Need your help, guys.

[marknotgeorge]

I'll put it in a nutshell. The Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association (SAAFA) wishes to use a house in Ashtead, Surrey, house to temporarily house up to six families of service personnel who have suffered horrific injuries in the line of duty, and who are patients at Headley Court, the Defence Medical Rehabilitaion Centre. Their planning application (to comply with change of use regulations and to provice disabled access to the property) has received 100 objections from 'concerned residents', in what looks like a organised act of NIMBYism.

Please visit http://www.36grayslane.co.uk for more details on the need for the vacility, and details of how you can support. These include a 10 Downing St e-petition, which has received over 10,000 singatures.

Thanks.

 

[Bigjoe]

Have just signed,it makes my blood boil that people object to this project but if it was a halfway house for criminals etc it would happen!

Apologies rant over

Bigjoe

 

[weldequip]

WHAT! "100 objections from concerned residents". What kind of people are they?!! Tell you what, they should be sent to the front line without arms & armour!!
Signed up






weldequip

 

[malcolm]

I've signed too. Would be more balanced if all of the objections were available to view on the website, but I suspect we've got the gist of it. The objections just sound completely ridiculous.

 

[marknotgeorge]

The objections are available on the Mole Valley District Council website, as scanned in pdf documents. Here's the link. Beware if you've just eaten: the arrogant self-interest will turn your stomach.

This means a lot to me. My brother's in the Fleet Air Arm, and my sister's husband is a Royal Marine Sargeant. That fine young man went to Kosovo, and was one of the first into Iraq (before the Yanks!). I see pictures of the wounded and think what could have been.

 

[chuk]

just signed it!
This country is all wrong!!!!!!

chuk

 

[mixer10_1]

Just signed up to. Hope it's successfull. Charlie.

 

[TAITSIE]

Just signed petition

Would the local residents prefer to have a german goverment as may have been the case if the armed forces not fought so hard during two wars.

 

[malcolm]

Just read a few of the pdf objections. I think I can can see their point. Looks like it's a very private development for money'd middle classes and those guys seem to think they moved there because the deeds said that only other money'd middle class people could live there. They've even got their own private road.

Problem for them is going to be they know where they are with people like them, but they don't have a great deal of experience with other classes. The poor dears are probably quite scared. My own neighbours are a lot like that. When anything happens at the farm they'll put a chain across their access road. But they are well meaning good folk.

Properties big enough for what the SAAFA need probably don't turn up in areas other than money'd middle class ones. Though planning restrictions do probably vary. Houses are up for sale all the time in all sorts of areas. You wonder if the agro could have been avoided or whether someone has an axe to grind.

Sends it into a planning debate - should those money'd people that we don't like get what they were promised and what they think was written in the deeds? Should the SAAFA try for another big house without these planning restrictions? Or should promises be broken for the greater good?

Prorbably get a bashing for this one - but it's good to see all the points of view. Still signed the petition though

 

[weldequip]

Well in my opinion the money'd folk should bloody well count their blessings that they are able to live in such a nice, peaceful enviroment... largely down to the sacrifices of past & above present men & women. Unbelievable that they may object if you ask me!
weldequip

 

[Davie]

W T F!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG!!

I really cannot beleive some of the objections to this, and I'm gonna apologise for my language already.

Some of these stuck up, well off tw@s should get their head out of their own backsides.

Possible terrorist 'soft target'? Get the f**k out of here you silly self obsessed a**holes!!!

Change the character of the area? For the worse they seem to think? Coz seriously injured service personnel are well known for causing trouble right? Kiss my butt.

Traffic safety issues? Yeah right. I must have missed the bit where it said about moving in boy racers on putting in a McDonalds drive thru.

Seems to me they are more worried about how much their homes sem to be worth.

Ok. Think how much it'd be worth without the brave boys and girls protecting our precious land and freedom of speech.

I'm absolutely apalled, and think we should all go and tear the area up for a bit, give them a taste of the real world the stupid upper middle class w***ers!!!!! Anyone fancy doin some reapair work on somethin very rusty in a driveway!!!!!

Rant over

Dave

PS

Signed, without hesi

 

[Rusty]

Signed.
They could always offer their spare rooms !

 

[Drains]

I am NOT being an apologist for the Nimbys here, but people do have strange ideas of what their home and surroundings should be. For instance, many folk believe the countryside should be a quiet and serene place, containing nothing but swaying corn and grand oak trees. Hence noise complaints from city incomers about sheep, cow and tractor noise. A hundred years ago the countryside was thronged with people, factories, mills, quarries and pits, as well as beasts but was still not urban.

People in cities kept pigs and chickens, but it wasn't the countryside.

Now folk with money get what they want (middle classes make the best use of state schools - not a criticism, a fact), they complain effectively (compare the potholes in m/c neighbourhoods to those on the roads of poor areas).

And as we know, squaddies don't come from Henley or Harrogate. That's where the orficers come from.

So we shouldn't be surprised that people on exclusive housing estates with lots to lose don't want their lifestyles threatened. But we don't have to like it either.

I'm signing.

 

[weldequip]

And as we know, squaddies don't come from Henley or Harrogate. That's where the orficers come from.

Is it really still "Lions lead by Donkies"? Last time I was in Edinburgh taking the old tour around the grounds I came across the life-size statue of Lord Haig on his horse... the very man responsible for "1000 men before breakfast" in the 1st.World War & 'reveared' as a war hero! Took a **** on his horses leg
Pompous incompetent t**t, I doubt he ever even removed his revolver from it's holster, and if he did it was to shoot one of his own men in the back.
weldequip

 

[JimM]

Signed up to.

I live just down the road and although it is pretty narrow country lanes round there, I really don't think an extra 6 or 7 vehicles travelling up the roads can be considered a 'huge increase in traffic'

Slightly surprised that Headley Court doesn't have the space to house the families themselves, they've got a fair old sized plot of land up there.

Good luck to the SSAFA on this one

Jim

 

[Drains]

Haig was very respected after the war. He set up many homes for disabled soldiers and led the "homes fit for heroes" campaign. Guilt may have been involved of course....

I'm not sure Haig was the only guilty party when it came to Idiot Leaders.

I would like to add, before we judge too hastily, we don't know how many of the residents are complaining, only that there were 100 complaints. Nor do we know how many support the centre. The ones who are against it, and who are leading the campaign (the management group) should be sent somewhere dangerous, where the bullets are flying, in order to gain some empathy.

 

[weldequip]

Haig was very respected after the war. He set up many homes for disabled soldiers and led the "homes fit for heroes" campaign. Guilt may have been involved of course....

I'm glad you added the last bit Si... guilt indeed! Perhaps the worst leader the British army has had (and there have been plenty )
from what I have read.
weldequip

 

[Drains]

I still don't quite understand Haigs position after WW1. I know a few, and have done maintenance work in some Earl Haig housing schemes for ex and disabled ex servicemen. I was REALLY surprised to come across these places, with plaques on the walls commemorating him, considering my opinions about Haig (like your own Steve), but I've never studied the man or his leadership, so really don't know what happened there. I shall have to look into it...

 

[Cappy]

Got my signature, no problems.

 

[snowcat]

Signed it too,

I live right next door to MOD foulness which blasts shells all day they make the windows rattle and the buildings shake, however it's happend since the 1940s and most of us who have grown up with it think theres something missing when the bangs are not happening and truth known I no longer hear them, yet city dwellers move in and complain, The same with the airport, The local PC which is mostly school teachers and like, has tried recently to get tractors and horses stoped from going through the village its just not on for a rural area, grrrr