East Street in Farnham

Update on East Street

east street plan aug08

Latest news

Waverley councillors have refused a variation to the planning application from Crest Nicholson, the developers of East Street.

Crest Nicholson submitted a planning application (Planning Application WA/2010/0372) to vary one of the conditions (Condition 37) regarding the original Planning Permission granted to Planning Application WA/2008/0279 for the redevelopment of Land at East Street. You can view Condition 37 here.

The Joint Planning Committee met on 26 May 2010 to determine the Variation of Condition 37. Elected councillors at the meeting disagreed with Crest Nicholson and felt that allowing the construction vehicles through Farnham would lead to an unacceptable increase in traffic in the town.

Why do Crest Nicholson want to vary Condition 37?

Since this permission Crest Nicholson have been progressing studies with a view to submitting a planning application for the temporary construction access. The work undertaken by Crest Nicholson and their consultants has identified that there would be significant impacts resulting from the implementation of the A31 construction access. These impacts are:

Direct conflict with a number of key planning policies
Loss of a large section of mature tree belt
Temporary loss of flood storage capacity within the floodplain of the River Wey
Impacts on ecology, namely badgers and bats
Severe disruption and resultant impact upon the highway network during the temporary access construction and reinstatement work periods
Harm to residential amenity of residents at Homepark House.

In the light of these impacts and the assessments made Crest Nicholson consider that provision of an access to the A31 is not a satisfactory way forward and have therefore submitted this planning application to vary Condition 37 to omit the requirements for and provision of a temporary construction access from and to the A31, and to instead utilise the existing highway network.

Original planning permission granted

On 1 October 2008, the Joint Planning Committee resolved to grant planning permission and listed building consent for the applications WA/2008/0279 and WA/2008/0280 for the regeneration of East Street in Farnham.

The Council's Joint Planning Committee also met on 29 October 2008 and agreed the conditions and the Heads of Terms for the legal agreements for application WA/2008/0279. The planning permission was issued on 6 August 2009.

The Council will now use its powers of compulsory purchase to move on the acquisition of key parts of the East Street site that remain outside its control. The Council also agreed to the negotiation of significant changes to the development agreement with Crest Nicholson and Sainsbury's.

You can view:

the planning permission
the Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, relating to the development of East Street
the listed building consent
the revised development agreement will be available to view online shortly

View the exhibition

You can look at the East Street exhibition by developers Crest Nicholson which took place on January 30 2010 to see the routing of construction traffic and plans for the development.

View the applications and minutes of meetings

Below are links to key information:

WA/2008/0279 application
the listed building application (WA/2008/0280)
the agenda and supporting documents for the Planning Committee on 1 October 2008
the Joint Planning Committee - East St (Conditions and planning agreement) agenda, report and minutes from 29 October 2008

Full paper copies of the applications can be seen at the Farnham office in South Street and at the planning enquiries desk at The Burys in Godalming.

The size of the Planning Application and the Environmental Statement means it is not possible for the entire application to be displayed on this website. However, you can download the application form, location plan and some other documents and plans to give you an overview of the application.