Cobham Heritage - Conservation

Conservation

Elmbridge is lucky to have twenty four Conservation Areas of which four are in Cobham. Each of these areas afford local residents and the wider community increased protection from the planning agenda and help ensure that we retain and enhance those local areas which are in some way “special”. This designation places a statutory duty of care upon Elmbridge who need to ensure that their character and appearance are protected and that future development makes a positive contribution. Equally, there is a responsibility placed upon residents in such areas to ensure the same.

The protection, enhancement and development of Conservation Areas is at the heart of the agenda and rationale of the CCHT. To date our work in the Conservation Areas has focused around ensuring we keep abreast of change in the Conservation Areas but we want to increase our focus on the Conservation Areas – we want to find ways of ensuring we both retain them and enhance them and use them to best effect within the local community. However, to do this we will need your help.

Role of the CCHT

The Cobham Conservation and Heritage Trust (CCHT) has no formal legal status as regards both the planning and conservation agenda. We are a voluntary body whose role is to influence decision makers as regards decisions that we feel best serve the interest of the local community in a sustainable manner.

CCHT is governed through the CCHT committee which meets broadly monthly, the membership of which is ratified annually through the annual general meeting of the CCHT membership. Detailed work is carried out through a sub committee and regular reports are made to the main committee for ratification of straightforward decisions and consideration of complex or high profile decisions.

Conservation

In relation to conservation the mandate of CCHT is to:

Inform and educate the broader Cobham community regarding all conservation matters.

To protect the interests of Cobham’s conservation interests and seek to enhance and develop these areas as appropriate.

To work with broader conservation groups outside Cobham and to bring best practice back to the management of Cobham’s conservation.

Work with the bodies that have a statutory duty to maintain and protect the Conservation Areas and ensure they fulfill their responsibilities.

To supplement these statutory duties where they fall short of the standards that CCHT would wish to see in place.

In general terms CCHT will look to use volunteer resources to fulfill these responsibilities along with whatever additional resources can be obtained through statutory responsibilities or of other volunteer resources from other interested bodies.

From time to time, external professional help may be sought as specifically approved by the CCHT committee. We will work with other external bodies including those responsible for development and planning applications to attempt to proactively ensure that applications respect the principles of the CCHT. We will also work with other interest groups to publicise the interests of CCHT planning and conservation including the press.

What Next

Conservation Areas don’t remain static and are forever changing. Indeed as part of the work of CCHT we are working on a number of potential changes to the existing areas as well as thinking of areas that are not yet designated as Conservation Areas – the most important of these being Street Cobham, which remains historically very important but whose appearance has unfortunately been somewhat ruined by developments in that area. Such changes, however, need to be put in place by Elmbridge and have to be balanced against the breadth of other activities which local authorities need to be involved in today and which demand further budgets to support.

Elmbridge have, during 2005 and the early part of 2006, undertaken an initiative called CHIPs (Community Heritage Initiative Programme) . This has laid the framework for enhanced management of Conservation Areas across the borough. East Molesey and Weybridge were the focus of this initial work but we will continue to work with Elmbridge to ensure that further work include the Conservation Areas of Cobham. This will be one of the areas where we will need your help in future.

Through the work of the CCHT we will also be working to ensure that we continue to improve the Conservation Areas in Cobham and to seek to expand the benefit we derive from our Conservation Areas. To this end we will be seeking volunteers to help with future work groups to pick up litter, clear verges and so on, as well as to think through how we can better use these important amenities.

The ancient Pond at Downside is being reinstated. In January 2007 an ancient pond on Downside Common began to re-emerge from the dense thicket that had surrounded it for decades. Members of the Downside and Cobham communities, - fathers, mothers and children, - all turned up to fell, cut up and burn, overgrown thicket, to bring this historic site to life again. Under the enthusiastic guidance of Dave Page, the Elmbridge Countryside Estates Officer, volunteers did a magnificent job of clearing the site, many using the saws, cutters and even working gloves that Dave provided, and two large bonfires consumed all the cuttings.

It is hoped that work on the pond will be completed in early summer 2007.