Keeping What Makes Weybridge Special
For more than 60 years the Weybridge Society has campaigned on behalf of Weybridge residents to ensure that the town and surrounding areas remain beautiful and peaceful. We’ve worked hard to preserve the heritage of the town and always make sure that proposed changes try to keep the town’s character for buildings and streets.
We’ve been involved in a variety of projects – from building works to traffic and parking and pedestrian schemes – working both by ourselves and with partners. We’ve instigated and also joined in at the behest of individual residents and smaller associations when the town’s character is threatened and when residents face particular issues as a result of new developments.
See what we’re working on now and the major developments that we’re tracking at the moment, as well as other important local issues, in Current Activities.
Planning Activities
Our active and well-respected Planning Panel produces detailed comments and lobbies actively in support of or against planning applications in Weybridge. We make representations to the planning departments and officers at Elmbridge Borough Council and Surrey County Council and meet and work with them on planning issues.
Our activities have included many controversial and large plans, including these key areas:
- Brooklands redevelopment
- Mercedes Benz World
- Weybridge Monument Green
- Morrisons development – our campaign helped improve design features and minimise traffic impact
- Honda garage development, Queens Road
- Clive House, Queens Road
- The Grotto, Monument Hill
- Locke King House, Balfour Road
We’re continually involved in numerous smaller but still significant developments which include alterations and new building works for care homes, schools, flats and gated estates.
Major Achievements
Working for more than six decades means we’ve got a long list of projects where we’ve had a major impact. In addition to the developments named above, our other achievements show the broad scale of our engagement with the area:
- Established a conservation area along the length of the River Wey Navigation from the old bridge to town lock and supported the other conservation areas in Weybridge
- Preserved the Victorian lamp posts in central Weybridge, which date from 1895. Did you know Weybridge was the first town in England to be lit wholly by electricity?
- Achieved Grade ll listing for the bridge at the foot of Beale’s Lane
- Through Grade II listing, saved the historic Churchfields Institute from developers — it became an adult education centre and is now a day nursery
- Grade ll listing for the gates to Churchfields Recreation Ground
- Campaigned successfully for the refurbishment of the Old Wey Bridge
- Campaigned for CCTV in the town and for hanging baskets and Christmas lights
- Campaigned to retain the central area at Brooklands as green belt – resulting in the very popular Brooklands Community Park
- Campaigned to keep the centre of Whittets Ait development as a green space, open to the public
- Campaigned to retain part of the old Wallop School playing fields as open space (Strategic Open Urban Land — SOUL) which is now Churchfields wild flower meadow — dog free
- Annual support for the town Christmas lights
Transport
Traffic and parking affect us all, from the morning and evening commute to school runs and running errands by car, so we’re always looking for people to join our Transport Panel to see how we can make a difference in the way people get around town. Our activities on these issues have been extremely varied and we’ve achieved a lot:
- Weybridge parking review – a massive study in 2017/2018 of the way business employees and residents use local roads. We worked with Surrey County Council to see how we can improve parking in two key areas of town: Queens Road and High Street – see the detailed report and an update
- Heathside School — we helped come up with a travel plan
- HGV campaign – we worked to stop HGVs coming through Weybridge from the Brooklands industrial area.
- Footpath to Brooklands – campaigned with others to have the footpath link under the Seven Arches railway bridge
- Transport strategy for Weybridge covering roads, footpaths, buses and the station area – see the policy papers and options
- Baker Street junction with Monument Hill – we campaigned to make the junction safer for pedestrians crossing Baker Street by having the road made narrower.
Conservation
At the Weybridge Society, conservation efforts focus on maintenance and renovation of monuments, improvements to ageing facilities and keeping an eye open to developments which might forever destroy our historic heritage. Some of our work in this area includes these projects:
- Weybridge Hall – we supported the work to improve facilities and usage of the Hall and are now tracking latest developments on the re-development of the building into a theatre
- Jubilee Town Clock on Weybridge Hall – support for maintenance
- Yool Memorial, cricket common – initiated calls for its renovation
- Campaigned and achieved ‘Common’ status for the Heath, Monument Green, the Quadrant area and the cricket green
