RESIDENTS’ fierce objections were cited as a key driver in Waverley Borough Council’s decision to remove Red Court in Scotland Lane as a key housing site in its emerging Local Plan Part Two last month.

But it could be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire – with residents in Hindhead now mobilising against its replacement housing site at The Royal Junior School.

Waverley has earmarked the 23-acre school site off Portsmouth Road in Hindhead to take up to 90 new homes once The Royal School relocates its nursery and prep school provision to its present site in Farnham Lane, Haslemere.

But this has left neighbours of the Hindhead site furious at the perceived lack of prior consultation with residents – as well as Waverley’s decision to trade one sensitive site in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and an Area of Great Landscape Value at Red Court with another in Hindhead.

David Fowler, chairman of the Hazel Grove Residents’ Association, said he was already speaking to other residents’ associations about The Royal School plans. Letters had gone out to residents, and a Facebook page had been launched.

This echoes the hard-fought campaign against the Red Court plans led by the South Haslemere Residents’ Association, formed in 2018 specifically to fight the proposed development of meadows and woodland behind Scotland Lane.

It comes with Waverley under intense pressure to find more housing sites after falling behind on its government target to deliver 590 homes a year.