It’s great to know that Cala Homes have done such an in-depth study of Cranleigh before they produced their Amlets Lane Construction Environment Management Plan!!!

The author so obviously has never visited Cranleigh, has never driven down, or cycled to Amlets Lane and has never used the bus service here!! Err, and we almost forgot, or the TRAIN STATION?

So glaringly inept is the Cala Group report it could be featured on an episode of the “Thick of It”!!  It would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious.

We as residents know exactly how dangerous Amlets Lane is and how completely ridiculous it is to build 125 houses with a single access road on to what is an extremely narrow rural road. So many residents have expressed deep concerns about the safety of this lane, but Surrey Highways, who are the only ones who can really object, have said it is fine.

Getting back to the Cala Homes report.  Apparently construction workers are going to use Cranleigh Main Line Station to get to the site, which is only a mile away!  You can read this for yourself on Page 10 of the report.

We are assuming that each construction worker will be equipped with a time travelling device, as the station closed on 14 June 1965!!

We do hope that Waverley Planners have noticed this point too, or maybe they still think there is a station here?

Never fear even with the lack of mainline station apparently there are “numerous opportunities for the use of public transport to gain access to the site.” Well, good luck with that one too!

Cala Homes also confirm that the “site can be accessed by the motorway network and major A roads.“.  Someone had better inform them we only have one ‘A road’ which doesn’t come through Cranleigh.

Although to be applauded for their “Cycle to Work Policy” (Page 14), we were somewhat surprised to see that Cala Homes are going to encourage all personnel to use bikes to access the Amlets Lane site.

They must be an extremely fit lot of site managers and construction workers, with some very small tool bags!  Perhaps a map would help them?

For the Cala Group – this is where the site is:

And this is really how wide Amlets Lane is (note the size of the car!) – courtesy of Google Earth:

As you can see no pavements, narrow, and nowhere for construction workers to park!  Cala Homes apparently is trying to negate the need for construction workers to park on “local roads adjacent to the site” (Page 13); we suggest they take a look at those roads first, only an idea!

Cala Homes confirm on Page 14 that “Access is permitted from both East and West along Amlets lane and due to the location of the development it is not planned to stipulate and place restrictions on direction of access for larger vehicles.” This means that  construction traffic will be coming both ways down Amlets Lane, can’t wait for two vehicles to meet!

There are so many anomalies and errors in this report we don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but what we do know is that we take no comfort from Cala Homes “proven track record” so far!