We are now at the really exciting phase of the Village Hall redevelopment project as Mole Valley have published our planning application.  From a village community perspective, this is by far the most significant proposed improvement in the facilities which Westcott has to offer its residents since generous donations by Victorian-era, etc residents provided the Reading Room, the Hut, Holy Trinity Church and St. Johns for us.

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What is different this time, is that we have to pay and work for what the surveys the trustees have carried out have told them that the village would like for its current residents and future generations.

Since the merger of the Hut and Reading Room Charities, your trustees have given many hundreds of hours of their time and spent a significant proportion of their resources on preparing the planning permission which has now gone live. The trustees had no real choice; the inescapable need to clear and to make safe the derelict Hut site would have cost almost as much as a planning application and the Reading Room is beyond economic repair. Committing to the planning application was therefore the only option with the prospect of providing current and future residents of Westcott with a focal community facility open to all, young and old. We know from elsewhere that a vibrant village hall can be the beating heart of a thriving village. That is what Westcott deserves, and you can now help make that happen by supporting the planning application.

Commenting on the planning application is very straightforward and needs no more than a click on the ‘Please, click here to comment on the application’ button in the top left-hand corner of the application, MO/2024/1464, which can be found here

https://planning.agileapplications.co.uk/mole/application-details/126528

Click here for instructions on how to add your letter of support for the development project

There are 52 documents which the trustees had to submit and 25 applicable policies and constraints which needed to be observed. Unless you wish to, there is no need to read everything!  Documents which are likely to be of greatest interest to residents are headed:-

·        PA04 Design Statement, (in four parts) which sets out the drawings and plans for the proposed new village hall and houses; and

·        SUSR Sustainability Report, which shows how the new buildings are designed to meet modern sustainability and environmental targets.

A lot of what is included in the planning application may already be familiar to you if you have been to the various ‘live’ consultation/presentation events which have taken place in recent months. The plans are now on the notice board at The Village Hall and can also be viewed at WESTfestivity which is at the Village Hall and at the Church on Saturday, 16 November.

Positive comments from residents focused on the following themes will greatly assist us in securing consent:-

·        Locating the new community building on Institute Road

·        Express your enthusiasm for the new community building and desire to use it

·        The demolition of the now derelict Hut is welcome and you see no need to replace with another community building at that location

·        The addition of 9 smaller houses each with two car spaces being located on the Hut site

·        On-street parking in Furlong Road being set back to enable better two-way traffic flow whilst also providing a proper footpath

·        The process followed by the trustees and the ability to participate in consultation with the residents

We will bring the interior design and layout of the hall back to the village and to our users for comment and input before we finalise the details for funding and building it. We will continue to update when we have further news, but if there is anything you wish to ask us in the interim you can contact us at info@westcottvillagehall.com

Westcott Village Hall Trustees -Sally Hewetson, Helen Everett, Andy Gray, Debbie Lewis, Tony Winch, Andy Taylor and Jim Brodrick