Welcome to the website for
Friends of St Johns Conservation Area
The Friends of St Johns Conservation Area was founded by local residents of St Johns, Redhill, Surrey for two main reasons:
- To highlight what we perceive as the injustice of the recent planning approval for the new church hall at St Johns Church, to be built in the graveyard
- To start a grass roots movement to overturn the planning approval.
We hope that you will join our cause.
Most of the residents that live in the area understand and respect the fact that living in a Green Belt and Conservation Area brings restrictions and regulations, that we abide by, in order to preserve the historical features and natural beauty of the area in which we live. We sometimes get frustrated that due to these restrictions we cannot improve our homes as we would like, therefore we find it astonishing that the council have approved a new, and in our view, unnecessary building in the conservation area. This proposed new building will be situated in the graveyard of St Johns Church, will cause graves to be disturbed and bodies to be exhumed, will cause the removal of trees, and the local residents who live in the St Johns Conservation Area were not consulted!
Over 30 written objections were sent to the council prior to the planning meeting. This entitled us to have a representative at the planning committee to voice our concerns. This representative was allowed three minutes to put our point across.
The planning committee of 18 voted, one abstention, as the councillor concerned did not understand the basis of the application (neither did we). One of our local councillors voiced objections and he noted that the he had NEVER received so many objections to a single planning application, even the recent phone mast application did not attract as many objections. Despite this, and the fact that invitations were supposed to have been sent to all the residents living within the conservation area to attend a consultation meeting prior to the planning meeting (invitations that never got sent out) the councillors approved the application, with very little discussion and some hilarity, inappropriate behaviour to say the least. One member remarked that The Plough public house was responsible for the parking problems on a Sunday rather than the church and another stated that we should be more concerned for the living than the dead and that trees grow! For me personally this was an eye-opener as the very least. I had made the assumption that the business of the planning committee would be taken seriously and proper discussion would be held and was bitterly disappointed.
The residents of St Johns Conservation Area love the Church and its surroundings, and many of us look out onto the Church and the graveyard from our homes, and it is very much at the heart of our community. We support the interests of the Church and understand that they wish to build a space to house the Sunday school, but we do not support building in the church yard. The proposed building will have a basement – how will large excavating machinery access the graveyard. What disruption will this building process cause to local residents and to St Johns school and the children who use the area to get to and from school? (Many of the local residents are parents of children who attend St Johns school). If the new community centre is built what will it be used for besides Sunday school? None of these issues have been discussed with the local residents.
The planning committee approved the application due to “very special circumstances” most of which seem contradictory, and we outline these and our objections.
