Responses required by Monday 4th September !
Aerial View 1947
Proposed Route (dotted line)
Surrey County Council has received an application from Ashtead Football Club to change the route of Public Footpath 42 which currently runs diagonally across the Recreation Ground to the paved path which follows the northern and eastern boundaries. Notices of the application are fixed to posts at several points along the route (see here).
The maintenance of the diagonal route was a condition when the site was transferred from Mr Chitty’s estate to Ashtead Parish Council in 1931. The current boundary paved path was installed sometime after the Ashtead Cricket Club moved to its present site on Woodfield Lane and the original route is shown in the aerial photograph from 1947.
The new route would mean that the public would no longer be able to take the shortest route across the Recreation Ground when heading for The Street; the new route would be 33 metres longer. In addition, the proposal indicates that the paved path, which currently varies in width but is mainly 1.2 to 1.4 m wide to a minimum of 2 m wide. The increase in width would mean the loss of a further area of grass (and so its carbon-fixing role), to that which would arise from the proposed new all-weather pitch should that go ahead.
Surrey County Council objected when the proposal for the new pitch came to the Mole Valley District Council’s (MVDC) Development Control Committee in 2021 on the “grounds that fencing around the most easterly pitch will obstruct the legally recorded line of the public highway.” However, as the proposal relates to development, it is MVDC that will have the final say.
Responses, either for or against, should be sent to: Andrew Whiddett (Countryside Access Team, Surrey County Council, Whitebeam Lodge, Merrow Depot, Merrow Lane, Guildford GU4 7BQ): tel. 020 8541 7081; e-mail andrew.whiddett@surreycc.gov.uk
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