Haslemere Herald and Undershaw
Undershaw made the front page again in the latest issue of The Haslemere Herald.
In it, supporters are invited to lodge objections against the current planning application on the grounds that the new owners have plans to extend the building massively, cover over the well and drastically alter the stables.
Now I agree that these proposals, if true, warrant opposition.
But....
The problem with this is that the current plans on the table make no mention of this. The current request is purely a "change of use" request which will permit the building to be used for educational purposes. Nothing else is on the table at this point.
So lodging objections at this point is daft. You cannot object to unpublished plans. Objecting to one plan (that is, as far as I'm concerned, not a problem) to prevent a rumoured one is silly.
The new owners could indeed have secret plans to knock the whole thing down and build a ten storey college for all we know but until those plans reveal themselves we cannot object to them.
If we make objections at the stage we're at now we risk those objections either being dismissed as irrelevant (most likely) or those objections will sink the whole purchase of the building thus sending it back to its former situation of slowly rotting.
Don't get me wrong, there could be monstrous plans in existence for Undershaw but we need to see them before we can fight them.
Written by Alistair Duncan
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In it, supporters are invited to lodge objections against the current planning application on the grounds that the new owners have plans to extend the building massively, cover over the well and drastically alter the stables.
Now I agree that these proposals, if true, warrant opposition.
But....
The problem with this is that the current plans on the table make no mention of this. The current request is purely a "change of use" request which will permit the building to be used for educational purposes. Nothing else is on the table at this point.
So lodging objections at this point is daft. You cannot object to unpublished plans. Objecting to one plan (that is, as far as I'm concerned, not a problem) to prevent a rumoured one is silly.
The new owners could indeed have secret plans to knock the whole thing down and build a ten storey college for all we know but until those plans reveal themselves we cannot object to them.
If we make objections at the stage we're at now we risk those objections either being dismissed as irrelevant (most likely) or those objections will sink the whole purchase of the building thus sending it back to its former situation of slowly rotting.
Don't get me wrong, there could be monstrous plans in existence for Undershaw but we need to see them before we can fight them.
Written by Alistair Duncan
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