Hi all, We hope you didn’t catch our virus – So sorry! We seem to have had a virus sending empty emails to all. I am really upset but think it should now stop.
I hope you didn’t open the empty messages from the Society.
NEWS TO FOLLOW
thank you as ever for your support
Sue
Cranleigh Arts Centre is run by a Board of Directors, a few staff and many hard-working, dedicated volunteers. The Arts Centre has to make sure the building is continuously cared for and repaired in the style in which is was built, pay its staff, put on all its activities, with a very small grant from Waverley, revenue from events and a few major fund raising events. Cranleigh society supports CAC and hopes you can and do as well.
https://www.cranleighartscentre.org/whats-on/
Topics we need your opinion about – have you written to Surrey about the Community Recycling Centre?
Have you seen the police and the Police Community Support Officers about – is it helping you feel more safe?
Are you watching over the developments and have questions or information?
Do come and join us from 6.30 pm at the Three Horseshoes Pub on Monday 17th June
we look forward to see you
Sue
We’ve had Brexit divisions, local elections, and now European elections – Has anyone out there got the energy to work on preserving and recreating Cranleigh as a lovely place to live, work and play? Come and meet up with a few of us this Monday – several of our helpers and followers have gone on holiday – but we will still meet up.
NEWS –
Cranleigh Parish Council (CPC) have held a robust planning meeting with representatives from Crest Nicholson – Horsham Road developments – and CVHT, including Tetlow King planning consultants. The minutes can be viewed on CPC web site for planning committee 15th April. It makes interesting reading – and 2 CVHT representatives were there and offered some replies to important queries – there’s a lot there – have a look if it’s your interest – it’s like Brexit though – some people are so against it all and some really want it done! We don’t have a standpoint – since we were heavily involved in fund raising and backed off when it all changed so much! If it goes ahead Knowle Lane will not receive a roundabout but a cross roads between Knowle Lane, Berkeley homes and HC One & CVHT site and more traffic calming measures at Marks & Spencers & John Wiskar Drive entrance.
Waverley Borough Council (WBC) – as you know there are new councillors and although the Conservatives are the majority they are outnumbered by the others put together. This may be because of the enormous amount of planning applications that have gone through – do you think so?
Cranleigh Society has looked into the planning situation at the moment on Waverley’s planning portal – there’s a road application to do with Dunsfold’s development, it will go along the line of the runway straight out onto the A281 and be lined with trees – “SO/2019/0005 30/04/2019 Request for Screening Opinion.
IN OTHER NEWS
We visited the Police representatives at the Parish council office along with many others of the public. We had a list of worries – good to know they have arrested people regarding the spate of car crimes recently – great. They don’t know of much in the way of other problems. They are based in Godalming these days! We found the 2 Officers helpful and friendly – determined to improve policing around our area, and to interact positively with school children too. We have one Sergeant and 6 Police Community Support Officers (PCSO) for our area, so they have their work cut out. What can we do to help them we asked – Report crimes and suspicious activities with evidence wherever possible and quickly – time, place, what you saw or experienced – use the on line report system and/or phone 101 https://www.surrey.police.uk/ro/report/ocr/af/how-to-report-a-crime/. We told them that we feel less safe to walk around these days, especially at night and around the fields, and they say they need help to identify what is going on, but we will be seeing the PCSOs around more. They say we are safe – very low crime rate! They are improving links with other areas but the “INTEL” is already very good they say. The highest crimes are around cyber crimes including banking and related fraud – so be aware! By the way, they work closely with Waverley and their multi agency community safety officers and Joint Action Group…. is it working? What do you think?
What is a PCSO? A recruitment page says “Police Community Support Officers have a vital and unique role within communities; providing a visible uniformed presence, helping the police to tackle anti-social behavior and providing reassurance to the public as well as working to understand their local issues. You will additionally have policing powers to enable you to bring to justice those who seek to disrupt or bring harm to all that live, work or travel through our county”. Ours are well thought of as working well to diffuse problems and keep an eye on bad behaviours……
SPEEDING – we have been asked to publish worries about increased speeding around town – and to see if there is anything we can do about it! Your ideas are needed!
Some people experience difficulties with getting their prescriptions – what is underlying the problem do you think? Let us know. Maybe we can help.
To prove the doubters wrong, Cranleigh Civic Society is alive and well. We have a new chair, Trevor Dale and new members and supporters keen to help Cranleigh grow in a way that builds on and enhances everything we love about it.
Trevor has been resident here since 1975 and has been an active member of the redoubtable Cranleigh & District Lions Club for 37 years, twice serving as President. The club is thriving and always welcoming people keen to help serve the local community.
So why does Trevor want to help the Civic Society? Well he’s been close to it for a while and believes it is a worthwhile group and Terry Stewart, who has served as hard-working chair recently has been forced to quit due to personal health issues.
Several of the founding members have moved on, having contributed masses of research and lost quite a bit of sleep. Some, such as Liz Townsend, have gone on to tackle the local political route to try and help keep Cranleigh what it is.
