Surrey Heath Residents Community Web Blog

I thought I would kick-start the debate about the future re-development of Deepcut.

As a long-standing resident of Dettingen Park and Chairman of the Dettingen Residents Committee, I consider myself quite knowledgeable about some of the issues that arose after the completion of the Development. I am

Before Dettingen Park. This is the former Alma Dettingen Barracks.

writing this post from the Dettingen resident perspective but fully understand that there are other perspectives and hope some of our other contributors will write from their perspective. Furthermore I would like to invite Dettingen Residents to comment of their own experiences.

Firstly I should point out that Dettingen Park is a wonderful place to live and I can honestly say my family and I are very happy here. It’s a safe environment for our daughter to grow up, there is superb community spirit, some of the best schools, hospitals and other public services in the UK. It most certainly is not all bad.

There were some errors though with regards to the planning of Dettingen Park. The worrying thing is that a number of these errors were at the hands of SHBC’s planning department. This is the same department trying to “consult” with us.

At the many Deepcut Stake Holder meetings I have attended, I have regularly spoke about SHBC’s failure to enforce the section 106 agreement for Dettingen Park. This has resulted in a 7 year delay in the completion of the cycle/footway that now links Dettingen Park with the Heatherside. Following the tragic fatality in February 2009 that occurred on Deepcut Bridge Road I wrote to SHBC and several councilors to express my dismay that the link had not even started. I sincerely hope that it did not take a fatality for SHBC/SCC to get the link up started. But the skeptic in me………

SHBC appear to be engaging local residents with regards to the future re-development of Deepcut but the aforementioned skeptic in me can’t help think out loud and say “Going through the motions excersise”. I sincerely hope I am proved wrong.

With Dettingen Park there were a few errors.

In my capacity as Chairman of the residents committee there are two major issues that to this date I have been unable to resolve:

Parking

I don’t know the full details of the history of the planning process of Dettingen Park. However, from what I can gather SHBC were somehow pressured by the government to keep parking space numbers down on any new development at the time. As Camberley has more cars per household than any other place in the UK then this was extremely short-sighted.

Estate Management

It was a cost cutting measure. SHBC/SCC had and probably still do have the policy that roads created in a new development and of a certain size will not be adopted. This policy has been the cause of much anguish and unhappiness for many Dettingen Residents.

Dettingen Park from the Air

Peverel OM are the managing agents, installed by the Developer (Barratt Southern Counties) to manage the development.

There have been long running disputes between individual residents and Peverel which was the motivation for the formation of the Dettingen Residents Committee as residents wanted to remove Peverel as far back as 2004.

It was decided that the committee would engage Peverel to work with them and get them to perform. After much effort to work with Peverel who were unable to consistently deliver a satisfactory service level, members unanimously voted to remove them and replace with a more effective managing agent.

This has been an incredibly difficult task. It transpires that Peverel was a Barratt company (before it was sold off) and as such the lease transfer makes it very difficult for the managing agent to be removed. Firstly at least 51% of residents must vote to remove them. When many of the property owners bought to let, getting their details is very difficult. However, a small team of residents went door to door to get signatures and a solicitor was employed to act on their behalf.

The current position is that Peverel are holding on for dear life by using technical legalities, just being plain obstructive and basically uncooperative. However, after a 3 year battle their removal is imminent.

Peverel seem to have a track record for poor service levels as this web site suggests: http://www.spanglefish.com/peverelaction/

Other poor enforcement by SHBC of the 106 has allowed Barratts to get away providing good quality amenities in the area. As it so happens this has worked in the favor of Dettingen Residents (in one instance) as one of the things that was part of the 106 was the installation of 2 junior football pitches on Dettingen Park of which there is a major shortage of in the borough. In fact the Deepcut Village Community Centre was designed around this and as a result the showers and changing rooms in the centre are redundant and used for storage. While the residents of Dettingen Park do not want the pitches, the simple fact is that had SHBC enforced the 106 then Barratts would have had to get the recreation space at Dettingen Park up to a standard for playing football on. As I am sure Tony Hutt (from Mytchett Athletic Football Club) will confirm, it is no where near that standard. Again Barratts get away with blue murder.

There are other parts of the Section 106 that have not been enforced like the Red Road roundabout redesign and rebuild.

During one of the Deepcut Stake Holder meetings with SHBC I made it clear that any open amenity space should be managed and maintained by the council. This will ensure its ongoing quality and that all Surrey Heath Residents pay for its upkeep and not just the ones that live on the new development.

I guess it will be some time before we know if the “consultation” process is a “going through the motions” process or not.  Hopefully this site will help to serve as a record of the process from the residents perspective and not that of someone from within Knoll Road.