Ashtead residents annoyed by building projects (From Your Local Guardian)

Ashtead residents annoyed by building projects

9:10am Friday 12th December 2008 in

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Stunned residents could not believe their luck after a bid to demolish a £1.3m Edwardian home was granted in the same week that an eight-metre silo sprang up on their street.

Thirteen residents had objected to plans to tear down the centenarian home on leafy Oakfield Rd in Ashstead, but Mole Valley District Council disagreed and approved the bid on Friday.

Further down the same street, a resident arriving home last Tuesday found an enormous mortar silo had shot up on the property next door.

The silo will only be in place for six months while developers work on the home, but Mrs Penelope Becker said she was shocked to find it towering over her front garden.

She said: “It’s the most awful thing to put up in front of your house before Christmas.’’ But developer Peter Sheldon said it could not be put “anywhere else’’.

He said: “You can’t have in the middle of the property, it has to be at the front. We asked the council beforehand what to do and they told us to put it there.”

Meanwhile, Helen Hiorns, 46, a resident of the road, said the street’s personality would suffer as a result of the demolition of the Edwardian home.

She said: “We’re losing the character of our village at such a rapid pace. I don’t see how it could be forward-thinking to knock down a perfectly good house that is 100 years old.”

But owner Paul Slater, of Ashtead, said the property was in a poor state.

He said: “Nothing had been done to this house since the 1950s. We looked at doing renovation works but it just wasn’t cost-effective.”

A council spokeswoman said: “The existing property at 43 Oakfield Road, Ashtead, is not a listed building.It was considered that the proposed new property was in keeping with the surrounding area.”

“Mole Valley District Council planning service has also granted permission for the temporary storage of a concrete mortar silo at eight Oakfield Road, Ashtead. Once the equipment is no longer needed it must be removed."