The new society members have the same aims and perhaps a slightly different direction in addition. Development, we know, is inevitable so what can we achieve? Well we think that not losing sight of what is good could help? Just focussing on negativity can damage morale and raise apathy. We applaud the liaisons that Terry put in place with Waverley Borough Council other important bodies, because standing outside just attacking people, while it can occasionally produce benefits, all too frequently closes down communication avenues. Some improvements have been made and we will always bring our very real concerns to their attention – like a dripping tap – hoping they will eventually improve things.
So may we reassure you that the Civic Society will keep up the pressure on those who have influence and control over our lives but through dialogue and not accepting bland brush-off statements.
This week we had a meeting set up with people at Waverley but they called it off at the last moment due to the changes in the councillors. Not surprising in the wake of the drubbing they’ve received at the recent polls.
So, what are we focused on? We continue to keep the water pressure up (pun intended) on Thames and Waverley BC. Specifically, we want testing done on the actual pipes we have in Cranleigh under burst conditions. Waverley BC are ultimately responsible for our water safety and they must seek evidence that it is safe – not the other way around – proof that it’s dangerous. After all other parts of the World (Australia and New Zealand) won’t be spending huge sums on renewing pipes on a whim.
We will continue to fight to keep the recycling centre open but we need to have a plan B. The future looks bleak for Cranleigh’s CRC.
How can we ensure that maximum recycling takes place locally? It’s amazing how many misconceptions we carry about what could and could not be recycled – have you watched some BBC videos recently? Maybe we all need better education. We certainly should be fully aware of what happens to our current street collection material. Where does it actually go? How much is actually recycled? Do we need to be more careful about how we recycle?
Let’s get together and if our Monthly Mondays don’t suit you – please get in touch and we get meet up for a chat and action planning too!
best regards from all of Cranleigh Civic Society team to all our members
www.cranleighsociety.org
www.facebook.com/cranleighsociety/
Tonight we meet up with our newly elected representatives and friends, to see how we can shine a light on problems and progress. We appreciate that we haven’t stopped the over-development of Cranleigh and that’s a shame. But small things have been achieved and we do work hard to find out important information, to ensure that the councils are better at communicating, and to share what we know with you all.
If you think you know of something we need to know – please respond soon. We will review many topics including all the planning applications and conditions – a huge task. We will keep an eye on our trees and hedgerows too.
Our main topic tonight will be actions about our Drinking Water supply pipes, some are very old and keep bursting, and are made of potentially harmful asbestos cement. Following on from the Financial Times article and the Flood Forum Anne Milton MP, is now in favour of pursuing the powers-that-be to get some answers. In particular whether there is a risk of peritoneal mesothelioma from crocidolite (blue) asbestos?
Here is what has been done –
Society members contacted the Health & Safety Board some years ago. They stated that CCS would have to carry out a Risk Assessment of the possible problems and health risks posed by bursting water pipes – some in Cranleigh are made of asbestos cement, and some of those are made of “Blue” asbestos cement.
These fibres, if released into the drinking water around the time of the bursts may get into people’s bodies.
So the risk assessment was very professionally carried out and sent to Waverley Borough Council – it is their duty to ensure that our drinking water is “fit for consumption” by law. That was years ago. Since then many people of many professions have been involved and haven’t found hard evidence of fibres being released and ingested, or of fibres doing harm to people’s intestines etc if ingested. (of course we know that inhaled asbestos fibres can cause illnesses, and this includes swallowing products from the chest – which happens from time to time -especially if people are ill).
n.b. The 1996 WHO report was based on white asbestos (blue wasn’t tested at all). The WHO response to Anne Milton MP recently was not at all what is needed – so we asked – can they be persuaded to undertake some studies – what can we do to get this done? Cranleigh Parish Councillors are also pressing for answers.
So the current situation is as follows – Anne Milton is waiting for a meeting with Public Health England and others, then meeting Waverley Councillors, Waverley CEO and others, to discuss next steps, reporting back in September.
WHO (World Health Organisation), IARC (the department at WHO that deals with all cancer risk related research) did do a very thorough report last year (2018) https://monographs.iarc.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/mono100C-11.pdf and within that report they considered corrosion of asbestos cement pipes.
So WHO are quite up-to-date about this subject and if they say to Anne from their review meeting this month that they do not have any concerns about any ingestion disease risk from old crocidolite (blue) asbestos pipes, then that’s a good result. Or they may say that there is a risk, or that more research is needed.
At the end of the day, we all look up to and respect WHO as the “top-of-the-chain” when it comes to assessing disease risk around the world, with access to top scientific brains.
keep in touch and make us feel our efforts are worth while!
see you soon? If you can’t make Mondays why not get in touch and we can get together any time to share what we know and what you know too.
NEXT social at the Three Horseshoes pub is from 6.30 pm on 2nd Monday in May – 13th
