Our aims
- ✓Protect and enhance the character and amenities of the town and surrounding area
- ✓Help preserve the best of Chertsey’s historic buildings
- ✓Encourage good design and environmental awareness
- ✓Make representations to give the Society’s views on proposed developments, structure plans and environmental legislation
Our founding objects, October 1960
At its first meeting the new Society resolved to encourage preservation, development and improvement of a kind that keeps Chertsey a pleasant place in which to live and work; to stimulate public appreciation of the beauty, history and character of the neighbourhood; to promote the study of civic design; and to pursue these ends through meetings, lectures, study groups, exhibitions and publications. It was agreed from the outset that the Society would be non-profit making, with no political or religious activities. Those objects still guide us today.
Some of our success stories
- Initiated the Chertsey conservation area and produced guidelines for its protection with Runnymede Borough Council
- Encouraged the Council to set up Chertsey Museum
- Helped restore and preserve the remaining Abbey walls and create the Freda Atkins Memorial Garden
- Resisted demolition of historic buildings including Wheeler’s Green, Cowley Almshouses, the Lock Keeper’s Cottage and Chertsey Courthouse
- Restored the Office of Town Crier with ongoing sponsorship
- Resisted gravel raising and erosion of the local Green Belt
- Co-ordinated Christmas lights for Chertsey town centre
- Pressed the relevant authorities to act on local flooding issues
Watching, representing, celebrating
The committee meets each month and maintains continuous representation to the Borough and County Councils, Government departments and MPs on topics affecting the town. We liaise with other groups about planning applications, gravel raising proposals and structure plans, and we are affiliated to national and local groups who share our aims, such as The Georgian Group and CPRE.
Planning is at the heart of our work. In recent years the Chertsey area has seen applications for well over a thousand new dwellings, including hundreds of flats created from converted offices in the town centre. The Society has long supported bringing disused offices back into use, but we object where cramped layouts, the absence of community space or minimal parking provision would harm the quality of life of new and existing residents, and we press for investment in school places, health provision, drainage and roads to keep pace with development.
During the winter we hold monthly meetings with interesting speakers, organise the annual Town Forum and visit Chertsey Museum. We take display stands to the Black Cherry Fair, Chertsey Agricultural Show and similar events, and we are custodians of our own historic archive including the Tom Banner Collection of photographs.
Members are kept up to date through three illustrated newsletters a year. Please join us to help us continue our work for the community.