The Westerham Society

The main focus of the Society has now become the various proposals and plans re the development of housing in the town. There are a number of overlapping, but not necessarily officially linked, proposals for changes at  Moorhouse, Covers Farm, and to the north of Westerham.  A major part of these has been the submitting of outline approval for the building of houses on land between the north of the town and the M25 and as to whether such development would assist in the building of a relief road between Beggars Lane and Moorhouse. There are many unanswered questions on this proposal not least of which is the required works to be completed on the Covers Farm sandpits. There is no official link between these two proposals but any relief road would run over Covers Farm and, as such, the two are dependant. These plans have initiated considerable opinion in the town and there is a very strong body who are determined to keep Westerham’s Green Belt and are opposed to housing at anywhere near the scale proposed. The majority of residents will have received or seen much of their literature.

Inherently the Society is opposed to any plans that will be to the detriment of the town.

This will be particularly relevant as in September both  Sevenoaks District Council (SDC) and Westerham Town Council (WTC) will be sending all residents a questionnaire . Amongst the questions will be specific ones as to whether Westerham residents are fully in agreement, or disagreement, with the concept that residents see a valid trade off between housing and a relief road. WTC are having a town meeting on the 13th September,  7:30, at Churchill School, to further gauge opinion. SDC are having ‘drop-in’ sessions on 14th September, 14:00-20:00 in the WTC offices.. You are all urged to attend both these meeting prior to replying to the questionnaire.  The Committee will also circulate some suggested questions that remain unanswered within the various proposals.

The Society would like to thank Mr Phil Johnson from the Wolfe Garage for his very considerate and generous offer to provide storage facilities for the Society archives. These had been stored in the Hall but due to space pressure we had been asked to relocate. Such storage is hard to find and so Phil’s generous intervention has been of great relief and benefit.

The Society has now received a Heritage Lottery Grant for our Westerham Heritage Collection initiative. This is a virtual museum  concept and will require the listing and cataloguing of thousands of photographs and documents. A sub Committee has driven this forward but we now need volunteers to move the project forward. Full training will be given and any amount of support will be much appreciated. Should you wish to assist please contact us by using: heritagecollection@westerhamsociety.org.uk

The Society’s AGM was held on Friday 24th March, 2017. Gordon Rodgers confirmed that he will step down as Chairman in March 2018. Any members interested in talking on this role should contact Gordon as soon as possible.

 

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