News Bulletin – 13th November 2011

THANKS

Firstly, let us send thanks to some people.

• To all those people who took clipboards and pounded the streets, knocking on doors, to collect signatures for our Petition

• To those few people who stood outside Tongham Community Centre on Friday, in the cold wind, to encourage people to sign our Petition and to show “Bewley Homes” and “a2dominion” that we are serious in our fight

• And finally the biggest “Thank You” of all goes to all of you who turned out on the night to show your anger and frustration at what is proposed, and show your support for what we are trying to do. We had some nice comments from people, and they are much appreciated

Newspapers

The next piece of news is that we have made contact with the various local newspapers, and for those of you who buy them, you will have noticed that we made the front page of the Ash & Farnham News & Mail this week.  The newspapers will be used again as our campaign progresses

Consultation Event – 11th November 2011

Well, what an evening. We estimate that well over 1,000 people turned up to see for themselves what Bewley Homes and a2dominion plan to do to our community. As you know we were there to collect more signatures for our Petition, collect e-mail addresses so that we can keep you informed of progress, and collect a small “fighting fund”. The fighting fund will be used purely for small direct expenses we are incurring for things like land searches, setting up our website, notifications etc. For your information we collected £332 on Friday, and this was more than we had hoped for.  Thank you to everyone who donated.

As far as we were concerned, the so called “consultation” was an unqualified success, we’re not sure that Bewley Homes feel the same way. They now realise they are going to have a massive fight on their hands, and we know, from your reactions as you left the event, that you are ready for the fight.

We know that we “got to” the Bewley Homes people because one of the male representatives in the hall, when asked yet another question he didn’t like and couldn’t answer, blurted out “well you shouldn’t have bought a house backing onto open land that had potential for building”. The resident was taken aback, as he has lived in Ash Lodge Drive for over 30 years. The Bewleys man then apologised for his outburst, but these people obviously believe that anyone, anywhere, who has a house backing onto open land should be prepared to have a housing development adjacent to them.

We also overheard two of Bewley Homes representatives discussing that they had never had such a massive response to one of their “consultation events”, nor one so hostile and passionate. WELL DONE EVERYONE.

Website

Finally, if you are reading this you have discovered our new Website. We will be publishing News items on this site, and any other information we think will be of interest.

You will notice that you can contact us by e-mail from this site using e-mail address info@ashra.org.uk. Can we please request that, those of you who have been in contact in the past using Graham’s private e-mail address, now use this new Ash Residents Association address. This address is accessed by three people and you can be assured of a quick response. Obviously if you want to contact Graham privately, you still can on his private address.