COMMUNITY PLANNING DAY

The long awaited Community Planning Day took place in the Junior Hall at Parsons Mead on Saturday 3rd November.  Over 180 local residents, ex parents, ex pupils and ex staff along with representatives of the Ashtead Residents Association and many local Councillors took part along with members of John Thompson and Partners the architects and Oracle Homes the developers.  No plans were presented since part of the process of developing any plan is the community consultation process that took place on this day.  Everyone had a chance to air their concerns about the site and also to give their vision for the future of the site.  A group of young people had a separate planning workshop at which they expressed their own ideas for the site.  After the morning session where concerns and aspirations were expressed there was a brief break for lunch followed by a number of concurrent planning workshops covering areas such as a Community Audit (the community facilities previously provided by the school and the current and future requirements of the village), a Green Session (landscaping, drainage, tree protection, carbon footprint), a Transport Session (concentrated mainly on traffic congestion in Ottways Lane and the surrounding area), a site Development Session (aimed at identifying what buildings might be kept and the possible layout for the site) and a Neighbours Session (the sites immediate neighbours had their chance to air their concerns and expectations).  The architects and developers are looking at providing community open space and facilities at the site, this includes keeping a space equivalents to the sports fields on the site.  There was a ground swell of opinion in favour of trying to retain the Sports Hall and Junior School Building (although probably as a medical facility rather than an educational one).  There was also talk of trying to reopen some facilities in advance of any building work to provide a home for some of the organisations that were forced to close following the closure of the school.    The afternoon session over ran considerably but there were still alot of people there at the end of the process.  A significant number of people decided to stay all day.

COMMUNITY PLANNING DAY
REPORT BACK 14th NOVEMBER 7:00pm PM JUNIOR HALL

Following the Community Planning Day the JTP team will analyse the

results and develop a Vision, including an indicative masterplan for

the site, which will be presented to the community at 7.00pm on 14

November at the Junior School Hall.