You Said, We Did

You said, so we did...

What engagement have you done to date?  

2024

Surrey County Council's Placemaking team will be re-engaging with the community at Cranleigh Village Hall on:

• Monday 2 December, 4.30pm - 8pm
• Wednesday 4 December, 11.30am - 3pm

The designs will also be on display in Cranleigh Library from Thursday 5th December to Friday 13th December. 

Letters were sent to residents in Cranleigh and social media posts are active, advertising the events. A news post was also sent to all email addresses subscribed to this website.

2023

In November 2023, Surrey County Council's Placemaking team held two public engagement sessions to display the new designs. These engagement sessions were held at Cranleigh Arts on:

• Wednesday 8th November – 3pm - 8pm  
• Thursday 9th November – 3pm – 8pm

The displays were also available at the public library during open hours for a week following the event. 

In October 2023, a social media campaign was started to advertise the next part of the engagement process. From 31 Oct to 8 November, 3,458 accounts were reached. Our website was also updated, and an email was sent to all the people who had registered an email address with our website. Posters were also distributed along the High Street with the dates for the public engagement events.  

In May 2023, Surrey County Council's Placemaking team and Surrey County Council's Community Link Officer visited each of the retailers along the High Street and asked them their loading and delivery requirements. The businesses were also asked to share their email addresses if they wished to be kept informed of updates to the High Street scheme. The loading information was recorded and will be used during the detailed design to decide the most appropriate locations for loading bays and parking spaces. 

Surrey County Council's Placemaking team emailed all the businesses that had provided their email addresses, with an opportunity for a morning’s meeting (as the November 2023 events had covered the afternoon and evening). The meeting was to share the designs listen to their feedback. Sadly no one attended this meeting. Due to that, the project manager and her team visited Cranleigh High Street again and undertook further face to face engagement with independent businesses – such as the bakery, butcher and newsagents. 

The parish council were continually involved in the plans for the High Street. The minutes from the Working group meeting in September along with copies of the plans allowed the Parish in September 2023, to record formally in their minutes that they agreed to certain aspect of the designs. They also mentioned the planned engagement events in November in their minutes of their September meeting, as well as providing a link to this Cranleigh commonplace website. 

2022

In November 2022, Surrey County Council's Placemaking team carried out three public face to face engagement sessions to capture local residents comments and suggestions. The dates were:
 

• 1 November 11:00 – 16:00
• 3 November 15:00 – 18:45
• 5 November 10:00-12.30

Surrey County Council undertook a series of social media posts, advertising the 2022 public consultation, which received 4752 views. These posts were targeted to those within Cranleigh. Posters were also distributed along the High Street with the dates for the public engagement events. 

Autumn 2022 consultation summary

We want to thank all the residents who took the time to provide feedback to us, both in the initial research and in the subsequent consultation in Autumn 2022. The website gathered 868 responses from 472 people over the course of the consultation. In addition, 17 emails and 4 letters were received and have been included in the analysis.  

Analysis of the responses showed that overall:

• Respondents were largely negative in their response to the Post Office proposal. Around 70% of respondents were unhappy or very unhappy with this proposal.
• Respondents were divided on the Fountain Square proposal, with 41% happy or very happy compared to 42% who were unhappy or very unhappy. The main positives that people commented on were the reduced traffic, making it safer for pedestrians and making Cranleigh a more attractive place to visit.  
• Most comments on removing the bus stop laybys were negative
• The people who responded negatively about the Fountain Square proposal were more likely to think that the changes would worsen traffic conditions, make it harder to unload vehicles and would have a negative impact on the shops.  
• The comments in support of the Fountain Square proposal focused on the plentiful parking in the car parks, considered that the High Street would be improved without the parked cars and that widening the pavements would be better for people with buggies or wheelchairs and would improve the village and encourage people to spend more time there.  

We have been taking the time to review all the comments in detail and have continued to work with the High Street working party, comprised of a range of local stakeholders. Based on the feedback and residents’ requests to improve the village, we have updated the plans and will present these to residents at a public engagement event on Wednesday 8th November and Thursday 9th November 2023 at Cranleigh Arts (15:00 - 20:00).