Attention all Shepperton, Sunbury and Halliford Residents: This new proposal by Surrey County Council affects your property
By John Douglas
Surrey County Council (SCC) are required to draw up a new Minerals and Waste Local Plan (MWLP). They are conducting a public consul-tation running until the beginning of March 2022. They are requesting your views, so now is the chance to raise objections if you are concerned. SCC have scrapped the existing 2019 policy and are compiling a new poli-cy since it was considered by SCC that the “existing MWLP no longer reflects current planning and envi-ronmental policy”.
Surrey County Council’ Climate Change Strategy (extract) “We recognise that Surrey residents and communities are already facing, and will continue to face, the impacts of climate change on a daily basis. As part of this Strategy, we seek to build on our existing measures to strength-en resilience down to the household level, through climate-proofing our services and infrastructure. It is critical that we work alongside residents, the business community in Surrey and other key partners to ensure we are able to secure the re-quired innovation, behaviour change and investment required to mitigate and adapt to climate change.”
How can Surrey County Council con-tinue to permit gravel extraction at Watersplash Farm in the light of this new require-ment?
The new policy is being drawn up for precisely the reason to reflect the predicted changes in environ-mental and climate change.
So why are they still planning to remove 1.2 mil-lion tons of permeable gravel at Watersplash Farm, close to Shepperton, Halliford and Sunbury villag-es and in an area of high flood risk and replace this with impermeable clay and building rubble infill, thus increasing the flood risk to properties in the area and potentially flooding the two main arterial roads leading to Walton Bridge?
SCC claim to be taking appropriate steps to miti-gate the effects of climate change. Yet, their pro-posal to go ahead with extraction and infill at Wa-tersplash farm can only make matters worse. Have they learnt nothing from the flooding of 2014? Once the gravel is gone it is gone forever and with it our best chance of channelling ground water flood streams out to the rivers, our natural drainage system.
A minerals extraction and infill programme at Wa-tersplash farm, so close to residential properties is simply not acceptable.
We need to make our voices felt and insist that: Surrey County Council withdraw Watersplash farm from the Preferred areas of mineral ex-traction.
On the grounds that: This site is in a densely populated area with al-ready high flood risk. It is directly adjacent to the villages of Shepperton, Halliford and Sunbury and the two main arterial roads leading to Walton Bridge. Thus to adversely affect the natural flood relief by removal of the permeable gravel sub-soil and replacement with impermeable clay and build-ing infill material is in direct contravention of the Council’s revised environmental and climate change policy aims and objectives. To object on these and any other grounds either write to Surrey County Council or email to the address below or complete the online questionnaire at:
Address for correspondence:
Mr. Stephen Jenkins
Planning Development Manager
Surrey County Council
Planning Group
Quadrant Court
Woking, GU22 7QQ
Address for email:
mineralsand-waste.localplan@surreycc.gov.uk
Web site for online response:
https://smwlp.commonplace.is/proposals
The deadline for reply is 7th March 2022