 5), the original successful bid by Crest Nicholson in 2002 involved redeveloping the Sainsbury’s store and adjacent car park, while retaining Brightwell Garden and the bowling green.

The plan also included a new Gostrey community centre. Following the council’s 2003 contract signing with Crest Nicholson, it was reported that the developer would pay £20 million for the land. A planning application submitted in 2006 received 4,468 objections. The bowling club sadly closed in 2007, and its clubhouse was later demolished.

The scheme was then scaled back, removing the Sainsbury’s store and car park. Despite 5,833 objections to a revised application, planning permission was granted in 2009, and a development agreement was finalised in 2010. Waverley Borough Council (WBC) needed to acquire three parcels of land: the Old Health Centre between Dogflud Car Park and Brightwell House, the car park south of East Street, and the Marlborough Head pub.

The entire 9.8-acre site was intended to be sold to the developer for £8.76 million. However, in 2016, WBC made further concessions, reducing the land’s value to £3.19 million—less than the council’s original purchase price. To make room for the proposed Marks and Spencer store, the Gostrey Centre was proposed to be ejected from the scheme, prompting councillors to seek alternative locations to accommodate it.

Objecting residents argued that this deviated from the original plan, which included constructing the new Gostrey Centre as part of the Brightwells redevelopment. The Gostrey Centre was later removed from the scheme, along with the requirement for affordable social housing.

Objectors pointed out that key scheme modifications should have triggered a re-tendering process. Due to this, Waverley sought an alternative site for the Gostrey Centre, ultimately choosing the Memorial Hall, which would require modifications to make it suitable.

The Gostrey Centre was relocated from its initial site and integrated into a broader redevelopment of the Farnham Memorial Hall and was now proposed to be a combined community space and day centre, justifying the expense. This project was funded upfront by Waverley taxpayers. Adam Taylor-Smith, then Waverley’s portfolio holder for major projects, explained that the funds Crest Nicholson would have invested in building a new centre within Brightwells would now be redirected toward the Memorial Hall project, though he clarified the amounts wouldn’t cover the entire refurbishment.

Cllr Julia Potts, then deputy council leader, highlighted the perceived benefits of relocating to a modern, sustainable facility that could continue providing essential services. While opponents criticised the new location for being outside the town centre, Taylor-Smith argued it would provide more parking and reduce disruption.

In July 2015, Waverley’s executive committee approved plans to redevelop Farnham’s Memorial Hall and relocate the Gostrey Centre, with final council approval scheduled for July 21. The project received £700,000 in funding to proceed. Ultimately, the Memorial Hall redevelopment cost £3.2 million.

This relocation marked an amendment to the original Brightwells plan, which aimed to build a new centre as part of the East Street redevelopment. Critics argued that the proposed site—on the town’s edge—could limit access for some users. However, Gostrey trustees maintained that the current, dilapidated centre would benefit from being housed in the more modern Memorial Hall.

WBC gained its own planning permission for a ‘rear’ extension and spent £3.2million doing so. It was opened in 2019. This was only 6 years ago and yet look closely at what we have paid for? The roof and wall materials of this extension are hideous.

So, after all this disgraceful spending of the public purse we have ended up with a ‘town centre’ development that is proving to be hard to let and largely empty, a Memorial Hall that has a badly designed extension, far from sustainable, and a proposed move of the Gostrey Centre again. Presumably because current administration at Waverley is not prepared to subsidise our elderly day care and want to move them out to an ageing hall in Wrecclesham.

What happened to all the justifications of moving the original day centre to the Memorial Hall seven years ago - i.e. ‘a modern, sustainable facility that could continue providing essential services’? And ‘it would provide more parking and reduce disruption.’

Yolande Hesse

Farnham

With regard to John Gaskell's letter concerning the Labour Party's actions to turn the tide on water pollution (Herald & Post, May 29).

It is indeed outrageous that only three people in the water sector have been prosecuted for any environmental related crimes since privatisation but this is extremely unlikely to change under the Labour Government.

Furthermore, according to an article by Ben Cooke in a recent edition of The Times, the three people who were prosecuted did not receive a penalty.

The article also pointed out that the introduction of prison sentences for water company bosses who break the law is unlikely to put them off "continuing business as usual" because the regulator does not have the resources to prosecute them.

Although the Government has given judges the power to jail water firm bosses for up to two years if they cover up sewage spills, James Wallace, the chief executive of River Action, is reported in the article as stating that the likelihood of this law being enforced is slim as the Environment Agency has too few resources, too little legal expertise and too little access to court time to actually prosecute water companies.

The Environment Agency has had repeated cuts in the past decade and almost 9,000 people have left it since 2016. The agency has routinely decided not to prosecute companies that have caused serious pollution incidents and out of 495 incidents which took place between April 2016 and December 2020, and on which investigators prepared files and recommended prosecution in all of the cases, agency managers decided to pursue only 35.

It can take five years for the agency to get access to the courts to prosecute water companies and such a long wait is not going to put water companies off continuing with business as usual, so it pays to pollute. Also, according to Wallace, the powers are unlikely to result in prosecutions as they target bosses who covered up pollution incidents, not those who let them happen in the first place.

The Government has committed to nearly triple the number of water firm inspections by 2027 but Wallace said that the drive to increase scrutiny was being undermined because "a lot of the inspections are forewarned. So if you're a water company you know that you have a week to quickly clear up that site. We need on-the-spot inspections."

Has the Labour Government given the Environment Agency the resources it needs to recruit and train more staff, the necessary money and access to the courts to enable prosecution?

I would very much like to know but I think it unlikely. Recently Natural England faced cuts yet again and lost another 200 staff.

Many experienced staff have already left as they take voluntary redundancy, and now more are likely to follow, therefore there is a black hole of knowledge. The agency also lacks the money and resources to prosecute offenders so special sites such as Sites of Special Scientific Interest do not have the protection they need.

Defence spending is due to increase and the money has to come from somewhere. Both the Environment Agency and Natural England are regarded as soft targets. This is very short sighted, but is what I have come to expect from the Government, which can never think long term.

The Government is not going to clean up our waterways and seas, reverse the decline in nature or meet its climate change targets if it does not change its own "business as usual short term thinking approach" to the natural environment which requires long term solutions, and this needs to start now.

Furthermore it has reneged on its promise to increase protection for the natural environment by proposing, in its draft Planning and Infrastructure Bill, to weaken existing levels of environmental protection by permitting developers to develop sites without regard to the habitat and the wildlife but just pay into a fund - as if this is going to protect nature.

Surveys and care are required and protected and special sites should be just that, however, it seems that everything is now up for grabs. We should be very concerned about the natural environment and wildlife for many reasons, not just because it is beautiful and desirable, but because we need green spaces for the sake of our physical and mental health - surely Covid showed us that - for flood protection, food production, wild flowers are required for pollinators, water for all life, trees for protection, shelter, shade and also flood alleviation, grasslands and peat for the absorption and retention of carbon dioxide.

In conclusion this Labour government is not on track to clean up our waterways, reverse the decline in nature (the worst in Europe) or meet its climate change targets.

Julie Russ

Crondall Lane

Farnham

When mention was made of Sir Bernard Montgomery’s time spent at Amesbury School while he was planning for D-Day (Haslemere Herald, May 29), no mention was made of his son David.

David was a pupil at the School and served as a governor for many years. I was sorry that he wasn’t included in the coverage.

Pat Snelling

Wormley