Bagshot Society

The Bagshot Society monitors planning and development applications to try and protect Bagshot's best interests.  Here's the most recent Planning and Development Report:

As ever there are regular applications for house extensions in Bagshot. Again only a few larger applications have come up. Building and road works continue at Notcutts.  It seems a miracle that accidents have not happened on the A30, but won’t it be great when a pleasant tidy estate and small park rise up from the chaos.  We must aim to attract the occupants into Bagshot village centre to use the facilities and to shop, rather than go further afield. In the High Street there are still empty premises, but encouragingly more businesses are moving into the village.

Applications of interest:

10/0291 - Longacres won permission to replace current buildings with a new glass house on a modified and less massive plan. An application to sell a wide range of food has still not been determined – this we objected to because it is outside the normal class of uses for a garden centre and because of the likely detriment to shops in Bagshot. Customers from further afield who want to shop for food now have no reason to pop into Bagshot to visit the supermarket or other businesses, and thus a potential source of footfall is lost to the village centre, which badly needs more people on the ground.

10/0606 - An application to convert Pinewood on College Ride into a 69 bed care home has been granted. Some residents of College Ride objected due to the increase in traffic which is already a problem on the narrow carriageway, residents of Pinewood Gardens wrote in support mainly on the grounds that the lovely building has become increasingly derelict and the application seemed about the most realistic use that could be achieved.

11/0444 – Wine Merchants, High Street The council has retrospectively given permission to pull down the unsafe building. A planning application for replacing this listed building is awaited.

10/1000 - The Dance Depot having sadly closed down, permission has been granted for change of use for general office use. A new coffee bar called Shotz has opened there.

10/0954, 0955 - Streeters’ Warehouse A request to have the old warehouse and cool-store, beside the King’s Arms, converted to 3 two-bed dwellings. It was the old Victorian slaughterhouse, largely concealed by tatty modern outbuildings and the archaeology society doubts its value. The building has deteriorated with large cracks in the walls and has not found any use in its present form (There is an extensive report from Surrey County Archaeological Unit on the Planning pages of the website which is well worth reading and has interesting maps). If the development went ahead a trial trench would be needed and a full record made of the interesting remains beneath of ancient buildings and artefacts. The new housing would aim to use similar materials, presumably red brick. Car parking is not provided and vehicle access is unclear. If the intention is to have the main entrance in between the vacant Bagshot Travel and the drycleaners, residents might be tempted to try to get cars in and out of the narrow alley, with attendant risks to pedestrians and passing traffic.

Fast Food Outlets – Surrey Heath rejected two applications for fast food outlets on the grounds that they would detract from the character and use of the village.

Margaret Williams, Bagshot Society