Surrey County Council intends to gain planning permission to build housing on the sites of Cranleigh Primary School including the Infants and Nursery. They intend to build a new school on fields to the North of Glebelands school – if you are standing beside the Curry Inn and look across the Common, past the houses that’s where it will be. It would house more children from nursery age to 11. You can view the plans on the school’s website.

Most people don’t agree that the school should be replaced on a different site but are genuinely concerned that Surrey CC won’t afford the new build unless it sells the old sites. We need to insist to SCC that this is not good enough.  Furthermore – we are not convinced that the current building is safe and think SCC really should implement some repairs and renewals as soon as possible.  We believe the schools should be newly built on the old site, as well.

For these reasons we are putting up a petition which we hope enough people will engage with and sign, to try to bring our opinions to Surrey CC asap.  Please take action when you see the petition come round  – it will say –

We, the undersigned, petition the Surrey County Council not to relocate Cranleigh Primary School to the Glebelands playing fields but to rebuild the school on the present site.

The proposed relocation is unacceptable for the following reasons:

  • The new site has been deemed unsuitable for housing therefore not suitable for a school
  • Access to the Glebelands School site will be restricted and unsafe for young children who will have to walk up a long narrow footpath to the pupil entrance at the far end.
  • Vehicular access to the main entrance of the Glebelands site will be reserved for staff vehicles only. There will be no parking provision for parents nearby nor places to wait outside the school gate at school pickup time.
  • The Glebelands site will be further from the school bus stops and further from the new housing estates.
  • The Glebelands site is prone to flooding and will have to provide artificial grass whereas the present school site has plenty of natural grassy areas for play and sport.
  • with regard to climate change, the rebuilding of Cranleigh Primary School on its present site will have less environmental impact and be more sustainable.