Much has been done to finalise key reports commissioned by our consultants on the project and we have recently circulated the conservation area survey results for both the Aviary Road area and the Pyrford Village area around St Nicholas’ Church. Work has therefore started on preparing the final Conservation Area Assessments for these two areas.
HCA Progress
HCA Update – February 2025
Project work broke off temporarily to prepare a response to the Woking Borough Council Draft Local Heritage Listing Consultation, held before Christmas. We had quite a number of points to make about the list and are monitoring it’s progress through the council. Watch this space for how things go!
The Heritage Project is now close to the final reporting stage and the project team are finalising a number of reports that represent the evidence base for moving forward. We are also now working on our assessments of the existing Aviary Road conservation area and the Pyrford Village conservation area around St Nicholas Church. Once these are finalised they will be published on the website.
With regard to conservation areas we have decided to present a case for a new conservation area around The Old House and Lees Farm. We believe we should include an extended setting that includes the water meadows down to the canal as well as the adjacent ancient woodland we know as Peatmoor Wood.
HCA Update – May 2024
Our work at present is focused on assessing our two conservation areas: The Aviary Road Conservation Area and Pyrford Village Conservation Area. We can find no record of when this was last done and so guidance to planners to protect our heritage is potentially way out of date. The Heritage Project aims to rectify this situation as one of its deliverables.
The conservation area assessment (CAA) for Aviary Road was reported as complete last month and the results are currently being consolidated and put into a useful form for further reporting purposes.
This past month we have been setting up the Pyrford Village CAA. Most of us probably know this as St Nicholas Church CAA. The date for the assessment is set for 21 June and community help is currently being organised. If you’d like to be involved, you’d be most welcome just get back to us by email at info@pyrfordforum.org. No special skills are required just a genuine interest in the community and our heritage.
Conservation Area Assessment
A red-letter day finally arrived for the Forum heritage team last Friday 5 April. The Heritage Team joined forces with some like minded residents and a
representative from Woking Borough Council to conduct an assessment of the Aviary Road Conservation Area and spent a very interesting couple of hours touring this interesting area of Edwardian development.
Built over the period 1905 to 1912, give or take, the area is a fine great example of early development on the southern edge of Pyrford overlooking the open farmland on the nose of Pyrford Escarpment. The purpose of the assessment is to ratify the importance of the area to our heritage and recommend guidance to planners moving forward to ensure the area can continue to be enjoyed by us all. The results of this work will appear on our website at www.pyrfordforum.org in due course.
A similar assessment will be planned shortly for the Pyrford Village Conservation Area around St Nicholas Church so watch this space for further news of that and please contact us at info@pyrfordforum.org if you would like to help.
HCA Update – April 2024
The news this month is that we completed an assessment of the Aviary Road Conservation Area. A useful result of this work was that the question was asked why was it being done and what did we hope to achieve?
The answer to the first question is that, for good reasons, places change over time and maybe the heritage importance of an area changes accordingly.
The Aviary Road area was created as a conservation area in 1992 and should be reassessed from time to time as part of Woking Borough Council stewardship responsibilities for the designated area. No record of any subsequent assessments are available and yet an accurate and up to date view of local heritage is a mandatory consideration in planning development processes. So if we are to defend development adjacent to the area we should have a current and accurate assessment of our heritage in the area.
With regard to what we will achieve: the assessment will result in an up to date character appraisal of the area and supplementary design guidance to planners considering development applications within or adjacent to the area with regard to form and materials and setting.