Letter: Planned Property Development at Effingham Will Cause Problems

Published on: 11 Aug, 2018
Updated on: 11 Aug, 2018

From JS Palmer

In response to: Council Leaders Spread the Word to Guildford’s Farthest Ward

The question of infrastructure has long been at the heart of the Berkeley Homes / Howard Partnership’s 300 home development.

It’s been repeatedly pointed out that there is no parking capacity at either Effingham Junction or Bookham stations, and just as repeatedly this has been ignored by SCC, by the government, by the appellants and by the planning inspector.

Cllr Spooner and Cllr Furniss shone some light on this; the approach taken by GBC in drawing up the local plan was that – I think – large-scale housing developments included in the Local Plan will attract infrastructure money from government. But large-scale developments which are not included in the Local Plan do not.

Hence there is no interest or willpower or leadership from anywhere to find extra parking capacity at Effingham Junction, a station which is at least a mile away from the new development.

As Cllr Furniss implied, Network Rail’s disinterest is symptomatic of the willful ignorance being shown by SCC with regard to what infrastructure improvements are needed in this respect.

That said, it’s difficult to see where extra land could be found to contain the extra 300+ commuter cars wanting to park at either station, other than creating multi-storey car parks. So that’s not going to happen; Network Rail haven’t even exhibited the willingness to help their users by expanding the station approach road to two lanes.

Logically, what will likely happen is that – as far as Effingham Junction is concerned – cars will park on Effingham Common Road, reducing the available width. This increases the danger to all road users.

As a result, at the bare minimum needed is:

dedicated cycle lanes away from the road, using the edge of Effingham Common if necessary, to remove cyclists from a road which is unlit at night;
commuter bus services starting from a dedicated area next to the new school to both Bookham and Effingham Junction stations;
and, if we’re splashing money about, cameras to record illegal lorry movements down Effingham Common Road. They’ve had it coming.

However, I don’t think any of these will come close to offsetting all the cars which will be forced to park along the main roads, because people will need to travel to and from the station outside the commuter bus service’s limited hours.

Unfortunately, this is the predictable result of removing the decision-making on large-scale developments from local planning experts.