Letter: Has the Sinner At Last Repented?

Published on: 21 Sep, 2024
Updated on: 21 Sep, 2024

Ash Manor

From John Ferns

In response to: Surrey Highways Deserve Praise for This One

“One swallow does not make a summer, nor one fine day.”

Anyone familiar with Surrey Highways’ responses to development proposals in recent years will surely agree.

Their assessments—often relying on outdated and uncorrelated traffic data—have consistently contradicted the lived experience of residents, particularly in the narrow country lanes around the Ash Road Bridge project. Like the man from Del Monte, they always seemed to say “yes”.

But could there finally be a glimmer of hope?

In a recent re-application for the historical Ash Manor site, following three failed appeals and an overturn by Judicial Review, Surrey Highways, for the first time, critically withheld its endorsement of the new proposal.

Has the sinner at last repented?